REDLAND City councillor Murray Elliott has called for specially-trained police armed taskforces to be set up after a man was critically wounded when shot in the head during a police siege at Rochedale this week.
Cr Elliott was speaking out after his friend’s ute was stolen from a house in Eight Mile Plains on Tuesday and police tracked it to an address 10km away where they shot a 29-year-old man in the head.
The Division 7 councillor said he was compelled to speak out after his distressed friend rang him following the shooting, questioning the use of guns in the incident.
“My mate’s son had his ute, with a trailer, stolen but what the thieves didn’t know was there was a GPS tracker inside a ride-on mower in the trailer,” Cr Elliott said.
“The police went straight to where the mower was and that’s where the guy was shot.
“The forensic police went back to my mate’s house and told him the guy who was shot was dead – now they’re saying the man’s in hospital.
“I don’t like police with guns and I think there needs to be a community debate about setting up special police taskforces, like in the UK, with officers who are trained to use fire arms.
“It’s not a simple question of should coppers use guns – it’s more than that – it’s should there be special teams who have guns while the average officer just has handcuffs, baton and capsicum spray.”
In Queensland, all uniformed police officers must carry a firearm but are not allowed to fire off warning shots during an incident and only receive fire arms training once a year.
In the UK, only authorised officers carry guns and highly trained Armed Response teams are called in to situations when armed officers are needed.
WHAT do you think? Should there be special armed taskforces, trained in handling and shooting guns?