Stephen Raymond CROME [3163]

  General Notes:

Steven was shot by police during a robbery in Hampton Park. He is buried at the Bunyip Lawn Cemetery.

The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) Thursday 19 May 1994 - page 5
'Walsh St link to shootings by police'
MELBOURNE: The Walsh Street killing of two young constables in 1988 may have triggered the high number of fatal shootings by police in recent years, Victoria Police chief commissioner Neil Comrie said yesterday. "I suppose there may be some aspects associated with the Walsh Street murders and the Russell Street bombing.." he said. "There's no doubt there's been over many years a very violent criminal underworld in Victoria." Mr Comrie was speaking to Channel Nine about the disproportionately high number of fatal police shootings in Victoria.
Stephen Raymond Crome, 18, and Paul Ronald Skews, 35, were shot outside a real estate office on Monday in suburban Hampton Park after police were tipped off about an attempted robbery.
Their deaths brought to 18 the number of people killed by police in Victoria since 1988, compared with four in NSW in the same period.

The Canberra Times 15 December 1995 page 4
Coroner criticises police
MELBOURNE: There was a real risk that innocent bystanders may have been hurt when police ambushed and killed two men attempting an armed robbery in Melbourne in May last year, a coroner found yesterday. But Coroner Graeme Johnston said police were justified in fatally shooting career criminal Paul Ronald Skews, 35, and his accomplice Stephen Raymond Crome, 18. The shooting happened as they were about to rob Winning's Real Estate Agency in Somerville Road, Hampton Park, in Melbourne's south-east. Mr Johnstone said police did not take adequate action to protect members of the public who were in the area, apart from the real estate agency's staff. "The shooting by members of the Special Operations Group was lawful and justified in that all members fired after being put in reasonable fear that their own lives were at risk," Mr Johnston said. "But in the context of an operation with some of its management objectives specified as being 'safety of members of the public, police and the offenders', it was not a success."