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MOTHER OF TRAGIC TEEN TYLER CASSIDY RELIEVED OVER CORONER'S RULING

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Uploaded by on Nov 23, 2011

There have been 36 days of hearings into the police shooting of her 15-year-old son, 63 witnesses, 21 lawyers and almost 4500 pages of transcript.
Little is left that hasn't been said.
Just a few words remain from a mother living with an awful emptiness.
``He was only a child and had much to live for and I miss him terribly,'' solicitor Nick O'Bryan says, reading Shani's statement to a battery of cameras as she stands beside him.
For the final chapters in Tyler's short life and violent death, the spacious, harshly-lit, Coroners Court is over-full.
About 30 people stand against the walls: friends, the curious, Homicide cops in matching ties.
Seats are set aside for the Cassidy family and, as an afterthought, for the four police who responded to at least five 000 calls about Tyler's rampage, one from the boy himself.
Sen-Constable Antonia Ferrante, the only one of the four who didn't fire her weapon, looks over at the designated-family seats then sits as far away from them as possible.
Hair pulled back tight, she looks unfailingly forward at Coroner Jennifer Coate and, beside her, Sen-Constable Richard Blundell and Sgt Colin Dods do the same.
The police trio barely speak. They don't look 3m across to Mrs Cassidy and she doesn't look at them.
Instead Mrs Cassidy, flanked by family, stares straight ahead as her son's shooting is broken down into carefully-worded observations and recommendations.
Sometimes she closes her eyes and lets the words wash over her. Other times she tilts her head and looks spent.
The Coroner notes Tyler's "tragically irrational'' conduct, history of extreme anger and the `"poor boy's'' inner despair.
But it is more about what isn't said, what isn't explicable after all the thousands of words.
"We are not going to find that without (Tyler) here to answer the questions,'' Judge Coate says.
She does not explain how two soakdowns with capsicum spray and shots to the legs didn't stop the 15-year-old, doesn't conclude which officer fired the fatal shot that tore into his chest just above his heart.
Instead she says mental health systems failed Tyler, and police training.
She says "the horror and tragedy of what is known as youth suicide is sadly familiar to coroners'' but adds that Tyler was too emotionally-wrenched for his death to be considered such.
Judge Coate picks key points out of a finding that says what happened but can't fully explain why.
She ends the inquest and leaves 131 pages to be analysed, dissected and, finally, condensed outside court into a mother's few final words.
"Tyler's death at the age 15 by police shooting is a tragedy,'' Mrs Cassidy says through her lawyer.
"I'm relieved that that Coroner found Tyler did not deliberately take his life,'' he continues for her, but it distresses me greatly that on the night of his death Tyler was in crisis and needed help. Instead he was shot.''
Mrs Cassidy's statement ends with a hope for other mums with troubled kids.
"I'll alway regard Tyler's death as preventable,'' she says.
"I hope that the Coroner's recommendations are quickly adopted and can help provide Victoria Police and its officers with better conflict resolution skills so that another life is not lost.
"I would not want any family to go through what we have endured.'' - 23 November 2011.

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  • maybe if the useless slag was a proper mother that looked after her kids proper none of this would have happened

  • The cops can live with this for the remainder of their lives.

    They needlessly killed a teenage boy.

    I'm sure these cops will have lots of hugs and support from colleagues and friends and family - but that is not worth a cent.

    Nothing changes the truth - EVER.

    You four - you murdered this boy.

  • what a hero

  • ............. considering all these expectations and pressure towards police, what about start rewarding police by looking after them, their families and have a look into their pay. It is very easy for people to talk about police actions, however you only know if you are there. I am not a police officer.

  • I feel really sorry about this mother and young boy, no questions about that, In situations like this people tend to say police needs more training, police needs to be super heros, police needs to be perfect and indestructible. Well, I agree that police need to be examples in our community, however police stil humans, not super heros, police do things that at times an ordinary person wouldn;t be able to do, but police still have fear, families and loved ones to go back to...............

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