Wieambilla inquest: police acted appropriately when attending the Train property
A triple-0 operator has apologised for missing a warning that ‘active shooters’ were at Wieambilla while a civilian was calling about a ‘big bang’, an inquest into the fatal ambush has heard.
The triple-0 operator who was receiving updates about a “big bang” missed a message about active shooters being in the area moments before a good samaritan was gunned down, an inquest into the death has heard.
The four constables who walked into a fatal ambush were appropriately carrying out a “routine” job moments before they were gunned down on a rural property in Queensland, an inquest has been told.
The second week of a coronial inquest into the murders of constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold, neighbour Alan Dare and the shooting deaths of former school principal Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey Train continued on Monday.
The two constables were killed within minutes of jumping the locked gate at 251 Wains Rd in Wieambilla on December 12, 2022.
The two Tara-based officers arrived with constables Randall Kirk and Keely Brough before they were ambushed by brothers Gareth and Nathaniel Train while conducting a missing persons inquiry for Nathaniel.
The two brothers and Gareth’s wife, Stacey, had prescribed to an extremist Christian ideology known as “premillennialism” and carried out their religiously motivated terrorist attack by firing at police in a bid to kill as many officers as they could.
The Train’s neighbour, Alan Dare, was also killed when he went to investigate after seeing black smoke billowing from the property.
Triple-0 callers told not to go ‘snooping’ on other jobs
The triple-0 operator answered the call made by Mr Dare’s wife, Kerry, about their concerns of “two big bangs” and smoke nearby their Wieambilla property at 5.13pm on December 12.
Emma Donald told the inquest on Monday that as she imputed the information Mrs Dare was telling her, an alert popped up on her screen about police being “in trouble”.
“I knew there was a police in trouble in the area at the time,” Ms Donald said.
“Once you put an address into the system, there is a ‘repeat’ button that flashes and it shows any jobs that are either at locations specifically or in the vicinity of what the address has been placed in.
“It just says ‘repeat’ and flashes in italics.
“I’ve clicked on the ‘repeat’ box, it came up with a job underneath stating ‘police in trouble’.”
However, Ms Donald told the inquest she didn’t investigate the job further because she’d been told not do go “snooping” during her training.
“At that time I didn’t know it was related or not,” she said.
“We’d been told in our training if we look into a job that isn’t (related) we’d most likely get in trouble for it because it’s technically snooping I suppose into something that’s not of concern to us.
“I didn’t click into it.”
The inquest was told that while Ms Donald continued to update her system with information she was receiving from Mrs Dare, which included that Mr Dare had gotten into his car to investigate the fire.
Moments later Ms Donald asked the communication coordinator (commco) whether it was safe to send QFES to the scene.
At 5.28pm a message was added to the system that read: “Do not leave property. Active offenders shooting at police. Do not attach QFES at this stage”.
Ms Donald said that was the first time she became aware there were active shooters in the Wains Rd area.
Another message was then sent asking her to tell Mrs Dare to “get husband and neighbour back immediately”.
However, the call log stated that Ms Donald didn’t receive the message until 5.30pm when she replied: ‘Calling informant back, apologies commco’.
When asked why it took her two minutes to see the message, Ms Donald said she couldn’t recall but possibly because she was on another triple-0 phone call as part of her role as call taker.
When Mrs Dare answered Ms Donald’s call at 5.31pm, she informed her that “someone shot her husband”.
Police acted appropriately
Queensland Police Service training operations co-ordinator, Senior Sergeant Tracy Bailey, told the inquest on Monday she had found the four constables had acted appropriately in the lead up to the fatal ambush.
“There is nothing in it that would have indicated that it would move to a high risk job,” Sergeant Bailey said.
“Just from the minimal flags, it was just a missing persons job. It seemed very routine.”
She agreed when asked whether officers with more experience than the four constables on duty that day would have acted in the same manner in approaching the job assigned to them.
“It’s not uncommon for multiple crews to attend different jobs,” Sergeant Bailey said.
“I’m aware previous attempts to attend and speak to the occupants (at 251 Wains Rd) had been done (including) calling cards with no response.
“There’s many areas where gates are locked.
“Jumping the fence to move forward to the dwelling is appropriate.
“While the flags are present, it just assists the attending police officers in their assessment.
“(Carrying out) an arrest warrant – police would attend those jobs every day.”
Sergeant Bailey said the task as it was known to the four constables at the time would not have required them to take a rifle to the property.
“The use of a rifle needs to meet certain criteria,” she said.
“None of those factors deemed it appropriate given they were attending a missing person job.
“(Taking a rifle) may even escalate the situation … if a sworn officer was coming at them (a civilian) with a rifle, they may react different.”
The right decision made
During the ambush, Constables Kirk and Brough were able to rush to safety, with Constable Kirk fleeing the scene in his car and Constable Brough being rescued by an extraction team about two hours after the siege.
Sergeant Bailey said the actions of Constables Kirk and Brough in the minutes and hours after they were ambushed were appropriate.
“The officers had no knowledge of that rural setting, they don’t even know where the house is at this stage,” she said.
“There was two of them but neither knew the whereabouts of the other at that stage.
“So at that point, they were really just on their own.
“It was necessary for their own preservation at first and then to be able to reassess the situation.
“In my opinion, it would be very unlikely that (Constable Kirk) would have been able to assist those officers (Constable Arnold and McCrow) without putting himself in significant risk and without very limited points of cover … and not knowing where those offenders are.”
She also said the actions of the extraction team were also appropriate.
The inquest was told the extraction team was “unaware of the condition” of Constables McCrow and Arnold until they reached them during the extraction.
Sergeant Bailey said the team also followed protocol in moving past the body of Mr Dare in order to get to the two constables, whose conditions were still unknown at that point.
Extra information could have changed risk assessment
Sergeant Bailey said additional information may have changed the four constables risk assessment but at the time they could only rely on what they knew.
“When you think of a school principal, you think of an honest good person and whether that played into their risk assessment, I can’t comment on,” she said.
The inquest heard Gareth was known to be in possession of unregistered firearms, that he was paranoid and that he had a dislike of police.
Barrister Gavin Handran questioned whether that additional information, which was known to NSW police and some that was known to someone “close to” Gareth, would “make any difference” for how the four constables responded to the job.
“So if you were to assume that … they also knew that (Gareth) had a history of unlicensed firearms of the kind that I’ve identified, that they were kept in a secret storage compartment, that he was regarded, at least by someone close to him, who knew that information, as someone who was incredibly dangerous, and that if police attended that day, it would only result in death and harm, and that he (Gareth) knew that a missing persons report had been made (about Nathaniel) and had conveyed that he was waiting for the police with an eye open,” Mr Handran said.
Sergeant Bailey replied: “It may have”.