Last week I wrote a letter to the local Solomon Islands media, which I also posted on my Linkedin page, and said, quote.
10 July 2022
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, senior cabinet members and Australian High Commissioner Dr Lachlan Strahan attended a “milestone” demonstration of Australian-supplied police weapons and training at Tenaru Firing Range on 5 July.
The demonstration, which involved live-firing of new Short Barrel Riffle (SBR) – MK18 weapons, was led by the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) who were implementing their skills following training conducted in Brisbane earlier this year.
High Commissioner Dr Lachlan Strahan said “The weapons provided by the Australian Federal Police were delivered along with world’s best practice in policing tactics.”
“The RSIPF officers who undertook this training have qualified to be both users of the weapons, and instructors,” said Dr. Strahan.
“It is always important that once someone has an instrument of lethal force, they have the right training to know when and how to use it.”
Source – Solomon Star news.
Comment
The members of the RSIPF who undertook the training on how to use the newly acquired firearms may have been taught the SOP’s (Standard operation Procedures) for their use, but if they are used in police operations during future outbreaks of public order in the Solomon Islands, then it would only take one police officer with such a weapon to be “trigger happy” and to kill or seriously main a protestor for very serious and lasting consequences for the police service and the government of the day.
I personally consider such weapons as “excessive arms” unnecessary in dealing with street violence involving public disturbances and believe the more traditional issue of riot control equipment still suitable if the police need to know best to use them and trained and coordinated accordingly.
The Chinese (PRC) government has supplied the RSIPF with water cannons that could be put into effective use during any outbreak of public order to help dispel those protesting on the streets, to be followed up by properly trained police officers in public order duties, but not, unless a very last resort, by firing on protestors with lethal weapon designed to kill.
The last supply of lethal weapons given to the SIG by Australia were stolen from the police armoury or by defecting police officers and used in the civil conflict between mid 1999 to 2003.
I apologise that my comments are hard hitting ones but I was trained as a police officer believing in the use of minimum force, and still do, and armed, lethal force in the Solomon Islands should be a very last resort given all the composite mix that make up the factors that have in the past contributed to peoples anger and frustration, including disputes over land ownership, corruption, overall poor and limited health services, lack of uniform development and country wide infrastructure, widespread unemployment, especially amongst young people, urban drift, use of kwaso, food security, rising costs, including fuel prices and even basic transport, fees, school fees, and, yes, even gossip and uniformed rumour.
The Solomon Islands remains reactive to the many issues I have identified as people problems and they need still to be addressed and resolved peacefully but the use of lethal firearms is not the answer and I believe their use by the police will have serious consequences if just one person is shot and killed in any future public order linked incident.
I again apologise openly for expressing my personal and frank views on the matters I have raised, but I see myself as a long standing and committed friend of the Solomon Islands and its citizens and on such an important issue, I would hope my comments are not taken too adversely.
End of quote.
What is the current practice of arming the police in Australia?
On the 13 November 2019, Australians woke to the news that a 19-year-old Warlpiri man had been shot and killed by a police officer in Yuendumu, 300km north-west of Alice Springs.
A confrontation had occurred after two officers went to a property to arrest the man for breach of a condition of his suspended sentence. One report said the man lunged at the police officer as the pair approached him. Acting deputy commissioner Michael White said:
During that time a struggle ensued and two shots were fired and [the young man] sadly passed away later.
The community outrage has been swift, with a crowd of Yuendumu residents rallying outside the police station, demanding justice. The matter was classified as a death in custody.
Surely the Australia police have learned lessons from past tragedies, and they’re trained today to use their guns as a last resort. After all, they have tasers and other non-lethal weapons, don’t they?
In attempting to answer these questions, it’s useful to make some observations about current police practice and the available research.
Most Australian police officers carry guns
The first observation about the 2019 tragedy is a simple one. Firearm deaths occur in heated situations because police carry guns as standard issue.
In 1970, only the New South Wales Police Force was habitually armed. Over time, policies were introduced in each Australian jurisdiction that allowed police officers to gauge their own level of vulnerability and request a firearm in circumstances they perceived as dangerous. As the years passed, this became a very subjective assessment.
The consequence of this policy of accretion is that firearms are now carried by most patrol officers in all Australian states and territories most of the time.
Police direction on “shoot to kill” is clear. An officer can use lethal force against another person when there’s a reasonable threat of death or serious injury to the officer, another officer or a member of the public. The difficulty is in determining the reasonableness of the threat. In the heat of the moment this, too, involves a highly subjective assessment.
So does the routine arming of police make the public safer? Yes and no.
A civilian is 14 times more likely to be shot and killed by a police firearm in the US than by a police firearm in Australia, and 42 times more likely to be shot and killed by a police firearm in the US than by a police firearm in Germany.
But police in all three nations routinely carry firearms. So, the mere arming of police doesn’t appear to be the key factor in civilian deaths. There must be something more at play.
Best practice for firearms training
There is. The research tells us the number of civilian deaths caused by police firearms varies according to four important factors: the extent of police militarisation; the rules that pertain to the use of lethal force; the standards of firearms training; and the gun culture in the society in which officers operate.
The most important one for Australian policymakers is the third of these: the standards of firearms training.
To that end, five key imperatives for firearm training emerge from the research:
1. Australian police policies must have clear and precise rules regarding the carriage and drawing of firearms, and there must be high standards of accountability for those who carry and draw them
2. uniform firearms training must be across all jurisdictions
3. this training must include best practice communication techniques such as negotiation skills and de-escalation strategies, and clear instructions regarding non-lethal alternatives
4. strong collaborations must be in place between police and health professionals and other social services
5. body cameras should be compulsory on all operational officers.
If these initiatives and practices are in place, and entrenched, one can safely assert that fewer deaths at the hands of police will occur.
Police are employed to protect us. If that does not happen, such as in Yuendumu, then there’s something going wrong in Australian police training centres.
There was a coroner’s inquest into the young man’s death at Walpiri and it is believed the coroner might have ruled that deadly force can never be used.
Australian police today are trained to use their guns as a last resort. And yes, they have tasers and other non-lethal weapons at their disposal. But in the heat of the moment, with the lives of serving officers potentially on the line, judgements are made quickly. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it is never available when it is needed most.
So what does the evidence tell us about firearms and the safety of police officers themselves? Available research suggests there is no clear evidence guns make police safer, but officers feel safer with firearms at their disposal.
And what of the future? There is no going back to the days when police did not carry guns. So the training associated with their use needs to be unremitting. Australian lives are important.
I would add at this point so are the lives of Solomon Islanders
End of quote.
Source – The Conversation AU.
Understanding Why People Riot
Quote.
Riots are more complex than "criminality, pure and simple."
We hear it all the time about riots: "hooliganism" or, as David Cameron once put it, “criminality, pure and simple." But riots are complex events, hard to reduce to something as simple as that.
It's no surprise that established authorities, feeling attacked; see the violent behavior of their citizens in such terms. They react by becoming dismissive and punitive. The Chinese government used the same language to characterize student protests in Tiananmen Square, as did Arab leaders recently when describing rebellions in their countries.
And often there is an element of truth in such descriptions. If you have ever been in a mob that was agitated about some injustice, you know how contagious it can be. Ordinary people, normal citizens, you and me — we get swept up and do things that would be unlikely under other circumstances: shouting, shoving, throwing rocks, smashing windows, and, yes, even looting.
It usually takes an incident to get a riot started, such as an accident or the police attacking or killing an innocent bystander. But once it has begun, a raging mob has a life of its own. Deep-seated resentments, repetitive frustrations, and long-standing disappointments galvanize people into action. And the mob provides cover, an anonymity that makes it easier to overcome one's usual reticence or moral scruples. One is immersed, engulfed. And it can become an exuberant experience, a joyful release for long-suppressed emotions. It can also become manic, driven, a means of restlessly seeking new outlets. Leadership emerges spontaneously and changes rapidly.
It offers a kind of intense belonging, not dissimilar to what spectators feel at a sports event or fans at a rock concert. But because it isn't focused on a game or performance, it easily gets out of hand. Freud described such "mass psychology" in 1924, in the tumultuous aftermath of World War I. Others have studied it since as a recurrent form of group behavior.
This is not to justify the behavior of the mob, but to recognize that we all can easily become "hooligans" ourselves. To be sure, delinquents and petty thieves can easily join in under the cover the mob provides. But riots do not rely on criminals or "criminality, pure and simple."
Thinking that way, though, can distract us from the underlying conditions that give rise to such events. They can be appeals to be heard, when normal channels don't work. They can be eruptions of rage, when frustrations boil over. They can be expressions of hope that things could change. And they could be all these things — and more.
Newsweek reminded us last week of something about the recent riots that many politicians would prefer not to think: "If there's one underlying condition that these movements share, it has to do with unemployment and bitter poverty among people who desire to be part of the middle class, and who are keenly aware of the sharp inequality between themselves and their country's wealthy elite."
Distracted by the flames and the looting, we can easily forget that these are, as Newsweek put it, "social revolutions with a small ‘r,' protests against social conditions that have become unbearable."
End of quote
Source - Academic rigour by Ken Eisold, Ph.D, a psychoanalyst and organizational consultant.
Comment.
Have the Australian instructors given the RSIPF Standing Operational Procedures (SOP’s) to ensure the lethal arms they have issued to the Solomon Islands Police will only be used as a last resort?
It is worth repeating, however, from the guidelines pertaining to the use firearms by the members of the Australian Police the following –
“Australian police today are trained to use their guns as a last resort. And yes, they have tasers and other non-lethal weapons at their disposal. But in the heat of the moment, with the lives of serving officers potentially on the line, judgments are made quickly. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it is never available when it is needed most.”
I should here perhaps make to points –
As far as I am aware the RSIFP is not issued with tasers, and 2
The RSIPF does possess traditional riot gear equipment and supplies such as riot batons, riot shields, gas guns, tear gas, rubber bullets and now two water cannons supplied by the Chinese (PRC) government – all essentially non lethal equipment if used correctly with proper training and used during public order disturbances, even such events that have in past years evolved into rioting.
Reading the piece by Psychoanalyst Ken Eisold, when he wrote –
“Newsweek reminded us last week of something about the recent riots that many politicians would prefer not to think: "If there's one underlying condition that these movements share, it has to do with unemployment and bitter poverty among people who desire to be part of the middle class, and who are keenly aware of the sharp inequality between themselves and their country's wealthy elite."
Distracted by the flames and the looting, we can easily forget that these are, as Newsweek put it, "social revolutions with a small ‘r,' protests against social conditions that have become unbearable."
I believe I am correct in having earlier recorded that outbreaks of public disorder often occasioned in the past in the Solomon Islands have been deeply rooted in underlying social conditions, such as I outlined in my most recent letter to the local media, and need addressing.
Using lethal firearms on citizens protesting about what is perceived as social injustice in local society is not the answer and will only lead to further injustice, weaken the trust, respect and confidence in the RSIPF and will likely amount to a lack of confidence in the government of the day.
The PRC police officers have so far given the members of the RSIPF training in riot duties and advised on police deployment using non-lethal force, but puzzling to me why replica lethal firearms have featured in their training demonstrations.
Australia, in my personal opinion, should have focused thoroughly on retraining the RSIPF in the use of their existing traditional riot training equipment and deployment procedures for outbreaks of public order, not by supplying lethal firearms, especially when the Australian police’s record on firearms use is still under some question back home.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
