A female Queensland Police officer has suffered head injuries after being overpowered during an attempted arrest in a shocking scene that played out on a quiet Gold Coast street early on Wednesday.
News.com.au has obtained full video of the incident, which occurred in Parkwood just after 5.30am, showing how the female officer had the tables turned on her by a male suspect who managed to wrestle her to the ground despite being tased.
The officer and her partner had been attempting to arrest the two occupants of a black Lexus. One of the men immediately fled and the officer’s partner gave chase, leaving her to arrest the second occupant alone.
A shorter clip of the incident was earlier posted to Reddit, showing a man wearing shorts and a hoodie attacking the officer in the middle of the street as she yells out in terror, before turning and running away as she gets up and radios for help.
“Police have taken two men into custody after a female officer was injured during an arrest at Parkwood this morning,” Queensland Police said in a statement.
“Around 5.35am police were called by a member of the public after they saw a damaged black Lexus vehicle parked on Greenacre Drive with two men asleep inside.
“Officers approached the vehicle with the driver becoming violent towards police resulting in a female officer being assaulted and sustaining an injury to her head.
“A male passenger immediately fled the vehicle and was apprehended a short distance away by police.
“A search of the vehicle located a firearm, ammunition and items used in property offences. The female officer has been taken to hospital for treatment to a head injury and abrasions.
“Police investigations are ongoing.”
The longer video obtained by news.com.au shows the female officer approaching the parked Lexus with her taser drawn, repeatedly yelling, “Get out of the car! Show me your hands!”
The male occupant suddenly lunges from the vehicle and barges into the officer as she fires the taser at him. He can be heard moaning in pain as he falls to the ground.
“Get down! I’ll taser you again!” she yells.
The officer attempts to handcuff the man, but he grabs her by the back of the neck and wrestles her down to the ground.
“She lost control,” the woman filming says.
Gold Coast Acting Superintendent Scott Knowles told reporters on Wednesday that the incident “just highlights the danger our police officers face when they turn out to a routine job”.
He said the “suspicious vehicle had been reported by members of the community”.
“Officers attended to the vehicle, they’ve confronted the two males that were in the vehicle, the passenger fled the vehicle at that point and was pursued by a police officer,” he said.
“A female police officer then approached the driver, who has exited the vehicle and challenged the police officer. She’s deployed her taser and then a struggle ensued. He’s managed eventually to actually overcome her, assault her quite seriously by banging her head against the road surface before being able to get up and flee.
“Fortunately at that point in time other additional police resources have arrived and both offenders have been taken into custody.
“Thankfully [the officers’] injuries aren’t too serious. The female officer has suffered a number of cuts, abrasions and contusions to her head. She’ll be sore for a few days but is expected to recover without any significant issues.
“It just highlights the danger our police officers face when they turn out to a routine job.
“The search of the vehicle that these offenders were located in located a loaded revolver, and our policewoman indicated that our offender, as she was trying to remove him from the vehicle, was actually trying to reach for that bag that contained that firearm, so very lucky for our officers and they did a fantastic job in successfully apprehending these offenders.
“Investigations will now continue about the vehicle, because the vehicle has false plates so we suspect it’s stolen, but also in relation to what other offences these offenders may have been involved in prior to being apprehended this morning.
“[The men are] in the process of being charged. Our detectives are undertaking those investigations at the moment. They’re looking at what charges will be laid, what additional offences these offenders may have been involved in over the preceding days.”
Commenting on the video, Mr Knowles said the officer “did a fantastic job, but it was certainly a struggle there”.
“She’s not the biggest of police officers but she put up a very good fight in an attempt to restrain this offender,” he said.
“He was drug-affected so obviously that affected his strength and his attitude at the time, but she did a fantastic job. Certainly that would be confronting and it’s something that we’ll work through with our support network to make sure she’s OK.”
Asked whether it was “normal protocol” for her to have approached the driver on her own, Mr Knowles said Queensland Police officers were “well equipped and very well trained”.
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“This is what they do every day of the week,” he said.
“She did a fantastic job, she deployed a taser at the time, she had the offender under control, it’s just unfortunately that the strength overcame her.”
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