Adam Dunning

Adam Dunning was a member of the Australian Protective Service who was killed while on duty on December 22, 2004. He remains the only Australian Protective Service Officer killed while on duty. While on a routine patrol with his partner he was shot by a sniper in the Solomon Islands. Currently two suspects James Tatau and John Hen Ome have been charged in his murder. Both of the men are former members of the Malaita Eagle Force, a militant force involved in the ethnic tensions in Solomons prior to the 2003 arrival of the Australian Regional Assitance mission designed to ease tensions.

Dunning remembered in training complex

The main street of a new training village for Australian Federal Police and other personnel being sent overseas has been named after murdered peacekeeper Adam Dunning.

The $2.8 million training facility at Majura, just outside Canberra, has been designed to replicate situations in regional countries to which personnel might be assigned.

Prime Minister John Howard officially opened the facility on Thursday in the presence of police chiefs from across the country as well as from several regional nations.

Australian Protective Service officer Mr Dunning, 26, was fatally shot twice in the back while on night patrol in the Solomon Islands capital of Honiara in December.

He was serving as part of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomons.

His parents attended the opening of the village, through the centre of which runs a road now named Adam Dunning Drive.

"The loss of Adam Dunning signified that this is very dangerous work," Justice Minister Senator Chris Ellison said.

"That was the ultimate sacrifice paid in the course of his duties."

Mr Howard said the new facility reflected the new security reality for Australia and its region.

"Events of the last five years have totally transformed both the demands and the expectations of the Australian community on the Australian Federal Police," he told the gathering.

"In that five-year period we have seen the threatening arrival of international terrorism.

"We've (also) seen the emergence of an ongoing need on the part of this country, in cooperation with our friends in the Pacific region, to involve ourselves in the restoration of conditions of law and order and cooperation with police services and governments of those countries."

The training village, to be used by a range of emergency services personnel as well as police, recreates the environment that police experience when on overseas missions.

Designed to reflect the streetscape of a small overseas township, it enables true-to-life scenario training which helps to prepare police for unknown and sometimes dangerous challenges.

It includes 18 buildings and structures including a corner store, a town hall, a police station, a school, a pub, a marketplace and even a cemetery, reflecting the fact that police are sometimes required to perform exhumations in the course of their work.

The spokesman said 124 personnel had already trained at the complex which was completed in March.

Sources

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Adam-Dunning-murder-trial-underway/2006/10/29/1162056858169.html http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Dunning-remembered-in-training-complex/2005/06/23/1119321840325.html