Notebook saves cop from stabbing attack

[sosteve]

Notebook saves cop from stabbing attack
November 14, 2010, 2:00 pm

A New South Wales detective is lucky to be alive after his notebook saved him from being stabbed to death last night.

The detective was trying to speak to a man accused of assault at a home in Austinmer, south of Sydney, when he lunged at him with a knife.

The knife tore through the detective's shirt and hit his police notebook in his left pocket.

The man has been charged with attempted murder after a five-hour ordeal with police.

Regional commander Kyle Stewart says all police officers carry a notebook, but not always near their heart.

"The inspector involved certainly carries a notebook with him at all times, it's part of our police kit," he said.

"All police officers do. What it is that was quite fortunate for this police officer in this instance was that he carried it where he did."

The inspector is recovering from the incident.

[Aussie George]

For info of the Yanks, we don't usually wear body armour here. Many reasons - none are good. My current dept is the first one I found that allows us to even buy it for personal use and then have to jump through hoops and pay for it ourselves. We do have big vests for known firearms incidents, but every time I have put one on, I have never needed it, and every time I have needed one on, it was in the boot (trunk) of the car.

Anyway, when I was at my first dept in 2001, just after starting at the Academy, I became aware of a Police shooting. Basically Police went to lock up bad guy, bad guy came at senior cop with a knife, junior cop (she had only recently graduated from the academy - a couple of weeks I think) shot and killed bad guy. Cop that was stabbed was hit in the left pocket with knife. His notebook saved him. I was told within days of that by the OC of the Academy (Senior SGT AGAR) to always carry my notebook in my left shirt pocket and have to this day.

I managed to track down the Coroners Report to that shooting and here is a part of it. This is the senior cop's evidence in relation to what happened.

findings for Grant Andrew Wanganeen

3.24. The person then came back around the corner of the house. Welch’s description of what happened then is as follows:

'A. When he was running down the veranda, running away from me, I told him that I wanted to speak to him about a breach of a restraining order and he just continued to run. Then when he reappeared he just said to me, 'What do you want to talk about?' And he was pretty calm and I was expecting him to be more what we call 102, intoxicated with alcohol, but given his demeanour he seemed pretty cool and calm when he spoke to me, and I continued to walk towards him and he continued to walk (towards) me and I was just keeping obs on his right hand where he was holding the tea towel.

Q. What do you recall happening next.

A. Well, I thought he was inside honestly doing the dishes because he had a tea towel in his hand. I thought he'd seen us pull up out the front, thought he'd elude us, take off, and then thought he was confronted by the police officers at the front and thought the game was up and was coming back to have a chat about the restraining order. And next minute I got approximately about a metre, a metre and a half from him, and he pulled back his right hand exposing a blade in the tea towel and then lunged at me, at my left chest pocket area.

Q. Did it strike you.

A. I felt it hit me but I was blocking at the same time using open hand techniques.

Q. Where did you feel it hit you.

A. The left chest area.

Q. Did you say or do anything when it hit you.

A. Yes, I was quite taken by seeing a knife, quite such a large size and I just yelled out, '****.'

Q. Did you have anything in that pocket.

A. I had my notebook. I always carry my notebook in my left pocket.

Q. Did you subsequently later that night have a look at your shirt and your notebook.

A. Yes, I did.

Q. What did you see.

A. My shirt pocket had been pierced and my notebook had been pierced.

Q. You know how it was pierced.

A. By the knife. …

A. What happened next was then he retracted and then he thrust it again towards the middle of my chest area. As he did this I once again blocked, and at the same time I was able to get hold of his wrists and I was applying a wrist lock and I was, at that time, going to break his arm and disable that arm but he quickly grabbed the knife with his other hand, using his left hand grabbed it out of his right, and then he lunged once again to my right side and as he did that I blocked and thought, 'I got to get away from this,' the deceased, and pushed him back.

…

Q. Had you done or said anything, directed to the deceased, to justify, in your opinion, him attacking you with a knife at that stage.

A. No.

Q. How would you describe the deceased's ability in the use of the knife.

A. Very professional.

Q. What did you believe the deceased was attempting to do.

A. I had no doubt in my mind, he was attempting to seriously injure me.

Q. You've told his Honour that he transferred the knife from his right to his left hand.

A. Yes.

Q. And made another lunge at you, which you blocked.

A. Yes.

Q. And you then said that you needed to get some distance between you. What did you do.

A. At that stage, I'd picked up this guy was pretty professional with his knife techniques and that's why I thought, 'I've got to get some distance between this person and myself and resort to my next level', which I felt, at that time, I'd use my ASP baton on him. And as I blocked him, which we call a block and a parry, which is a push on the chest, getting some distance, I got about, I suppose, it would be about 1 m, 2 m from him. To the right of me I could hear my female partner yelling out, 'Put the knife down. Put the knife down', as this altercation was going on. Then I heard a bang from that direction. I didn't know where the shot had come from, or who'd fired the shot.' (T492-4)

[Aussie George]

and further findings from the Coroner...

6.15. I accept that the deceased struck at Welch with considerable force, so much so that the knife penetrated his notebook (Exhibit C69d, and Exhibit C25b, photographs 50-59, and 60-62). These photographs also demonstrate clearly the mark where the knife penetrated Welch’s shirt pocket prior to penetrating the notebook. It is also noteworthy that these marks were in the area of Welch’s left chest, so that the knife would have penetrated his heart if it had entered his body.

6.16. An examination of the notebook clearly demonstrates that it was struck by the knife with considerable force, so much so that it penetrated the cardboard cover, the notebook cover and several documents in the sleeve, and to the extent that it substantially bent the blade.

6.17. I find that the evidence is overwhelming that the deceased attempted to stab Welch with a knife, and that Welch was extremely lucky that the notebook in his pocket prevented the knife from penetrating his body. I also find that both Welch and Wilsdon correctly apprehended that the deceased intended to kill Welch, and that the discharge of the firearm by Wilsdon in order to prevent that was necessary and justified in the circumstances.

[Aussie George]

Funnily enough the Coroner also recommends trialling and possible introduction of Tasers and body armour...none of which have been implemented as far as I know (in that state - and that was in 2002). My current dept has just rolled out Tasers and we can buy our own vests if we jump through enough hoops. I am in the process of doing that now.

[MikeG]

Dead attacker, no one else seriously hurt. It's win/win. Nice work by Wilsdon.

Luckily he wasn't taking notes. Wouldn't it suck to have your notebook impounded as evidence?

I also didn't think ballistic armor was terribly effective against edged weapons. I guess every little bit helps and if a notebook stopped it, maybe a vest would too? Dunno. I did see some combo edge/ballistic plate inserts but never heard from anyone that used them.

[MikeG]

"I saw the deceased look at me, then look at Constable Welch and then look down at his chest … I saw blood on the deceased’s chest … the deceased raised the knife up above his shoulder … he looked towards me, I thought he was going to throw the knife at me. He then looked at Constable Welch and then threw the knife at Constable Welch … the deceased walked towards me and then got onto the ground … he took about two steps … he went onto his knees and then lay onto his stomach.' (T632-3)"

They give you guys more than single shot pistols, right?

[Aussie George]

They give you guys more than single shot pistols, right?

Yes. The dept that this was used .357 Mag S&W at the time (they have since changed to S&W M&P .40's).

I am guessing that his demeanour changed when the large sucking chest wound appeared where his ribs used to be and that might have reduced the level of threat indicators received by the officers who would have no doubt been re-assessing after each shot. I get the impression the "throwing of the knife" was not a serious threat, and while the offender was still moving forward I am sure it was no longer as threatening as it once was, and that could account for the one shot being fired. It was enough. Also the officer who shot him was about two weeks out of the Academy which might have played into it a bit. If I was working with a Probie with only two weeks experience and I got stabbed and she shot the bad guy, I would most defiinately be writting a good work report in her FTO book!

[Aussie George]

I was asked about our lack of body armour....

In my first dept (where this shooting happened) we signed out a vest at the start of shift. They were big and heavy and not practical to be worn all day. A bit like SWAT without all the side bits.



This is sort of like what we were issued. In the front and back went large ceramic plates but they were only issued in the country due to the lack of large firearms in our metro areas.

Of course it had nothing to do with money.

And my current dept only issues a plate for the front. Their justification for that is "We don't turn our back on the bad guy". Biggest load of **** I have heard in ten years but anyway. Again it comes down to money.

At least in my current dept we are allowed to go out and buy our own covert vests but have to jump through a heap of hoops to do it. Ridiculous but I am in the process of doing it now.

[MikeG]

Yes. The dept that this was used .357 Mag S&W at the time (they have since changed to S&W M&P .40's).

the officer who shot him was about two weeks out of the Academy which might have played into it a bit. If I was working with a Probie with only two weeks experience and I got stabbed and she shot the bad guy, I would most defiinately be writting a good work report in her FTO book!

She rocked. Two weeks and correctly assess threat. Gives proper warnings. Puts one round dead center of mass without hesitation. No need to go through the rest of field training after that. Training over, she gets it. She doesn't even have to learn how to fill out paper work since her FTO owes it to her forever now.

[Aussie George]

She rocked. Two weeks and correctly assess threat. Gives proper warnings. Puts one round dead center of mass without hesitation. No need to go through the rest of field training after that. Training over, she gets it. She doesn't even have to learn how to fill out paper work since her FTO owes it to her forever now.

Hell yeah!


I remember it well because I had just started at the Academy and staff made a point of finding out what happened ASAP so they could use it to give us advice on what to do or not to do - particular telling us to always carry our notebook in our left shirt pocket. It certainly made an impact given that she was at the Academy until around the time we started there and it shoved home the fact that it doesn't matter if you are ten or twenty years on the job or two weeks - bad sh1t can happen.

Only a few months later I graduated and two weeks after that 9/11 - and again I was reminded that this job has it's dangers and we have to be prepared for everything at anytime.