POLICE WEAPONS BUNGLE

What's wrong with schadenfreude, it couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of blokes...

 

 

POLICE WEAPOMS BUNGLE
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Lachlan Heywood

      The Sunday-Mail (12-06-05)  
 

EMBARRASSED Queensland police can't find one of their own deadly sub-machineguns.

The loss of the gun by the elite Special Emergency Response Team was followed this week by the disappearance of a police issue handgun from an officer's home in Arundel on the Gold Coast.

The handgun was stolen along with police shirts and a police cap.

The incidents could lead to a tightening of security for more than 8000 weapons carried by police across Queensland.

The Heckler and Koch MP5 9mm automatic weapon was reported missing from a Cairns police storage room in mid-March during a routine stocktake.

A joint investigation into the loss of the weapon, capable of firing 800 rounds a minute, is nearing completion but the gun's whereabouts remains a mystery.

It is believed it was lost during a training exercise in dense scrub somewhere in remote far north Queensland.

Firearm Dealers Association of Queensland president Robert Nioa said the loss of such a weapon was incredible.

"I'd be very surprised if it was just lost. That's almost unheard of," he said.

"SERT guys are very strict when checking weapons in and out of an armoury."

Cairns Inspector Russell Rhodes – who headed the inquiry along with an officer from the Ethical Standards Command – said he was confident the gun had not fallen into the wrong hands.

"It's not an ideal investigation to have to conduct but we have no grave concerns (the weapon) is with the criminal element."

Insp Rhodes said a string of similar incidents involving missing police firearms across the state in recent years could lead to recommendations for tighter weapon security controls for police.

"We may have to strengthen auditing procedures," Insp Rhodes said.

In August last year, The Sunday Mail revealed a number of incidents where police lost, misplaced or had their weapons stolen.

Some went missing from secure police station safes and are yet to be recovered. In one case, a police officer lost his pistol while on duty, only to have it returned by the mother of a suspect he was investigating.

Two other officers lost pistols from their holsters. In both cases, police had been chasing suspects through bushland.

Both weapons were found, one with the help of a State Emergency Services search.

Insp Rhodes said the emergency response officers who lost the sub-machinegun in the March incident often carried up to three firearms on exercises and it was possible the weapon was left behind.

 

 

Strengthen auditing procedures? Bah! Call the WLB in, we say, they've got answers to everything...and if they don't, they can write a new Regulation in the public interest...

 

 

 
 

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