Looking back on the Lindt Cafe Siege, Sydney -10 years on
*Historic article and analysis from 2017
“Police criticised for tactics in deadly Sydney cafe siege”
Sydney, Australia
– Calculated decision –
But he said they waited too long to make their move after the first shot was fired by Monis.
“The 10 minutes that lapsed without decisive action by police was too long,” he said.
Barnes also described an unnamed consultant psychiatrist’s role in advising them on tactics as “suboptimal”.
“He made erroneous and unrealistic assessments of what was occurring in the stronghold. He gave ambiguous advice,” he said, adding it was partly to blame for how police commanders “underestimated the threat Monis posed”.
Barnes urged police to consider expanding the number of psychological advisers they use as consultants, and introduce clear policies for any that are asked to assist in future.
He also recommended that police review the training and accreditation of negotiators.
Victims’ families have been critical of the tactics used by police, who hoped to “contain and negotiate” with Monis, believing he also had a bomb in his backpack which was later found to be fake.
They were incensed when learning that police only planned to move in if a hostage was killed or seriously injured.
“I’ll never be able to understand how you can make a calculated decision that you wait for someone to die. It’s just beyond me,” Rosie Connellan, Johnson’s mother, told broadcaster ABC.
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller conceded that armed officers should have been sent in earlier to rescue the hostages, but insisted that “contain and negotiate” had saved countless lives over the years.
“In hindsight, knowing everything we know now, we should have gone in earlier,” he told reporters, adding that police forces globally had learnt valuable lessons from the incident in terms of “contain and negotiate versus early intervention”.
mp/ddc/sm
© Agence France-Presse