A police officer has broken down recalling how he tried to help a woman stabbed in the head and neck by a man who was eventually shot dead by his colleague. Gabriel Messo, who had been diagnosed as bipolar, was shot three times in the chest by Officer Emmanuel Andrew in John. Coutts Reserve in north Melbourne on the afternoon of 16 July 2020.
The 30-year-old was in the middle of a violent 17-minute assault on his mother, Lilla Messo, when Andrew and Rebecca Churcher arrived at the scene.
Gabriel Messo was violently assaulting his unconscious mother when a Victorian police officer shot him three times in the chest. (new)
Giving evidence at an inquest on Thursday, now Senior Constable Churcher recalled his colleague repeatedly telling the man to stop his attack.
Messo said something to Andrew before stabbing the woman with a stick again, he said, and his partner pointed the gun at the offender while still telling him to stop.
He also removed the firearm from its holster and told State Coroner John Cain, “I just naturally felt that this was the appropriate course of action.”
When Messo didn’t stop stabbing, his colleague shot the man once and it was like the assailant “didn’t even have to stab himself,” Churcher said.
The 30-year-old attacked his mother at John Coutts Reserve the following day. (new)
Andrew shot him again and when Messo moved toward the officers he fired a third time, he said.
Both Chucher and Andrew did not have Tasers.
It would not have been appropriate to use a baton on Messo even after he dropped the stick, as they would have had to get close enough to be stabbed by another weapon, he said.
Similarly, it would not have been appropriate to use pepper spray, Churcher said, because they were outside and open to the elements.
He saw the color drain from Messo’s face and fell back, and went straight to his mother to find her face swollen, covered in blood and deep open wounds.
The crime scene in Gladstone Park, Victoria. (new)
Speaking through tears, Churcher said the woman’s mouth was full of mud and he tried to get it out.
He told Andrew to start the compressions in Messo, and when his colleague said “s—, I didn’t have my camera on”, he assured him that his was on.
Churcher looked down and saw it was green but not active, he told the coroner.
He hit the camera again to turn it on.
Messo was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries after she suffered four cardiac arrests.
He survived the attack, but now lives with an acquired brain injury.
The inquest looks at the circumstances surrounding Messo’s death: his mental health treatment, his arrest on July 15 and the actions of Victoria Police.