‘It could have been me’: killings bring home risks for those on thin blue line

Fourteen police officers have been shot and killed by an offender on the job. Is policing more dangerous today?

Constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold, the two Queensland police officers murdered in cold blood during an ambush on a property in Wieambilla in the Western Downs.

In the past three decades, 14 Australian police officers set out on what appeared to be routine jobs.

A damage complaint. A domestic dispute. Highway patrol. Missing person welfare check.

All regulation police work but, for the 14 police officers, the jobs would end in violent confrontation with gunmen that would cost them their lives.

“If you look at a damage complaint, it’s a very basic, everyday sort of job,” Police Association Victoria secretary Wayne Gatt said. “Random traffic stops on the freeways. This is the bread and butter of policing. It’s what police do numerous times a shift.”

In all, 114 police have lost their lives in the line of duty since 1990, according to the National Police Memorial. Many died in car or motorcycle accidents, some died of medical complications, others were stabbed. But it is the danger that guns pose to police officers that was underscored this week with the deaths of Queensland constables Rachel McCrow, 29, and Matthew Arnold, 26.

Nobody foresaw the dangers the 14 police officers faced. These unexpected and tragic deaths ­illustrate the risks police take on every day.

And despite training and preparation there are some incidents which escalate completely out of the blue, Mr Gatt said.

“The unpredictability of policing is perhaps the most dangerous element,” he said. “It reinforces the vulnerability that you all have.

“‘It could have been me’. That’s the mindset that police have when they look at these incidents.”

On Monday night, constables McCrow and Arnold were shot dead while two other officers, Randall Kirk and Keely Brough, ­escaped after they were ambushed at a rural property in Queensland.

They were sent to conduct a welfare check on missing NSW man Nathaniel Train.

Train, along with his brother Gareth and his wife Stacey, were armed with guns and dressed in camouflage when police arrived. The officers “did not stand a chance”, Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said. Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers said the ­killers were “ruthless, murderous people” and the officers did not know what they were walking into.

Until the ambush, 12 officers had died as a result of gun violence since 1990, according to the ­National Police Memorial. Among them were Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller, who were killed in 1998 in Melbourne while staking out a restaurant they believed could be ­targeted by Bandali Debbs and Jason Roberts following a string of armed hold-ups. Debbs was convicted of their murders. Mr Roberts was initially sent to prison but this year was freed and his conviction overturned.

Sergeant Gary Silk. Picture: Supplied

Senior Constable Rodney Miller. Picture: Supplied

Portraits of Silk and Miller are among pictures of fallen officers hanging in the entrance of the Police Association in Victoria. Their deaths represent the last time two officers died as a result of gun violence at work since this week in Queensland.

Mr Gatt said he was a relatively junior officer and was off-duty when news of Silk and Miller’s deaths reached him. He was part of the force ­response unit, and helped examine the crime scene.

“Nobody expected two police to get shot,” he said. “They were looking for armed robbers so they were ­expecting people that were armed. But despite the risks associated with looking for armed ­offenders, nobody expects them to be to be murdered in that situation. There’s loss, there’s anger. And then there’s teamwork. Ultimately, the police force will never ­forget them.”

Since he joined the force in 1995, Mr Gatt said risks associated with the job had changed. “I think the job is more dangerous than it’s ever been,” he said. “I think the prevalence of mental health illness in the community means that we see more erratic behaviour, more violent behaviour.”

Police Federation of Australia chief Scott Weber said that since he joined NSW police in 1994, he has noticed an increasing lack of respect for authority.

“Covid exacerbated that. We were the face of Covid. It was really a health response, but police officers were there actually enforcing every different state’s laws, which made it extremely difficult,” he said. “That lack of respect leads to added risk for police officers.

“Also, police officers are the only universal 24/7 problem solvers. When every other government department can’t do it or don’t have the staff to do it, police are relied upon. Therefore we are turning up to a lot more situations … especially (those involving) health and mental health issues.”

Conspiratorial posts made by the Queensland shooters, the eruption of gun violence and malice towards police have perhaps contributed to the sense such events belong in another country.

“This is something that just doesn’t happen in Australia,” Mr Weber said. “It’s something that’s very unexpected. And regardless of the training, and even their equipment and capabilities, I think it’s driven home to all police officers if they attended that job, they ­probably wouldn’t have been ­returning home.

“It’s usually the (Australian) police associations offering condolences overseas for horrific incidents that occur. But this time, we’re being inundated with it … ­especially from the United States, and then the UK.”

The deaths of constables McCrow and Arnold have highlighted the unpredictable nature of policing, Mr Weber said.

“At any time we can make the ultimate sacrifice. Every job has the propensity to be life threatening,” he said. “Everyone will still put on that uniform and go out ­tomorrow to try and make Australia a safer place. But instead of (risk) being back of mind, I think it’s front of mind at the moment coming up to a busy period over Christmas.”

For all the risks, Mr Weber agreed new and existing force members were motivated by a sense of duty. “You know you are doing something that is collectively good for society and the community. That’s what keeps police officers going on. They know it’s greater than themselves,” he said.

And Mr Gatt said he believed young people would continue to join the police force for a “sense of purpose”. “I stand in front of ­recruits all of the time,” he said. “In the days before they graduate, I’ll often speak to them and it may sound cliche, but when you ask them why they want to join, they say, ‘Well, I want to do something good. I want to help people’.”