In short:
Three weeks ago, a major Adelaide shopping centre was plunged into lockdown after an alleged armed brawl.
Security experts say more can be done in training and preparing security and retail workers.
What’s next?
South Australian Police is conducting a review into its response to the Westfield Marion incident, but has previously said it was ‘comfortable’ with how the incident was handled.
When reports of people brandishing weapons at an Adelaide shopping centre emerged three weeks ago, centre management and police did not take any chances.
The tragedy of a knife attack at Sydney’s Westfield Bondi Junction that killed six people three months earlier was still front of mind for many Australians, including those at Westfield Marion in Adelaide’s south-west on June 23.
The multi-storey shopping centre was plunged into both chaos and lockdown, with witnesses at the time saying announcements were hard to hear and confusing messages were filling the mall.
Some shoppers sheltered inside shuttered stores while others ran to the exits.
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One witness said “casual” evacuation warnings came from cleaning staff well before centre-wide alerts and electronic signs warning of an armed offender.
Another said a fellow cinema patron stood up in the middle of the movie and announced the centre was evacuating.
Little was publicly known about the details, until police held a press conference about two hours after they were first called to the scene.
By the time police at that press conference announced that the incident was contained to an alleged armed brawl between two groups of boys, the fear of another Bondi Junction attack had already spread through some shoppers and staff at the centre.
Melbourne-based security consultant Tim Wood said confusion, uncertainty, and misinformation were often the reality in scenarios such as the lockdown at Westfield Marion.
“It is a complicated scene,” he said.
“We’re going to have people self-evacuating, people uncertain, people not hearing messages.
“Everyone’s talking and yelling.
“Human nature and behaviours can be quite random in a heightened situation.”
While no-one was injured in the alleged fight, two people were hurt during the evacuation including a 77-year-old woman who suffered a fracture.
Scrutinised response
SA Police had coincidentally conducted an armed offender drill at Westfield Marion shopping centre just 11 days before the incident.
Westfield said the exercise was one of many that have been conducted every couple of years – but the company would not comment on whether it would refine its emergency messaging in the future.
American security consultant Rick Amweg specialises in response planning for active armed offenders and said preparing security guards and shop owners with training was a key part of any response.
“There’s responses that can be taught and can be practised and trained for in the event an attack like this should occur,” he said.
“When your body is in stress, it will do what it remembers, what it is trained, what it is prepared to do, and so training is a big piece of that, meaning that you need to practice that through exercises and understanding how we would react in those circumstances.”
While questions were raised the day after whether the response was an over-reaction, Premier Peter Malinauskas said SA Police deserved commendation and high praise for their swift action with the little information they had.
A day after the incident, SA Police assistant commissioner Scott Duval said he was “comfortable” with the way Westfield reacted to the incident.
Police have been preparing a review into its response but have already flagged its findings were unlikely to be released to the public.
How the Bondi attack changed Australia
June’s lockdown at Westfield Marion was the first test of security and police responses to a major shopping centre incident since April’s deadly Westfield Bondi Junction attack.
At the time, assistant commissioner Duval said the heightened level of response at Marion was “very much” influenced by the Bondi Junction attack.
Since April, government and industry bodies have brought in legislative changes to reduce the prevalence of knife crime in Australia.
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Queensland Police and the National Retail Association have partnered to introduce restrictions around the sale of knives, including on the packaging, promotion and storage.
Meanwhile, the New South Wales government has introduced legislation to allow police to “wand” or “scan” people for knives in a designated area if they feel it requires extra scrutiny over a 12-hour period.
Mr Wood said he has also seen changes in the security industry since the Bondi attack.
“Security, particularly across all the major centres, has been ramped up,” he said.
“You’ve probably seen that at different centres around the country.”
Westfield said it has increased its security, including issuing protective vests to security staff across Australia and New Zealand.
Mr Wood said there had “definitely been progression in the crowded places space” but believed more work needed to be done “particularly around the labour force”.
“Where we can be a bit more critical, I suppose, is the planning and the preparation and making sure that we’re not ticking boxes and we’re having meaningful engagement with what we should be doing if we’re operating a crowded place,” he said.
Mr Wood said training and preparedness of shopping centre owners and operators was key.
“No emergency service can respond to these incidents by themselves,” he said.
Bob Lott, director of South Australia-based Weslo Staff and Security, agreed that there was room for improvement for training and staffing levels.
He said he believed a regular forum involving security providers and government to discuss a common approach to security could be part of the way forward.
“I think the government would be well placed to do this on a semi-regular basis,” he said.
One witness of the Westfield Marion lockdown expressed disbelief that a dangerous threat could happen at the centre, but Mr Amweg warned Australia should not be complacent in preparing for an incident.
“Never allow yourself to get into the mindset that, ‘Oh it can’t happen here’,” he said.
“Yes, it could happen here which means I need to prepare for it.
“I need to look at how to prevent it and if it occurs, how to mitigate the loss that may come our way.”
While experts highlighted the importance of remaining vigilant and prepared to respond to potential threats, they emphasised the likelihood of facing a mass attack in Australia was still rare.
Mr Amweg said no two events were the same and planning was a “never-ending job”, a sentiment echoed by Mr Wood.
“When we talk about risk management or doing security it’s an iterative process, we’re never done,” Mr Wood said.
“So, we can accept we’re doing a lot of good work now and even if we’re doing well, we need to keep iterating and working on it and keep going back to that monitoring and review”.
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