Teen killers double in 12 months : "National homicide figures released by the Australian Institute of Criminology yesterday showed 57 males aged between 15 and 19 committed homicides in 2005-06, compared with just 22 in the previous year."
Punching. Kicking. Knives. Where are those ideas coming from? The number of females killed rose from 87 to 113. So what is it with the boys? There is a story today about some young men trying to push another young man in front of a train in Melbourne. They have footage of the two of them looking for him on the platforms. It started with an argument between the two and the man's friends. Fortunately people at the station hauled him up to safety. It's not confined to Australia, of course. In Berlin one of our SA tourists has been stabbed 5 times because of some sort of argument outside a fast food shop. Then there was a gun scare at a primary school in Sydney today. The man had a gun and the children were locked in their classes until the police could catch him. And numerous other stories about people killing or trying to kill each other.
The saddest one of all, and our hearts go out to the friends and family of Police Constable Brett Irwin who was shot in Queensland today, was because he went to make a check on someone who had breached his bail conditions. The man wasn't supposed to be dangerous, but I think that will be cold comfort for Constable Irwin's friends and family.
We are going to have to haul together as a team and community here. Truly. No point in telling me the police are bad. I have met two and yes, they were pretty bad. But the heaps of others I have met and that I read about every day are trying to help keep us safe...and then a Constable Irwin goes to check on something routine and his family and friends must now mourn his loss. We need to do something about people who just kill people. They argue and then think killing is all right. They get it wrong and then killing is all right. We are becoming the unsuspecting. There are so many of us who are good and who are being held hostage by the few who are so extreme and crazy. They really are. We need to change that behaviour and it is something we all have to participate in. We also need to continue to help and support the police because they are getting more successes than failures. But we also need to remind the police to look after themselves. Nothing is routine any more. Nothing. There were things we could take for granted. Now we cannot and what changed that?
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