NSW Premier rejects criticism of Bundy’s response

The NSW Premier has rejected criticism of the police response to the Bondi Beach Jewish holiday attack, saying officers acted with “bravery and integrity”.

Some witnesses said police acted too slowly and failed to disarm the two gunmen. Resulting in 15 deaths and dozens of injuries Sunday at Australia’s most famous beach.

“Two officers are currently in intensive care,” Chris Mings said after continuing questions from reporters. “They were not shot in the back as they were running away. They were shot in the front.”

The gunman went on a shooting spree for about ten minutes before police shot two men, killing one and seriously injuring the other.

Others questioned whether adequate security was provided before the shooting.

“They shot, shot, reloaded and then shot,” one witness, Shmulik Scuri, told reporters on the day of the attack, adding that he thought the police “froze.”

Asked about the criticism, Mings said it was “disrespectful” to “jump to conclusions” about police actions.

“They didn’t take a step back. They were using handguns to engage the shooter on the footbridge. The offender was armed with a long-range rifle,” Minns said.

“Anyone who believes that NSW Police are not living up to their responsibilities to the people of this state should be rejected as this is inconsistent with the facts.”

NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon dodged questions about how many police officers had been deployed in advance to secure the incident. He told reporters that police “regularly patrolled the area as they did that day” and that their presence was “based on the threat that existed at the time.”

Australian security agencies said Naveed Akram, the younger of the father-son duo’s alleged gunman, came to their attention in 2019 because of his links, but there was nothing to suggest he posed a risk of violence.

Commissioner Lanyon said: “If there was intelligence that suggested a specific threat at that location or incident, we may have a different policing response.”

NSW Police established Operation Sanctuary to investigate anti-Semitic hate crimes following the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. Regular patrols of high-risk locations are carried out as part of the operation. Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including Bondi, which has a large Jewish population, are a key focus.

Another task force, Pearl Strike Force, was later set up to investigate hate crimes in Sydney.

Dr Vincent Hurley, a former police officer who teaches policing courses at Macquarie University, told the BBC it was “unrealistic” to expect police to know how to respond to every possible situation.

“There’s no training for responding to mass shootings and mass killings like this.”

He noted that police would initially rely on calls from emergency operators and “everyone would give them a different account.”

“They then have to fight through Bondi Beach traffic, which is a nightmare at the best of times.”

At the scene, police will face “absolute chaos” as thousands of people try to escape.

Individual officers also face difficult choices, such as whether to stop to render aid to an injured person or go looking for the shooter, and there is no protocol for these decisions.

Even once a perpetrator is identified, the risk of injuring bystanders in a firefight can lead to complex responses, he said.

“As a police officer, there’s no way I would pull out a gun because all innocent people are innocent,” he added. “This is not what you see on Netflix.”