Dubbed ‘Hermes Castle’, the multi-agency operation involved 450 police, emergency service and Defence personnel. The exercise is part of an ongoing commitment to testing and refining counter terrorism arrangements.
Fifteen months in the planning, Hermes Castle was conducted yesterday at the Holsworthy Army Barracks.
Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn, Commander of Specialist Operations, has said “Exercise Hermes Castle will have officers dealing with a dynamic situation which requires the deployment of specialist resources to respond to an incident resulting in mass casualties.”
“As well, we have the emergency service organisations responding to manage the consequences which follow.”
In other words, our police, military and emergency services practised being bad-ass to ensure they could respond in the best way possible if there really was a terrorist attack.
Check out footage of the exercise below, recorded by the Police Multi Media Unit.