The AFP is today paying tribute to the brave AFP members who risked their lives to protect their community during the 1993 Jolimont Siege.
Police were called to the Dickson Pool in Canberra on 29 November, 1993 after a staff member had been shot in a targeted attack by his then girlfriend’s ex-partner.
Officers arrived at the scene within minutes and locked down the pool, but the offender fled in his utility and the worst was yet to come.
Police were then called to another incident after a car utility had swerved off the road and crashed into the front entrance of the Jolimont Centre, before reversing and driving into the building a second time, into a travel company office. While police didn’t know it at the time, the offender was the same man who shot the staff member at Dickson Pool.
Seconds later, the utility exploded, shattering the glass windows of the building and engulfing the vehicle in flames.
Pedestrians fled the scene as the man shouted “Get back!” and began firing live rounds of ammunition. No members of the public were injured.
Emergency services arrived promptly at the building and firefighters began pumping thousands of litres of water onto the fast-spreading flames, while police focussed on corralling members of the public and assessing the situation.
One of the police members who responded was Sergeant (then Constable) Mark Usback, who had just completed his basic Specialist Operation Team (SOT) operator’s course three days prior.
In 1993, the AFP SOT, now known as Special Operations, was a small, part-time unit. Its members undertook routine general policing, traffic enforcement or investigative duties, until they were called on to undertake tactical taskings such as executing high risk search warrants or apprehending armed offenders.
Working under the close instructions of long-term SOT operator Detective Constable Darren Rath (now retired), Usback and two other SOT operators entered the scene with their sidearms drawn.
With no other protective equipment and the heat and smoke soon beating them back, Sergeant Usback still vividly recalls the moment he entered the premises.
“I will never forget the first entry. It was just an overload to the senses with noises like alarms, and smoke,” Sergeant Usback said.
“What literally stopped me in my tracks was being overawed by a waterfall in front of me, cascading down the front of the elevators.
“I just went, what’s that doing there? And then it occurred to me. It was all of the water the firefighters had pumped in which had turned this place into a rainforest with its own internal waterfall.
“It was mind-blowing and it was the first time that I got a little bit concerned, as I then realised couldn’t see my hand in front of my face because the smoke was so thick and so acute.
“I was thinking that I was literally going to bump into the offender, and while I was confident in my skills, it was a different story when I couldn’t see him.”
A four-man team continued to search the large expanse of the building but were limited by the amount of air they carried in their breathing apparatus, loaned to the police at extreme short notice by firefighters.
It was almost impossible to hear each other because of the sound-dampening qualities of the breathing apparatus masks, the loud mechanical noise made by breathing apparatus sets when operators breathed, and the sounds of the fire.
The group had to use hand signals in the fleeting moments they could see each other in the smoke.
Joined by other SOT operators, police searched the building for over an hour, even after the body of the offender was found – with self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Firefighters extinguished, assisted by police who provided armed protection in case of attack.
Coronial inquest formally established the gunman was responsible for the shootings, explosion, fire and his suicide. The man had two failed relationships, including the ending of a marriage – the estranged wife worked at the Jolimont Centre. Fortunately she was not at work on the day.
The so-called Jolimont Siege was a watershed moment for Canberra’s police – an ‘active armed offender’ situation which tested the territory’s emergency agencies to the limit. As a result of the quick response of emergency responders, no further members of the public were injured or harmed that day.
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