Overview
- Constable Keith Smith was shot dead at close range on June 16, 2025 while serving a court writ of possession at a North Motton property, and SOG officers nearby returned fire and disarmed the shooter.
- The defendant, Leigh Geoffrey Sushames, pleaded guilty to murder in January and the Supreme Court heard victim and witness accounts during a sentencing hearing on May 22 with formal sentencing set for 26 June 2026.
- Crown prosecutors presented body-worn camera footage and described the killing as little more than an execution, saying officers had assessed the repossession visit as low-level risk and planned for SOG support to be close by but not directly engaged.
- Evidence at the hearing detailed Sushames’ long-running mortgage arrears, earlier threats to resist repossession, a suspended firearms licence from 2016 related to mental-health concerns, and defence claims about childhood trauma and mental illness.
- Smith’s death, the first fatal shooting of a police officer in Tasmania in more than a century, has prompted public grief and is likely to trigger scrutiny of police repossession procedures and how risk is assessed for frontline officers.