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2010/06: Should there be a ban on Australian police conducting high speed pursuits?
Introduction to the media issue
Video clip at right: (May not run in other than Internet Explorer)
TOP: A March 20, 2010 ABC News report on the aftermath of a high-speed police pursuit of a stolen car in Canberra, ACT.
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What they said...
'The police car is the most dangerous weapon in the police's arsenal'
Comment made by the father of a 21-year-old university student, killed as a bystander during a police pursuit in Canberra in 2005
'The public want us to go out there and be strong and be courageous and do the job that we are paid to do'
New South Wales police commissioner, Andrew Scipion
The issue at a glance
On March 20, 2010, four people died in Canberra after a police pursuit. It is claimed that police had called off the chase minutes before the crash. The driver of the car being pursued is said to have gone through a red light at over 100 kilometres an hour and then ran into the side of a car carrying a four-month-old baby boy and his parents. The child and his parents were killed. The driver of the stolen car died shortly afterwards, while his teenage passenger remains in a serious condition in hospital.
New South Wales police had been pursuing the car from Queanbeyan south-east of the capital before the accident.
After the crash, the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties called for a moratorium on police chases. The mother of Clea Rose, a young Canberra university student who was killed during a police chase five years ago, has also claimed that this recent crash is further evidence that pursuits should be wound back.
Police have dismissed such calls as 'unrealistic' and consider it premature to place blame on the police officers involved.
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