Operation Peace Hawk conducts exercise at Coomera Westfield

Dozens of police have swarmed a major Gold Coast shopping centre with weapons drawn – but nobody was ever in any danger. This is what happened.

Officers at Coomera Westfield shopping centre taking part in the counterterrorism training. Picture: Queensland Police Service.

More than 80 police including heavily armed emergency response personal swarmed a major Gold Coast shopping centre on Sunday evening as part of a simulated counter-terrorism training exercise.

Almost a year in the making, Coomera Westfield Shopping Centre was turned into the scene of a mass-casualty incident as part of Operation Peace Hawk.

Acting Gold Coast Chief Superintendent Peter Miles said officers were put through their paces – responding to the lifelike terrorism event and completely unaware of what they were walking into.

Officers at Coomera Westfield shopping centre responding to a reported simulate armed active offender scenario. Picture: Queensland Police Service.

“Basically, the call goes through that there’s an active armed offender within the shopping centre,” he said.

“The crews turn up as a first responder. They’re driving lights and sirens through the car park.

“They get down to the location, they see injured people, deceased people, they see a male with a shotgun, they see a male stabbing another person, so it is on. And it’s just how they react to that scenario.”

The training exercise involved actors, make up artists and blank rounds of ammunitions – with the sound of gunfire ringing out across the shopping centre.

Two general duties crews and a Criminal Investigation Branch team formed the first response to the simulation, with other highly trained units like the Public Safety Response Team and Specialist Emergency Response Team arriving on scene as the exercise unfolded.

“There are cues where the role players (offenders) will give up. Then there are scenarios where that active armed offender will remain active until police engage that person. So it really is as close to the real thing as we can get,” Acting Supt Miles said.

“I hope we never get to that point. But we’ve got to be realistic. It does happen. It happened in Australia. It’s happened recently and we have to train as we see those threats.

Police engage with an armed active offender inside the shopping mall as part of the simulated training. Picture: Queensland Police Service.

“Overall, it was a very well run exercise. A very good opportunity for our crews to walk through and see, observe and work out what they can do better if it did unfold.”

Officers from as far as Logan were part of the operation which ran until midnight. Queensland Ambulance Service paramedics were also involved in the simulation – responding to the casualties. The results from the operation were recorded and will be used to guide future training and procedures.

Originally published as Operation Peace Hawk conducts exercise at Coomera Westfield