Law Enforcement Conundrum

It’s a troubling question, when to intervene. There‘s moral as well as legal questions. Police are not directed to disrupt. However, they do have a duty to protect citizens, including criminals from crime in the community. Police also want to charge a criminal with an offence that will stick, and this will depend on issues of evidence and elements of the offence of attempt (and the NSW equivalent). In our view Police should have intervened in this case, but perhaps not by warning the victim as they had before, which may have led to more gang violence.