In February 1879, Captain Standish made a request to the Queensland Police Commissioner, David Thompson Seymour, to send a section of Native Police troopers to Victoria to aid in the search for the Kelly Gang. The request was granted with sub-Inspector Stanhope O'Connor, constable Tom King and six Aboriginal troopers named Sambo, Barney, Johnny, Jimmy, Jack and Hero, being deployed to Victoria. O'Connor and his troopers, at the time of the request, were in active service in the Cooktown region conducting punitive expeditions against Indigenous communities and had recently massacred thirty people near Cape Bedford. The ability of the Native Police troopers to locate Kelly was hampered early on with Sambo dying from pneumonia not long after arriving at the police barracks in Benalla. Furthermore, Standish was fearful that if the Queensland contingent were to locate Kelly quickly, they would make the Victorian police appear incompetent, so he obstructed and withheld information from O'Connor's force.