A POLICE officer who fired at hostage-taker Brendan Lindsay about five times when he fell to the ground has told an inquest he thought there was still an imminent threat to the victim.
Christopher McCormack was the final officer to shoot at Mr Lindsay after the 38-year-old took deli worker Sheila Tran hostage at knifepoint in Carlisle in November 2014.
Mr Lindsay, who was likely affected by ice, died after he was hit by between nine and 11 bullets over a nine-second period outside the deli.
Giving evidence in the Coroner’s Court on Wednesday, Constable McCormack said he saw Mr Lindsay making stabbing motions towards Ms Tran when the pair fell to the ground but did not actually see the knife in his hand.
He told the inquest other officers had shot at Mr Lindsay but said he did not know if the bullets had hit the hostage taker.
Const McCormack said the other officers around him had stopped shooting when he fired four or five times in quick succession from a distance of about 1.5 metres from Mr Lindsay.
He said it was not until his final shot that he saw Mr Lindsay had stopped moving.
Const McCormack had graduated from the police academy about three years before the fatal siege.
He said he got no proper negotiation training from expert negotiators at the academy.
Asked whether he was trying to completely incapacitate Mr Lindsay when he shot at him from 1.5 metres away, Const McCormack said no.
Const McCormack said his aim was to shoot until there was no longer a threat, not to shoot until there was no movement.
He said he had thought about what he could have done differently many times over the past four years but did not think any of his other options would have changed the outcome.
“I feel I was justified in the action I took,” he said.