Right: A tribute placed near the scene of the shooting of Tyler Cassidy.
Background information
Timeline of events leading to the shooting of Tyler Cassidy(The following information was taken from a report published in The Australian on December 12, 2008. It refers to events believed to have occurred the preceding evening, December 11, 2008.
The full text of this document can be found at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24789822-5006785,00.html)
7.00pm-8.30pm (AEDT)
Tyler Cassidy is involved in a fight at family home in Northcote, and takes two knives but family members disarm him.
Tyler leaves the house angry and upset and goes to Northcote Plaza shopping centre. He goes into K-Mart store and steals two knives, according to a witness. He slashed boxes as he left armed with the knives. Police are contacted.
9.30pm
Tyler is seen behaving irrationally with the knives in the centre carpark and goes to All Nations Park next to the shopping centre. More calls to police are made.
Four police officers - two males and two females - arrive and try to negotiate with the boy.
He approaches officers so they deploy capsicum spray, but it does not subdue him.
Tyler urges police to kill him or he will kill them. He approaches one officer and a warning shot is fired. He ignores demands to back off and three of the four officers fire, killing him.
History of police shootings in Victoria
(Part of the information presented below comes from an ABC report presented in April, 2000. The full text of this report can be read at http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s118576.htm)
In Victoria police shootings are no longer common but throughout the eighties and nineties Victorian police had the worst reputation in Australia for using maximum lethal force in threatening situations.
Between 1984 and 1995 they shot dead 35 people, twice as many as the rest of Australia's police forces combined. Those killed were usually known or suspected criminals or people suffering from mental illness. Sometimes the victims were armed, sometimes not.
By 1994 community confidence was so shaken police command announced the re-training of the entire force. Under Project Beacon officers learned non-violent techniques to disarm offenders in high pressure situations. Capsicum spray which temporarily blinds and chokes offenders was also introduced.
A further seven police shootings have occurred since 1995. The rate of police shootings has again escalated this year, with Tyler Cassidy's death marking the fourth shooting incident. Two men were killed earlier in the year, after allegedly attacking police.