Another person who needed help has been killed by the NSW Police. She was a mother, she was in her own home, she was unarmed, she was begging the police to leave her alone to stop harassing her, that she was safe but they were making her unsafe, that she had done nothing that warranted the siege. After hours of relentless pursuit the Police broke into her home, discharged weapons at her and she is now dead. 

We need a Parliamentary Select Committee of Inquiry into deaths in the community caused by the NSW Police. 

A nine hour police siege at a 47 year old woman’s home ended with the use of deadly force by the NSW Police despite the woman repeatedly requesting to be left alone in her own home and that she was in distress and no threat to anyone. She was lying on her bed watching an animated film about happiness when the Police broke into her home and discharged two different types of weapons against her, she was dead soon after.

This is the fourth time in as many months that a person in distress has been killed by the NSW Police when they were called out to help. The tasering of 95-year old Cooma Grandmother Clare Nowland should have been the moment that use of deadly force by the NSW Police was called in for review by the Labor Government.

Instead, just two months later NSW Police shot and killed a man in his apartment in Glebe when neighbours were worried about his well being and called them for a welfare check. Instead of de-escalating the situation and helping the man, they shot and killed him. 

Now, a woman has been harassed and tortured by the NSW Police for 9 hours in her own home while experiencing a non-violent mental illness episode only to have her home broken into and then shot by the people that were supposed to protect her.

There is something going terribly wrong with policing in this State and the most vulnerable people in our community and their families are paying the ultimate price. 

We must shine a light now and deliver accountability and reform.