Stateline
Natalie Whiting and Monique Hore
Posted 2h ago
2024-May-27  Mon


.......The day before the presentation, an email went out warning that Victoria Police had advised there would be "graphic footage that some attendees may find confronting" and that people might want to "excuse themselves" if they found it distressing.

In the aftermath, multiple staff said the warning was insufficient for what was shown.

One staff member said to put it "bluntly", police "should have said 'we are about to show you someone get stabbed to death'."

Victoria Police told the ABC its warnings gave people "ample opportunity" to leave the presentation.

Internal emails from the justice department said "explicit videos and even CCTV footage of a murder was shown", along with "very graphic and violent footage" from a "range of serious violent incidents including stabbings and still images involving young people and adults allegedly involved both as victims and perpetrators".

On eight separate occasions in the documents, the word "gratuitous" is used to describe the graphic content shown.





Among the audience were people who knew both victims and offenders.

"Some of those in attendance are also members of our vibrant African and South Sudanese Australian communities, including those who personally knew the victims of serious assaults and who were shown video in the presentation of these assaults," one email said.

While several people acknowledged the "traumatic experiences" officers faced, and the need for policy makers to "understand the practical and operational realities" of frontline police work, they didn't think the presentation helped achieve this.

One person commented they were "disturbed" by "the casual way the violent imagery was discussed" and another said the commentary was "upsetting … flippant, and racist in several points."

It is unclear how many of the attendees complained based on the consolidated feedback provided in the emails, but the secretary of the department described it as "significant staff concerns".

Victoria Police says it received "a combination of both positive and negative feedback" following the presentation.