Townsville police shooting: Witness believes incident was suicide by cop
A brave member of the public who alerted police to the presence of an armed man on The Strand believes the shocking incident was a premeditated suicide by cop.
Townsville
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A brave member of the public who alerted police to the presence of an armed man on The Strand believes the shocking incident was a premeditated suicide by cop.
“He definitely seemed, when (Townsville police) arrived, that he was waiting for that to happen,” the witness said on Sunday.
“Especially with the stance he took, he just took this stance like he was Jesus on a cross with the knife in his hand … I think he wanted to be shot and my husband feels the same.”
The man, who is yet to be identified publicly, was shot and killed by police during a horror series of confrontations near the Strand on Saturday morning.
The woman, who does not wish to be identified and is yet to be interviewed by police, said she and her partner were walking up McKinley St to see the Ephemera art installations on The Strand when the man brushed past.
“I looked at him and thought his behaviour was a bit odd, he was pacing and a bit manic, he wasn’t making eye contact with people … and he just looked like a peculiar picture where he was,” she said.
“My husband said, ‘hey bud, hey mate’ and he said (to me), ‘keep walking’ and I said, ‘what’s wrong’ and he said ‘was that weird … he had a knife’.
“I said, ‘are you joking?’ and he said, ‘nah, he had a knife’.”
The woman said the couple continued walking till the man was out of sight and called police.
“Our concern was that it was very, very busy for the Strand … it was just packed for Ephemera, so I guess our concern was, ‘what the hell is he doing?’”
She said the couple circled back to The Strand, taking a vantage point near the volleyball nets to await the arrival of police.
“Just in that mindfulness that there were people around him who may need to be alerted if he decided to move from where he was because there was a small child playing on the stops 50 metres from the apartment building and we didn’t want to create a panic.”
The woman said the man assumed the Jesus pose when the first police responders arrived, with a taser having almost no effect when a second police crew reached the scene.
“He wobbled but it barely had any effect on him and then he turned immediately to his left and started running up McKinley St and by that point a third crew of police had turned up and they all (six officers) took off on foot after him,” she said.
“About two or three minutes later we heard gunfire shots (more than three) and we just assumed they found him somewhere.”
The witness said there was panic on The Strand when the third police car arrived on the scene under lights and sirens.
“We hadn’t alerted any of the public as to what we’d seen and no one else seemed to have noticed him,” she said.
“When the cops turned up it was an instantaneous thing, they got out of their car … drew their weapons and said ‘drop your weapon’, and of course everyone who was walking past heard the yelling and were like, ‘what the hell is going on?’ … there were lots of families with children looking at this scene going ‘holy hell’.”
The woman played down suggestions their heroic actions may have saved lives.
“My husband and I have spent the night with the fact that it is not really lost on us that someone lost a life, it was a pretty shitty ending.”
She said, however, that the mass casualty Bondi Junction stabbings had weighed heavily on their minds at the time.
“In my head, I was like, ‘oh my god, is this guy going to come down to The Strand and just start stabbing people.”
The woman described the man as tall and thickly built but not muscular.
“A big bloke, he was white, he had like a very short cut, almost like it was shaved, he had a green kind of business shirt but then like boardies, which was odd in itself … his work boots were sitting beside the vehicle.”
She said the man was carrying what her husband believed to be a military-style knife but did not think he was a current or former soldier.
She said she did not see a machete but he could have armed himself with the reported machete from a nearby white utility vehicle.
“We didn’t see two knives at that stage so we were thinking when that information came out that he may have picked up a second knife because he continued to go back to the (unmarked) work ute … that also had a trailer on it with like a tool kind of thing on it.”
The woman reiterated that the couple believed the man “was almost willing” the shooting to happen.
“I think he had chosen the time and the place … that he located himself to be noticed.”
Queensland Police Service had no additional comments on Sunday following a news conference on Saturday.
Superintendent Chris Lawson said on Saturday that his officers had been offered counselling for what the Queensland Police Union said was a “confronting, highly volatile and life threatening situation”.
Superintendent Lawson said on Saturday that sometimes “lethal force” was required.
“It is truly a devastating event for the police involved and family and friends of the victim,” he said.
The union said and officer’s intervention may have prevented “multiple casualties”.
Union president Shane Prior said: “These officers put themselves in a life-threatening situation to protect the public. I have every confidence that these officers’ actions will be deemed as authorised, justified and lawful by the coroner,” he said.
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