Emotional tributes to slain police officers
“WE have had a major attack on the police in Queensland,” chaplain Jeffrey Baills told an ocean of blue, the coffins of their slain colleagues at his feet.
“But … we will not be broken.” Five years after offering words of comfort at the funeral of Senior Constable Brett Forte, Mr Baills again stood before a crowd of thousands, trying to make sense of another senseless act of violence.
Police from across Queensland, Australia and even New Zealand gathered together in Brisbane on Wednesday to honour two murdered police officers Constable Rachel McCrow and Constable Matthew Arnold killed in the line of duty.
“We will tomorrow turn up to our shift,” Mr Baills continued, “and we will stand shoulder to shoulder again and seek to do the best we can to keep Queensland safe and fulfil our duties as outstanding men and women. “We call you police officers.” Friends, family, colleagues, fire fighters, paramedics and more than 200 dignitaries filled the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Federal Opposition Leader and former police officer Peter Dutton, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, Queensland Opposition
Leader David Crisafulli and Queensland Governor Dr Jeannette Young among those who came to pay their respects.
The families of Sen-Const Forte, shot by fugitive gunman Ricky Maddison in 2017, and Sally Urquhart, who died in a plane crash in 2005, also attended.
Constables McCrow and Arnold were killed during a routine missing persons inquiry at a property in Wieambilla in the Darling
Downs on December 12.
They and another crew, Constable Keely Brough and Constable Randall Kirk, were at the acreage to ask after former school principal Nathaniel Train, reported missing in New South Wales.
As they walked towards the house, Nathaniel, his brother Gareth and Gareth’s wife Stacey opened fire from the bush, killing the two officers and wounding Const Kirk. Const Brough escaped
into the scrub where she was hunted for up to two hours, the Trains shooting into the trees and lighting fires to flush her out.
An extraction team of 16 local police officers went onto the property under fire to recover the bodies of constables McCrow and Arnold, risking their lives in case the pair were able to be saved..
Colleagues who were close to the slain officers spoke of their bravery.