REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Saturday March 26, 2005

THE junior Southport police officer who shot and killed a knife-wielding carjacker on Thursday broke down during a re-enactment of the events on Friday morning.

Emotions ran high as the constable, with only a few months’ service in Queensland, walked through every last detail of the attack with a team of officers.

The drama began on Thursday night, when the constable and his more experienced partner, who was also a constable, were called to an attempted carjacking on Ferry Road, Southport, at 6.40pm.

Nerang resident James Henry Jacobs, 29, had attempted to break into the car of an elderly woman, believed to be in her 70s, but failed when she locked herself inside.

Jacobs fled when the woman’s husband returned to the car.

Jacobs’ mother, Jan Kealton, said the only thing her son, who had been diagnosed schizophrenic at 19, would have been thinking about was getting home to Nerang.

“I’m sure that woman must have been terrified, but James would have only thought to take the car to get home,” she said.

A search for Jacobs found him just 400m away from the car on Southport-Nerang Road.

It was not known if Jacobs threatened the woman with the 30cm, double-edged hunting knife he was carrying.

The officers confronted him on the grassed section in front of the building. Police said Jacobs took a knife from beneath his shirt, which was tucked into his trousers, and began waving it at them.