There may be “tactical reasons” why the final moments of a man shot dead by police after a multi-day two-state manhunt weren’t captured on camera, a coroner has been told.
Stanley Turvey was brandishing a sawn-off shotgun at police and a woman when he was shot during a confrontation with special operations officers in central Victoria in July.
But the officers, who had been in the Shepparton area for two days following an earlier stand-off with Turvey, weren’t wearing body cameras, and a Taser also used to shoot him didn’t have a Taser-cam.
“One anticipates there may be tactical reasons for those decisions,” Lindsay Spence told the Victorian Coroners Court.
Mr Spence is counsel assisting State Coroner John Cain ahead of a mandatory inquest into Turvey’s death.
A brief of evidence, which includes statements from all officers involved in the incident, is expected to take until February 29 next year to complete.
The court heard Turvey had a lengthy criminal history.
After serving a nearly three-year sentence for armed robbery in Victoria, Turvey was immediately taken into custody and convicted of rape in Queensland and released in December 2022 on a five-year suspended sentence.
He returned to Victoria, where officers were granted a firearms prohibition order, which was served on him in July.
During a routine compliance check on September 18, Turvey armed himself with a double barrel sawn-off shotgun, which he pointed at two officers.
Officers demanded he drop the weapon, retreated and sought cover when he threatened to fire the gun.
When police refused to give him a cigarette unless he dropped the weapon, Turvey fired a single shot into the air and began rummaging through two police cars.
Unable to start them, he took a third car and drove down the street, crashing it into a fence.
Over the following day, he threatened multiple people with the weapon while demanding they drive him to and from NSW.
Among them was a construction worker who was repeatedly punched to the ground.
On September 20, Turvey went to an isolated Ardmona property where, while cleaning his shotgun, he told the resident he wanted to die, and that would “only end one way”.
Air wing, special operations, armed crime and fugitive taskforce officers in the area since the earlier stand-off went to the property and tried to get the occupant to safety.
Turvey appeared and told officers, “I’m going to shoot you, or you’re going to shoot me”.
He approached quickly and got within a metre or two of an officer and the home’s occupant.
Fearing Turvey would fire the weapon at the pair or swing it back towards himself, a special operations officer fired his rifle multiple times, striking Turvey.
The other officer fired his Taser, simultaneously which also struck Turvey.
Despite medical treatment, by police and a MICA ambulance officer, he could not be revived.
No date has been set for the inquest.
– AAP