1000 Police vacancies in Victoria | What will you do, when their help won’t arrive?
It’s clear, the recent call by the CAA for retired officers to re-enlist due to a shortage of officers, indicates Police are not sufficiently servicing victims of crime in Victoria. The lack of Police on the street and the adverse impact that’s having on the community is here, and it’s impacting now.
Meet, Pete.
It’s 3am. Pete and, his wife, Jessie are sound asleep in their bedroom in Melbourne, Victoria. Their 4-year-old daughter is asleep in her bedroom, just a few metres down the hallway. Pete wakes, hearing footsteps past his bedroom window. He instantly wonders if it could be a potential intruder and is now on high alert. He wants to get out of bed and investigate but he’s frozen with fear.
Pete shakes Jessie awake and explains what he heard; she hurriedly grabs her phone and dials 000. They answer right away and she whispers her intruder report to the operator. Pete and Jessie wait to be rescued as they listen to windows and doors being rattled in the intruders attempts to force an entry. Time seems to stop completely. “It’s been 15 minutes; where are these police?!” Pete exclaims, through gritted teeth.
Finally, they hear the intruder find his entry. Pete’s stomach lurches as he realises it’s the laundry door, located directly next to his daughter’s bedroom.
Realising a police response was unlikely to coming in time, Pete has no choice - scared or not, he must protect his family. “Stay here and keep calling”, he urgently whispers to Jessie, before launching out of bed to collect his choice of self-defence from his golf bag. ‘A 9 iron should do it’, he thought.
Pete moves stealthily down the hallway toward the lounge room. It’s almost pitch black but, as his eyes adjust he can make out a large, shadowy figure. Pete, unaware his wife was behind him jumps as she flicks on the wall light.
All three pause for what seems like forever, looking at each other. The stranger is dressed in dark overalls and is holding a crowbar. The intruder acts first, walking toward Pete. Before he has a chance to react, Pete sees the man raise his crowbar.
Jessie screams, jolting Pete into action who swings the 9 iron, striking the man on the left-hand side of the head. The crowbar drops to the floor and the intruder collapses. Pete and Jessie waste no time checking on him for signs of life but instead, race to their daughter’s room to pick her out of bed.
Rushing outside, they head to their neighbour’s house across the street, shaken and terrified.
The Police, who arrive at the scene some 20 minutes later, locate the intruder inside the home; he’s still lying on the lounge room floor, now in a pool of blood and is deceased.
A criminal investigation began, and Pete found himself being formally interviewed. He realised quickly, that the police viewed his experience very differently. Despite the unlawful intrusion, Pete had taken a life and he now needed to justify this action in the criminal jurisdiction.
The investigation took 12 months and resulted in Pete charged with manslaughter and murder. He received a Supreme Court trial date and was forced to employ Solicitors and a Barrister; exhausting his family’s available funds. They re-mortgaged their home and added financial stress to their growing list of trauma.
Pete and Jessies marriage was under considerable strain from the stress; Pete was in therapy to treat his PTSD and eventually, they had to sell their house to pay legal bills.
The Supreme Court eventually found Pete not guilty of murder and, not guilty of manslaughter.
At the time of the home invasion, Pete considered his decision to strike the intruder as pure self-defence because with the lack of police appearance, he had believed he had rights to protect his family and himself. Had Pete been Pax Team educated however, his thought processes, behaviours and ultimate actions, would have been vastly different. With no home invasion plan in place, he behaved recklessly instinctively.
Pax Team provides you with the skills to identify offences accurately and instantly and how to make lawful responses with the correct and proportionate use-of-force required for self-defence purposes.
With Pax Team training under his belt, Pete would have been better prepared with offence identification knowledge and use-of-force education, so that he aligned with and had justification, pursuant to the law.
There’s no doubt, Pete’s course-of-life would have been different, had he undertaken Pax Team training.
Be better prepared than John was.
Get The Pax Team Victim Prevention Response Advantage in 2025
Learn about Law Enforcement Legislation
Understand Law Aligning Use-Of-Force guidelines
Realise your Powers-of-Arrest
Learn how to Give Evidence, Make Statements and Appear In Court
Develop your Physical and Mental Control
Build your Intentional-Reaction Skills
Understand your Legal Parameters as a Responder
Use your new law aligning knowledge to protect yourself and others.
