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It took only a second for the first round of gunshots to send the Melbourne shopping centre into a frenzy.
Terrified shoppers ducked for cover behind chairs, food kiosks and planter boxes as two gunmen stormed down the shop-lined hallways indiscriminately firing at anyone in sight.
In February, Victoria Police officers took part in a counter-terrorism exercise at a shopping centre designed to train uniformed police on how to respond to armed offender incidents.Jason South
An announcement blared out across the speaker system: “Emergency, emergency. There’s an active, armed offender in the centre. Police have been notified”.
“Where’s Billy?” a man called out in a panic before another round of gunfire erupted.
One of the shooters made his way to the food court and was aiming his gun at a man standing beside a coffee shop.
“Don’t shoot,” the man pleaded.
The scenarios included two gunmen attacking shoppers.Jason South
But it was too late. The words had barely left his mouth when a round of bullets struck him across the chest, causing him to collapse on the tiled floor.
Within minutes, police stormed the food court and forced the masked gunman to surrender outside a dumpling restaurant.
Fortunately, the scene was fictional, part of a counter-terrorism exercise by Victoria Police, Fire Rescue Victoria and Ambulance Victoria designed to train officers on how best to respond to call-outs about armed offenders.
The Age was able to observe and photograph the drill, which is part of a push by the Department of Home Affairs to upskill frontline staff following the deadly Bondi Junction Westfield attack in 2024, where Joel Cauchi fatally stabbed six people.
The safety glasses worn by participants and colourful guns are the only giveaway that the incident is staged.Jason South
The exercise also comes amid a renewed interest in the country’s counter-terrorism capabilities following the terror attack at Bondi Beach in December, and an attempted bombing in Perth at an Invasion Day rally in January, where an explosive device that failed to detonate was thrown at the crowd and landed metres away from a state MP.
Authorities are also in a heightened state of alert following the US-led attacks on Iran and subsequent retaliatory strikes across the Middle East by Tehran.
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Victoria Police says it has not received credible intelligence of attacks being planned, but Australia’s terror threat level remains at “probable”. This means ASIO estimates there is a greater than 50 per cent chance of an onshore attack or attack planning in the next 12 months.
Counter-terrorism senior sergeant Jason Van Doren said that while terrorist attacks were fairly rare, police had to be ready to act, and that the deadly attack at the Chanukah by the Sea event in Bondi showed violent incidents could happen anywhere.
Police staff play the roles of offenders, injured shoppers and even bystanders filming the incident.Jason South
“For us to be prepared in all those settings makes us react better,” he said.
Police officers in Victoria have also been confronted with an increasing number of violent incidents, including machete brawls in shopping centres and armed robberies, prompting the expansion of police and PSO patrols in retail hubs.
Van Doren said the lessons officers took from responding to a counter-terrorism exercise could also be applied to these types of conflicts.
It was about 11pm, as stragglers still made their way back to their cars after a night at the movies, when drill participants began assembling inside the shopping centre. Over the next few hours, police officers and shopping centre security were confronted with three separate scenarios – a machete brawl, a stabbing rampage, and the shooting.
Police say the training is vital for not just counter-terror officers, but also general duties police, who are often the first to respond.Jason South
The training is designed to be as realistic as possible. Participating officers are not given any prior information about the exercise and respond to a callout from a real Triple Zero dispatcher.
The “victims” are dressed in blood-stained clothes, and there is plenty of yelling, calls for help and expletives throughout – including a knife-wielding man screaming out for his KFC fix. The safety glasses and colourful guns are the only giveaway that the incident is staged.
During the first incident – a machete brawl that broke out in the food court about 1.20am – police teams arrived in droves with their guns drawn and surrounded the offenders, who were chasing each other through a sea of tables and hacking at the furniture. A man in a white hoodie dropped his weapon and threw his arms in the air as officers circled. The biggest headache for police was a couple of witnesses trying to capture the action on video.
“Just filming, mate,” one man kept telling the officers trying to move him away.
An offender surrenders following a machete brawl.Jason South
The second incident – a stabbing rampage through the centre at 2.30am – ended with police corralling the knife-wielding offender in a hallway, forcing his surrender.
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One of the shooters in the third scenario wasn’t as fortunate and was “shot” by police amid the chaos, while the second gunman was arrested after a brief negotiation.
More than 100 police staff participated in the exercise by playing the role of shooters, stabbers, machete-wielding youths, members of the public, injured shoppers and responders.
And for the first time, body-worn camera and CCTV footage of the incident was live-streamed in a cinema at the centre for senior law enforcement figures to observe.
Acting superintendent Olivia Freeman was among those with their eyes glued to the movie screen.
“It’s almost like being there in real time to really get a feel for what they were experiencing,” Freeman said. “In the footage, you could see it was quite hectic at times.”
By 4.30am, the exercise had come to an end. The pretend offenders had been neutralised, and police were washing down an early breakfast of hash browns and bacon and egg rolls with a cuppa from a food truck outside.
Freeman said the training, the sixth Home Affairs-funded drill since July, was crucial for general duties police officers who, alongside security guards, are often the first to arrive to the scene of a violent incident.
A gun-wielding “offender” inside the shopping centre. Jason South
“It could be someone that just graduated the day before that could be responding or someone who’s been in the job a significant amount of time,” Freeman said.
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“So it’s really important that we all work together and be constantly upskilling.”
In the event of an attack, people should escape, hide and tell, police say.
Move away from danger as quickly and quietly as possible, if it is safe to do so. If escaping is not an option, they should hide, silence their mobile phones and contact Triple Zero as soon as it can be done safely.
More information on what to do during an attack can be found on Australian National Security website.
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