Security officer Kevin Martin’s phone was running hot.
Shop owners and retail workers told him they’d seen a man carrying a knife.
Until then, it was a busy – albeit uneventful – Sunday at Logan City Centre.
Mr Martin’s advice was to hang up and dial 000.
Meanwhile, he’d looked around his office without success for something to defend himself with, only to remember he’d taken a block of wood from an unwelcome visitor three days prior.
The alleged perpetrator, a man who police have identified as a 22-year-old from Redbank Plains, entered the shopping centre and “bumped into a group of shopping patrons”.
It was around 10.10am.
Mr Martin said the group and the man yelled at each other briefly.
He said he was told that the man left the centre, returning about 20 minutes later with a knife in his hand.
Mr Martin said the man moved towards the group he had exchanged words with earlier.
They’d done their shopping, Mr Martin said, and they were pushing trolleys they then used to avoid the man with the knife.
Mr Martin said soon after, he received calls from retail staff who alleged a man with a knife was moving through the centre to the food court, trying to stab people.
Mr Martin said he asked the man to drop a “large kitchen knife” he was allegedly holding.
He said the man swung the knife in his direction. “I threw the lump of wood at the man, but I missed him,” he said.
Mr Martin said that behind him, a group of about 10 people had gathered. “Together, we chased the man out of the centre,” he said.
The man was apprehended by two police officers on motorbikes on Kingston Road and was later charged.
Mr Martin said about 15 police officers responded to the scene.
He said he was the only security officer working at the centre that day – standard at most shopping centres. He also works as a security officer at a shopping centre in the city.
“The community is very tight in Logan. Although I’m on my own at work, I’m not really,” Mr Martin said.
“There are a lot of people to back you up, and there’s always someone there to help you.”
In emergency situations, centre staff are instructed to call the police and lockdown shops or evacuate as necessary, depending on the nature of the emergency or threat.
Mr Martin said it was difficult to say whether safety procedures should be amended, but he did say security officers should receive more regular training and officers should be issued with defensive tools, such as a taser.
Since a more serious knife attack at Bondi Junction, which killed six people in April last year, additional security measures, like personal protective equipment for security officers and safety cameras in Westfield shopping centres, have been implemented.
“Not much more safety procedures can be followed; no one knows when these people are going to come along,” he said.
“But staff did the right thing, they called straight away, as soon as it happened. Within 30 seconds, I was getting phone calls.”
At his job as a security officer in a Brisbane city shopping centre, Mr Martin said there have been a few incidents this year where people have taken out knives in public.
“The policy in the city is just to observe and report [an incident to the police] and not to put yourself in harm’s way,” he said.
“But (it’s difficult) when you’ve got little kids, elderly people, customers that are unarmed.”
At the centre yesterday, Monday 22 September, Mr Martin said staff and patrons were apprehensive and shaken – particularly centre workers who wondered if they’d done everything they could to keep people safe, he said.
