Gargasoulas waved police aside before fatal Bourke St rampage
Police hunting Dimitrious Gargasoulas “reversed” out of his way and let him go because they feared injury if the two cars collided. Find out why the Sergeant let his junior make the critical decision.
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An armed police unit let Bourke St killer Dimitri Gargasoulas pass them before his fatal rampage because he waved at them to get out of his way and they feared they would be injured.
Sergeant Matthew Peck of the Critical Incident Response Team was with junior colleague Senior Constable Gregory Ralston in South Melbourne on January 20, 2017 when they came “nose to nose” with Gargasoulas.
He was going about 40km/h on a one way service lane alongside Albert Road.
It was just after 11am and he was being pursued by police who had only minutes before drawn their guns on him after a confrontation nearby.
“You were nose to nose,” counsel assisting the coroner Stephen O’Meara put to him yesterday at the inquest into the tragedy
“We were slightly at an angle,” Sgt Peck said.
The original plan had been to stop him by blocking the road and “conduct an arrest — but it became very clear he wasn’t willing to do that”.
Sgt Peck left it to his junior colleague to make the critical decision on how they would react “because he was the one who was driving”.
Mr O’Meara QC asked him to confirm Gargasoulas would not have got past if they hadn’t moved for him.
“That’s correct,” the sergeant answered. “We would’ve had the person of interest collide with us.”
To avoid hitting them, Gargasoulas would have had to have “mounted the kerb” - but he maintained “he would have rammed our vehicle”.
As they “reversed” they saw “the person of interest was waving at us to move out of the way”.
Under cross examination, Sgt Peck said there was a “myriad of things that could have happened at that time, one being that he ran into our vehicle injuring myself or Senior Constable Ralston.”
He conceded it was a “missed opportunity” to stop Gargasoulas.
He maintained Gargasoulas kept a steady speed, even though Snr Const Ralston is expected to give evidence today he was slowing down.
The inquest has heard evidence from local police who repeatedly requested the specially-trained CIRT team to assist, but they were refused because the incident didn’t meet the required threshold.
The final 30 minutes before the tragedy Sgt Peck decided a more aggressive strategy was required to bring the incident to an end, including using his car to block Gargasoulas’ path.
But he said he was reassured CIU members speaking directly with him had the situation under control.
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A transcript of radio discussions between the CIRT teams about 1.15pm revealed they had abandoned the idea of containing him - and it appeared the situation was still out of control.
“Any chance of boxing him in?” a CIRT unit asked, to which Sgt Peck said “not likely, bro.”
“No pursuits with this fellow ... if he takes off let him go,” he said before later adding: “None of the units have got any resolution strategy with this bloke ... in my opinion slow-going.”