Woden Plaza device
ABC 666 Breakfast Show with Deputy Chief Police Officer Commander Shane Connelly
17 May 2006
Ross Solly: If you were out at Woden Plaza yesterday you would have been severely inconvenienced. We’ll find out exactly what happened and what the latest is in that investigation next.
Ross: One of the ACT’s biggest shopping centres was placed in lock down yesterday after a suspicious package was found in a men’s toilet block. Commander Shane Connelly is Deputy Chief Police Officer in charge of investigations, good morning Commander Connelly.
Shane: Good morning Ross, how are you?
Ross: Look I’m well, thankfully pretty well all the time. These events turn out to be false alarms. Was this a false alarm?
Shane: Ross, I won’t in this particular case be able to tell you whether this item was a false alarm or otherwise. What I can tell you is that it was elaborate and it was complex and our decisions were based on the elaborate nature of it and the complexity of that device and investigations regarding the planting of this device is now on, so quite obviously the investigation takes a priority and by not going into those things, that assists us with our investigation.
Ross: So, much more than someone just leaving their shopping lying around.
Shane: Absolutely that. And I think that with a passage of time and once we’ve completed this investigation people will understand why we have taken the processes we have and why we are not going into the detail of the object.
Ross: You’ve now described this as a major investigation.
Shane: Yeah that’s correct, I mean you’ve got to expect with this sort of crime that the investigation is going to be large and it’s going to be thorough. I mean there were shopkeepers and members of the public who were massively inconvenienced yesterday. There was a loss of profit for those shopkeepers and for the centre itself. So whilst it’s not a traditional theft or stealing, there’s a massive loss to those people and we won’t tolerate people planting these devices and disrupting the public or endangering their safety.
Ross: I would assume and I don’t know how much you can tell me about this Commander Connelly but shopping centres have lots and lots of cameras everywhere to keep an eye on people. There must be footage lying around, is there?
Shane: Look we’ll use every source of information we have. We can’t go into that because that’s not in the interest of the investigation at all, to reveal what we have or we haven’t got, as you could understand.
Ross: I think we first heard news of it just after we came off air yesterday at 9 o’clock, how long did it actually take before you could finally declare it’s ok, people can go back.
Shane: Look I believe we handed back about 3:45pm yesterday afternoon. But there’s a process, there’s a set of protocols we go through and in those protocols the centre management is consulted every step of the way. Firstly, as you could understand, we have to assess the item, which is very difficult because it presents a danger and to evacuate on the basis of that initial assessment. And we bring our specialist bomb team in and they conduct a more thorough evaluation.
Ross: Do they have to use robots and things like that?
Shane: They use robotics, they use cameras and they use intelligence. They take measurements; they use the basis of their skills which they’ve gained over many years. But they go out to the wider intelligence community in relation to bombs, including the Australian Bomb Data Centre to see if there is any comparison between other devices that have been seen. On the basis of that, and existing protocols which are consistent throughout the Australian policing, decisions are made in relation to our cordons, how far out we should move, how far we should evacuate. And also you’ve got the secondary risk; if you have a device that was to explode, well then you have the risk inside any building of fire, so you have to have the ACT Fire Brigade there which we work closely with and ACT Ambulance as well.
Ross: So who’s taken over the investigation now?
Shane: Now that moves to the Territory Investigations Group. We’ve had a large number of investigators out there yesterday, canvassing the area looking for potential witnesses. Those inquiries will continue. We also work with our Forensic Services bureau to examine the device. Part of the hard job for our bomb squad people is to try and save part of the crime scene as it is to try and forensically examine, so we’ll go through those processes and continue our investigation.
Ross: Can you remember a situation like this which has taken so long, having to shut down an area because of a possible bomb situation?
Shane: Oh look absolutely and . . .
Ross: Time consuming isn’t it?
Shane: It is and we have to be absolutely vigilant, firstly we have to protect the public, we have to protect the property that we’re trying to prevent damage to but our other major priority is protecting our members. It’s very, very sad to see and it has happened over the years where members of bomb squads have had themselves seriously injured or killed in this process, so we use the latest technology, we take our time, we do it thoroughly and we preserve all of those things.
Ross: And the device itself, has it been declared innocuous?
Shane: Well, I won’t go into that yet, what I will say is that, again it’s a very complex device, we have to examine materials within that device, they have to be tested. What I can say is that it is now rendered safe, and that was the process that we went through with the ACT Fire Brigade, we have to render it safe from an explosive point of view, then we have to render it safe from a hazardous material process. But that doesn’t determine whether there is potential or whether there was potential within the device to explode or cause a fire.
Ross: All right. Look Commander Shane Connelly I know you guys are really busy on this case but thank you for taking time to explain to us and to the hundreds of people who spent time standing outside Woden Plaza yesterday just what the heck’s going on.
Shane: Ross, and look thanks to all of those people they were fabulous, they really did assist us and in these times we have to be thorough and we appreciate their patience.
Ross: That’s Commander Shane Connelly who is the Deputy Chief Police Officer in charge of investigations.
Ends//