Cops had several plans in place to stop James Gargasoulas before his murderous rampage
A policeman returned to the office to do paperwork after the critical response team knocked back his call for help in capturing murderer James Gargasoulas shortly before his killing spree on Bourke Street.
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A senior policeman believed “several plans” were in place to arrest the Bourke Street driver hours before his murderous rampage, even though police units failed to go to the location where his phone was pinging.
An inquest into the January 20, 2017, tragedy has heard that after stabbing his brother hours before mowing pedestrians down in the CBD, James Gargasoulas’ phone pinged in three locations in the early hours.
After the first ping in a St Kilda street, former police Sergeant Frank Caridi sought the help of the critical incident response team to attend and box him in, so he could be arrested, but was refused.
Sergeant Caridi, who was in charge of the overall response, then returned to the office to do paperwork as Gargasoulas remained at large.
Sergeant Caridi’s superior, Acting Inspector Adrian Filzek, said on Monday he had confidence Sergeant Caridi was co-ordinating local police units to find the offender. “There’s no reason to believe he wasn’t doing a good resolution strategy,” Acting Insp Filzek said.
“I assume he would’ve been ensuring local units were keeping a lookout for the offender.” He said there were “several plans” to arrest Gargasoulas, including tracking him by phone, calls on police radio to keep lookouts and that he surrender to St Kilda police station.
“There were police vehicles out and about,” he told lawyer Marko Cvjeticanin, representing the victims’ families.
Acting Insp Filzek said he wasn’t surprised Sergeant Caridi returned to the station to do paperwork after the CIRT refusal.
“If he was confident his presence wasn’t required at the scene then it doesn’t surprise me.” He said part of his job was to direct people if things didn’t appear to be getting done but “not micromanage them”.
“I had faith in them doing their job,” he said.
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Acting Insp Filzek said his understanding was the critical incident response team were always going to make themselves available and he requested they monitor the incident.
Response members from the team got involved in the arrest later that day and shot at Gargasoulas in the CBD after he ran down and killed six people. Gargasoulas, who suffers paranoid schizophrenia, was jailed in February for at least 46 years.
The inquest continues.