As news broke late last night of an incident involving an 18 year old Melbourne man who, following an altercation in which two police officers were stabbed, was shot dead, we heard a lot of sensationalistic reporting from major outlets, that was subsequently relayed down the media grapevine – including on Pedestrian along with the ABC, News Ltd & Fairfax. Throughout today we’ve been monitoring coverage, and the more time wears on, the more it becomes apparent that contrary to reports, the deceased man had posed no specific threat to any persons of significance. Though the Australian Federal Police maintains the position that he was a “known terror suspect.”
18 year-old Abdul Numan Haider was shot dead by Police in the car park of the Endeavour Hills police station, in what appears to have been an act of self-defence, after Haider allegedly stabbed two police officers – one a member of the AFP, the other a member of the Victoria Police – sending both to the hospital with multiple serious wounds.
Haider was known to the Federal Police and had been identified as a potential “terror suspect” – their words, not ours – and was one of a swathe of people on the radar of the AFP whose passports had been cancelled in the wake of the Federal Government raising the terror threat level to high.
Police had received reports that the 18 year-old Haider had attended a shopping centre with an ISIS flag, and had reached out to the teenager. Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay stated of the development, “It’s not an offence but clearly it drew our attention to this person. It wasn’t specific, but on this occasion we made the decision we needed to talk to him a little more about what his thoughts and motivations might be.”
The joint counter-terrorism team asked Haider to attend the police station for a talk about his actions. Haider requested the meeting take place in the car park, rather than inside the police station. It was here where the attack, and subsequent shooting, took place at around 7:45pm. The two officers involved did not believe that Haider posed any threat.
Again, Haider appears to not have made any specific threat to anyone in the lead up to the incident in which he was fatally shot after allegedly stabbing two police officers.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott‘s response to the incident was to reinforce the hard-line party stance on the new laws. “Obviously this indicates there are people in our community who are capable of very extreme acts.“
What is emerging as the crux of the issue is that this particular police shooting seems to have occurred as a result of a young man stabbing two police officers – certainly an extreme act and I dare say no one can blame the actions of the officers involved. But what transpired in the meeting to escalate the situation to that point is not known, and probably never will be made known on a public level.
The 18 year-old man, whilst he may have been subject to scrutiny by the AFP, was most likely not about to emerge as the mastermind of any enormous terrorist threat on the soils of Australia.
An unfortunate and sad incident, certainly. An avoidable one, possibly. But a completely baseless reason to buy into the terrorist-laden rhetoric of the wider mass media, absolutely.
Photo: Luis Ascui via Getty Images.
via The Guardian.
