TRG look back over 40 year of operation

It’s the Territory’s most dramatically high profile yet elusive police unit; the Territory Response Group. Superintendent Shaun Gill talks about the 40 year history of the squad that’s been involved in some of our biggest events, from missing people to rampaging gunmen.

The Territory Response Group has been operating for 40 years. Artwork: Stu Thornton

THE Territory Response Group prefer to stay out of the spotlight.

The highly skilled team in December, celebrated 40 years and in a rare occasion have opened the doors into their world.

Superintendent Shaun Gill sat down with the NT News to discuss some of the biggest events he’s covered over his career with the TRG.

Supt Gill has been with the unit on and off since 1991, he’s been involved in some of the biggest events, from missing people, escorting dignitaries to rampaging gunmen.

The Territory Response Group’s Superintendent Shaun Gill in front of the Bearcat. The group is celebrating 40 years this year. Picture: Katrina Bridgeford

The TRG began in December 1978 and in those days was called the Emergency Squad.

The unit was born out of the 1978 Hilton bombing in Sydney, when the federal government decided it needed a better response to terrorist attacks.

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Back then the team wore white overalls and were partly funded through the Commonwealth.

“Over the years it’s had a number of name changes,” Supt Gill said.

“It morphed from the Emergency Squad to what they called Taskforce, then it was called the Territory Response Section and we’re now the Territory Response Group.”

Jobs of the unit included search and rescue operations, counter terrorism operations, natural disaster response, apprehension of armed offenders and siege operations, civil unrest in remote communities, close personal protection which means security for dignitaries when they are in the Territory and bomb disposal.

The arrest of Palmerston shooter Dion Garry Yost was covered in a previous instalment.

“We’re a unique tactical group across Australia in that a lot of other tactical groups do purely tactical, where our role is we do close personal protection still, search and rescue and we do tactical response including bomb response,” he said.

“The NT is a pretty small jurisdiction but were a very large area so it’s simply not possible to have a section that’s set aside purely for search and rescue, or a section that’s purely set aside for bomb response.”

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He said the unit preferred to stay out off the radar but that had changed over the years due to public scrutiny.

“We try not to shine a light on ourselves too much and do our job but things have changed dramatically,” he said.

Monique Edmondson was kidnapped from a shelter in Stuart Park. Her story has also been told in this TRG true crime series. Supplied: NT Police

“The public scrutiny is incredible, people want to know what you do; people want to know what your response is.

“Everything we do, and our response has to not only be justified to our Commissioner it also has to be justified to the public in a way and it also ultimately has to be justified to the Coroner if it gets to that.”

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Supt Gill said maintaining the trust from the public in the group was paramount.

“If you lose the public you’ve lost the game essentially. If they don’t believe you can do your job properly or they believe that you’re not good at what you do it can cause us all sorts of dramas,” he said.

He explained what the public did see was about 10 per cent of what went it to a job.

“We are trying to stop things from happening or preparing for things to happen. When we respond that’s the last option available to us.”

In discussing some of the incidents that shaped the NT, Supt Gil hopes to give an insight into the NT Police’s most elusive unit.

Originally published as TRG look back over 40 year of operation