Bean bag rounds fired at Krista Kach during a siege in Newcastle last week penetrated her chest and hit her heart, killing the 47-year-old, the New South Wales police acting commissioner says.
Kach’s death is believed to be the first fatality in NSW caused by bean bag rounds and the use of the ammunition has now been temporarily suspended.
A review into what NSW police have previously called the “less than lethal option” would include an “international scoping exercise” to determine if a batch of bean bag rounds was flawed, the acting commissioner, David Hudson, said on Tuesday.
He also admitted that when it came to mental health incidents “showing up in uniform … can escalate a situation rather than deescalate it”.
Kach died in John Hunter hospital on Thursday night after officers forced their way into her apartment after a nine-hour standoff. She was Tasered and shot with bean bag rounds. Police claim Kach had earlier threatened officers with an axe.
Hudson said on Tuesday that Kach died when the bean bag rounds penetrated her chest and hit her heart.
The official cause of death was a gunshot wound to the chest, according to an interim report from the NSW coroner, the acting commissioner said.
NSW police’s tactical operations group has attended and resolved 182 high-risk incidents this year. Bean bag rounds were used 15 times without the “tragic outcome” seen on Thursday, Hudson said.
“Unfortunately in this case, which happens in a small number of cases, it has proven fatal,” he told reporters.
“It would appear that the bean bag or supersoft round, as it’s described by manufacturers, has entered the body of the deceased and caused her death. It was not intended to be a fatal outcome.”
Hudson said the ban on bean bag rounds would remain in place until a full review was completed.
“This is the first [fatality from bean bag munition] I have heard of or can remember in NSW,” he said.
“The bean bag or supersoft round is used internationally thousands of times per year. It is used by all tactical groups within Australia and on very few occasions we have tragic outcomes as we have seen last Thursday.”
Hudson said the internal investigation into Kach’s death was ongoing and the officers involved were being interviewed. The evidence gathered would ultimately be presented to the coroner.
Kach’s family on Monday said police had “assured” them before the shooting she would be looked after by medical professionals.
“We told the police in no uncertain terms that she was not well that day and she needed medical help,” her family said in a statement.
“Our mother was not a dangerous person, she has lived through difficult circumstances but she was a loving and capable person who cared for people and her family.
“The only person in danger when the police broke into our mother’s home and the many hours leading up to that moment was our mother.”
The family said Kach “had experienced some mental distress in her life” but they were advocating for her wellbeing with police prior to the shooting.
The NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson has been in contact with Kach’s children. She said on Monday that a daughter asked police to let her speak to her mother before officers forced their way into the apartment – but the request was denied.
Hudson said not allowing Kach’s family to speak with her on Thursday was “part of the negotiation strategy”.
“My understanding is that sometimes [involving family] can escalate the situation. We have specifically trained negotiators who were deployed to that scene who were trying to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the matter – unfortunately, they’ve failed,” he said.
He added that the force was undertaking a review into police involvement in mental health incidents. NSW police were deployed to 64,000 mental health incidents last year and “to be perfectly honest many of those incidents we probably should not have been deployed to,” he said on Tuesday.
“Showing up in uniform, showing up with police training, can escalate a situation rather than deescalate it, and we would suggest that perhaps [mental health] clinicians are better placed to resolve some of these incidents.”
The NSW Greens are pushing for a parliamentary inquiry into police responses to vulnerable people. Kach’s death was the latest in a string of fatal interactions.
