02-11-2015, 03:03 PM
(02-11-2015, 01:27 PM)Duchess Wrote: So the police killed two of the hostages and hurt others. Jesus Christ. They did more damage than the bad guy.
Australian authorities are working to ascertain exactly what happened at the cafe, and investigating whether it could have been handled differently by police (without casualties).
I saw comments under the news articles indicating that the police botched the rescue attempt. I'm not sure that's the case though.
Police in Sydney waited hours upon hours before storming in. During that time, several hostages escaped without harm. And though there were over a dozen hostages, only two died (not to minimize their deaths in any way). At the point that police finally stormed in, the gunman had just executed the cafe owner.
My understanding is that in taking out the gunman before he could execute more hostages, bullets fired by police ricocheted and that's what ultimately killed Katrina Dawson and injured some of the other hostages. Could that have been avoided without the likelihood of losing even more hostage lives? I don't know, but it will be interesting to hear what comes up as the inquest continues.