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Australian police establish new unit to counter lone attackers

Xinhua, May 16, 2017 Adjust font size:

Victoria Police will establish a new intelligence unit to identify, monitor and prevent lone attackers, it was revealed on Tuesday.

The creation of the highly specialized unit, which will consist of Victoria Police officers and mental health experts, comes in the wake of six people being killed by a crazed motorist in Melbourne's Central Business District (CBD) in January.

It is alleged that Dimitrious Gargasoulas hit 37 people when he drove his car into the pedestrian-only section of the Bourke Street shopping mall hours after he stabbed his own brother following a fight between the two.

Victoria Police is optimistic that the new unit will be able to identify fixated people on a path to violence, as they believe Gargasoulas was.

Members of the unit would then coordinate health and social support for those people.

High-concern people would be placed in clinic for treatment.

It is estimated that ten people are killed in Victoria every year by offenders who have been rejected from mental health care.

A similar unit operating in Queensland, the Queensland Fixed Threat Assessment Centre (QFTAC), identifies and deals with 150 possible lone attackers every year.

Michele Pathe, founder of the QFTAC, said that half of those identified as potential threats in Queensland were admitted to clinics as involuntary patients.

"A lot of work may go into even just one individual, but you may well be preventing something much worse that effects a lot of people," Pathe told News Limited on Tuesday.

"If there is no mental illness we don't stop there. It is not primarily about mental illness as much as it is about trying to address the risk."

"If they have guns we get the guns removed, if they need more supports in the community we put structure around them and support."

Victoria Police considers lone attackers a bigger threat than terrorism due to the unpredictable nature.

A Victorian Government spokesperson refused to comment on the new unit which will reportedly cost 1.5 million U.S. dollars. Endit