Putting on my ex-military hat.

If you're going to emplace a sniper, you need a good shooting position with a good and CLEAR line of sight.

Those positions were filled with media and cameras, who (1) would have objected strenuously to being moved and (2) would have objected even MORE if they were shot THROUGH. . .

I fear political correctness is the cause. Historically in the west stalling for time is the best tactic for hostage outcomes. So police were using standard protocols. In the future police will have to profile jihadi hostage situations and move quickly and very aggressively to take out jihadi hostage takers. Don't give them time to take control of the situation. They intend to die, which traditional Western hostage takers do not. There WILL be casualties, which will lead to media and politicians second guessing police tactics. This is going to be a very hard lesson for the West to learn. For example the militarization of police is justified in these circumstances, not when retrieving library fines. Another example of refusing to understand our enemy.

It's entirely possible there was a sniper there, but he never had a clean shot.

From what I saw, the only view into the shop was through the front window – and the perp usually had hostages standing there.

Reality is what happens when you're busy making other plans; sometimes things just don't work.

We have a lack of knowledge of the fine details of the situation - critical details. Rather than saying they were wrong, how about if we say that *we* don't know, but can hope they will learn from this?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that shooting someone in the head thru a glass window of unknown character is not as easy as it is made out by Hollywierd.

Tho I do see that Australia does field the Barrett M82, and maybe the armor piercing ammunition would have been up to the task?

Amy. . .

It's been my experience that media IGNORE the police, and throw hissys when asked to do something by the police. . .

> I'm gonna go out on a limb and
> say that shooting someone in the
> head thru a glass window of unknown
> character is not as easy as it
> is made out by Hollywierd.

Exactly. Exactly.

☑

And gunnery is the least of it.

Even thirty hours after the event, you'll have a whole lot more solid information about who's who and what's what than did the people who faced this problem in the moment. The perp's neighbor's will have been interviewed twice, affirming again (this time in broad daylight) that the perp was a violent extremist or whatever. Confidence in the report will be much higher than it was during the crisis, when a cop in a cruiser had knocked on the neighbor's door at midnight to ask 4 questions in thirty seconds. And after thirty hours, even MORE people nearby would confirm the neighbor's assessment.

But in the heat of a crisis like that, you don't start assigning snipers just because the first cop said the neighbor said he was a naughty man.

Or...

I just hate this kind of presumption more than anything in the world.

With all the SHIT we've seen out of cops in recent months, it's pathetic that people —comfortable and safe in their homes an ocean or two away— presume they know how police should dispense violent death to bad guys.

I fuckin' hate that. I think you don't understand the MORALITY of the question, let alone the politics, logistics or marksmanship.

Keith's actually nice in his response about it.

But I think this…

> Sorry, but media don't rule
> placement when there's a hostage
> crisis.

…is ferociously oblivious to the context of the crisis.

WHO are you being sarcastic to? ("Sorry, ...")

WHAT are you being sarcastic about?

When you imagine criminals, police, media, passersby and family clusteredon a city street during a crisis like that —each unsure which is in the shoes of the next person on the sidewalk— where is the voice of authority for which sarcasm is an appropriate depiction?



"Sorry, ..."

I think you don't understand the MORALITY of the question

Thats becuase you "comfortable and safe in their homes an ocean or two away" insist on making morality into some bizarre, byzantine, Rube Golbergesque, zero sum calculation.

Guy said he'd kill innocent (in that they had nothing to do with what he was protesting) hostages, morality suggests we kill him right away to protect the innocent

Three words: no clear shot.

I agree with Kim du Toit.

I disagree that with the popular, egotistical daydream that 'While thousands of miles away and never having been involved in a surprise incident of unspeakable horror and violence, I'd have known exactly how to make everyone who happened to be in the area behave nicely so other people would be able to kill whoever I wanted them to kill.'

Or whatever.

Does everybody understand how many layers of presumptuous fantasy have to be stacked on top of each other before you get a blog post like this?

I'll readily concede that Australians aren't the perfectly macho partners in strength and stoicism that we'd like as we in the United States carry the rest of the world into what looks like another difficult and dangerous century. M'kay? Stipulated.

Two points.

• No more obnoxiously than the Americans from whom they learned these silly postures, Australians tend to think of themselves as very nice people. And in my single visit to their country 10 years ago, they certainly seemed to be wonderfully gentle. As I was flying back through Cairns after a scuba trip, I was asked if I'd mind posing for photographs in the security stream for a new airport brochure as my bags were inspected. They couldn't have been nicer about it. I was halfway over the Pacific before realizing I'd been selected because in vacation garb, I looked like a long-haired, drug-running hippie-freak. Even then, I felt flattered as Hell. Aussies are adorable.
  
  
• An urban circumstance of hostage-taking is essentially a no-win sitch for law enforcement, no matter how well-equipped, well-trained or clear-headed. No matter what you do, people will criticize you afterwards for not turning it into a weekend in Disneyland for everyone involved... And when there have been casualties, that criticism is going to cost you sleep, no matter how uniformed and baseless it may be.
  
  Because that criticism is abjectly cruel.

It takes two to do this tango. One shooter to break the glass, a second to hit the target. They have to have trained together so the second shooter goes on the report of the first one's shot. It isn't as easy as it sounds plus you have to have an on scene commander who will take responsibility for the shot(s).

I bet an all girl sniper team coulda done it.

Since the terrorist threatened he had a bomb, maybe the police thought he might have a hand held switch on the bomb which if he were wearing it, might be set off if either squeezed or released, so they held off on sniping him.