Police Commissioner Reveals Alleged Threat Maker Was Known to Police
A man who allegedly threatened staff at a state MP's office in Perth was known to police, the state's police commissioner has revealed. The incident has prompted renewed calls for a review of security at electorate offices.
A 56-year-old man who allegedly threatened staff at a state MP's office in Perth was known to police, the state's police commissioner has revealed. The incident has prompted renewed calls for a review of security at electorate offices.
The man, who has been charged with being armed to cause fear, making a threat, and possessing cannabis, faced Perth Magistrates Court yesterday. A magistrate refused him bail, citing a schizophrenia diagnosis, and he is scheduled to appear in court again later this month.
Familiar to Police
Police Commissioner Col Blanch said the man was familiar to police, describing him as "certainly a person who's not well." Commissioner Blanch briefed the leaders of WA's political parties on the current threat level outside state parliament yesterday.
"There's grievances, there's fixated people, there's messaging online and then there's frequency of attendance," he said. "The best thing we can do, in fact, if someone has a grievance and is fixated, we have areas like our Fixated Threat Assessment Centre."
Commissioner Blanch encouraged politicians and their staff to be aware of their surroundings and report any early indicators of risk to police. "It's not a time to be knee-jerk and disappear from our community. It's important [we're there]," he said.
Incident 'Rattling': Beazley
The incident at the state MP's office has left the MP, Hannah Beazley, and her staff shaken. "As we've gotten more details from the police, it has been rattling, and seeing the person go into the custody of police is a relatively confronting thing to see," she said.
Ms Beazley predicted managing threats online would be challenging. "The online nature of a lot of these threats, whether that's by e-mail or through social media, adds real complexity to this and in terms of how you actually monitor it," she said.
Push for Security Review
WA Greens MP Sophie McNeill has called for an urgent review of security at electorate offices, saying threats had become "just a part of the job." "Recently, I received a really graphic message that … was so descriptive in terms of the weapon that they wanted to use against me that I did report," she said.
"[But] you receive so many of them, you wouldn't have time to report them all."