Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / War on the Streets: Victoria’s Violent Eighties | Alex Krstic

Transcript

War on the Streets: Victoria’s Violent Eighties | Alex Krstic · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: Apote Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam shand I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host Adam Shann my guest today. Alex Christick was
0:19
Speaker 1: a police officer in one of the most violent eras
0:22
Speaker 1: in Victoria's history. Two young police officers have been gunned
0:26
Speaker 1: down in South Yarra. A string of underworld murders has
0:29
Speaker 1: left more than forty people dead across Melbourne. During his
0:34
Speaker 1: time in the force, Victoria police shot and killed almost
0:36
Speaker 1: fifty people. Many had recorded histories of mental health problems,
0:40
Speaker 1: but there are also some very evil individuals amongst them
0:44
Speaker 1: that wished harm on police or members of the public.
0:47
Speaker 1: Melbourne's deadly gangland feud shows no sign of slowing as
0:51
Speaker 1: the city reels from yet another execution style murder. Alex
0:56
Speaker 1: was involved in manhunt's for some very willing crooks who
0:59
Speaker 1: were perfectly happy to shoot it out with police to
1:02
Speaker 1: the death, and he also taught firearms operational survival. It
1:06
Speaker 1: was a war between the cops and the crooks. Police
1:09
Speaker 1: are to night combing bushland for an armed fugitive after
1:12
Speaker 1: a dramatic shootout. His career also spanned the gangland War
1:17
Speaker 1: in Victoria, when up to forty crooks were gunned down
1:20
Speaker 1: in the streets. It was a torrid period. But when
1:23
Speaker 1: look what's happening today, the past seems almost quaint and orderly.
1:28
Speaker 1: The crooks in Sydney and Melbourne seem to have lost
1:31
Speaker 1: their fear of police or indeed the courts and jail.
1:34
Speaker 1: Where once violence was contained within the underworld, Today members
1:38
Speaker 1: of the public run a real risk of getting caught
1:40
Speaker 1: in the crossfire or indeed being targeted.
1:44
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, Alex.
1:45
Speaker 1: I never thought i'd call your era, which I was
1:48
Speaker 1: a part of, the good old days.
1:50
Speaker 2: But I think it's a fair statement, don't you think, Well, they.
1:52
Speaker 3: Were the good old days, old being the operative word there,
1:56
Speaker 3: for sure.
1:57
Speaker 4: It's a long time ago now, it.
1:58
Speaker 1: Is, but it was a war back then, and you
2:00
Speaker 1: were in the middle of it at times on the fringes.
2:02
Speaker 1: You were teaching Victoria police to survive in a very
2:06
Speaker 1: torrid era.
2:07
Speaker 3: Look, I spent most of my career at the point end,
2:10
Speaker 3: you know, actually out there catching bad guys. It mainly
2:13
Speaker 3: as a detective or as an investigator, but at times
2:16
Speaker 3: I was an instructor at the firearms and operational survival
2:19
Speaker 3: training in it and at detective training school. So in
2:23
Speaker 3: both those roles. I did train police in those tactics,
2:27
Speaker 3: et cetera.
2:28
Speaker 1: And that era spanned things like Wall Street, the murder
2:32
Speaker 1: of two police officers in nineteen eighty eight, the manhunt
2:35
Speaker 1: for Mad Max in nineteen eighty six, and a range
2:38
Speaker 1: of other deranged individuals who were posing a real threat
2:43
Speaker 1: to police officers. What were you trying to teach them
2:45
Speaker 1: back then? What was it like being on the front line.
2:49
Speaker 3: Back in the eighties. I suppose the context would be mainly, say,
2:52
Speaker 3: when I worked as an inner suburban detective and as
2:55
Speaker 3: a detective in the major crime squad. You know, as
2:58
Speaker 3: a young detective, I cut my teeth in places like.
3:01
Speaker 4: Fitzroy and Richmond and St.
3:03
Speaker 3: Kildare and places like that, where those places weren't like
3:06
Speaker 3: they are now. They're sort of all bohemian and touchy
3:10
Speaker 3: feeling now. Back in those days they were very, very
3:14
Speaker 3: violent places like I've seen more murder victims along Gertrude
3:18
Speaker 3: Street and through that most people have set in their life,
3:20
Speaker 3: you know, they're the sort of things that we're involved in.
3:24
Speaker 3: And armed Roberts, violent crime, heroin had started becoming a
3:28
Speaker 3: major issue, and all of that stuff. When it was
3:30
Speaker 3: sort of thrown into that amalgam created that sort of vibe,
3:35
Speaker 3: and you know, you could almost guarantee every Friday or
3:39
Speaker 3: every payday there'd be a stick up somewhere along the line.
3:42
Speaker 3: As a detective in the major crime squad, escapes from
3:46
Speaker 3: prisons were not uncommon, like places like Jaker Jiker. You
3:50
Speaker 3: never hear of it now, but if people take the
3:52
Speaker 3: time to acquaint themselves with what Jaker Jiker was, it
3:56
Speaker 3: was a maximum security prison within a prison, and it
4:00
Speaker 3: was a very violent place, and very violent people.
4:03
Speaker 4: Were put there.
4:04
Speaker 3: The gate from there they died there one fire where
4:09
Speaker 3: some very infamous murderers died as a result of lighting
4:12
Speaker 3: the fire, and Jaker Jiker that was pulled down because
4:15
Speaker 3: I think they it wasn't politically palatable.
4:18
Speaker 2: I don't, well, that's right, because they'd come out of
4:21
Speaker 2: H Division.
4:22
Speaker 1: A lot of those sort of recalcitrant crooks, very dangerous crooks,
4:24
Speaker 1: had been housed in H Division, the punishment division at Pentridge,
4:28
Speaker 1: and there was a couple of inquiries where it was
4:31
Speaker 1: it was decided that H Division was like a medieval
4:33
Speaker 1: torture chamber, so they.
4:35
Speaker 2: Built Jaiker Jiker.
4:36
Speaker 1: But the result was the same this dehumanization of crooks
4:40
Speaker 1: within Pentridge. People went in there as bicycle thieves, came
4:44
Speaker 1: out as penous murderers.
4:46
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the good old B Division was where
4:49
Speaker 3: they all sort of started off. Then they went to
4:50
Speaker 3: H Division if they are really bad guys, which you
4:53
Speaker 3: quite correctly say was probably medieval. And then they went
4:56
Speaker 3: to Jaiker Jiker, which made H Division look like a kindergarten.
5:00
Speaker 1: Well, it was kind of like a spaceship, wasn't it.
5:02
Speaker 1: They were so isolated from reality and it was all
5:05
Speaker 1: but it sent them a bit mad.
5:07
Speaker 3: Well, it sent them a lot mad. These guys were
5:10
Speaker 3: the worst of the worst. Yeah, Blokes like Robert Wright,
5:13
Speaker 3: he's dead. Robert Lindsay right, a murderer, absolute psychopath, killed
5:18
Speaker 3: people because he thought it was a good idea, zero empathy,
5:23
Speaker 3: you know. He killed the prostitute and a child over
5:26
Speaker 3: at Rip and Lee and shot them to death because
5:29
Speaker 3: she may have been able to give evidence against him
5:31
Speaker 3: in certain cases. Him and a guy called Quinn murdering
5:34
Speaker 3: another price Ry Quinn at a big Pat's Creek.
5:37
Speaker 4: At Wolburton Way.
5:37
Speaker 3: There brutal murders, these guys, Yeah, the sort of people
5:42
Speaker 3: you don't want wondering around in a public.
5:45
Speaker 1: But the fact was they were coming back into the
5:47
Speaker 1: public and people like you had to deal with them.
5:50
Speaker 1: What was the attitude like being a copper on the
5:53
Speaker 1: front line back in those days, when you had people
5:55
Speaker 1: who were bold and they were willing and they would
5:57
Speaker 1: shoot back, there wasn't a lot of fear.
5:59
Speaker 3: Well, look, well acutely aware of all that, there's no
6:03
Speaker 3: problem at all. But at the same time, organization. When
6:06
Speaker 3: I say that, I mean the police force was a
6:07
Speaker 3: different police force. It's nothing like it is now. It's
6:10
Speaker 3: a different planet now. Back in the day, we knew
6:14
Speaker 3: that we had the support of our commanders. They seemed
6:18
Speaker 3: to you out there to catch bad guys that were
6:20
Speaker 3: killing people, that were robbing banks, that were escaping from
6:24
Speaker 3: prison and taking hostages and posing a threat to the public.
6:29
Speaker 3: So we were given a fair bit of license to
6:32
Speaker 3: shake the true fairly hard to catch these blokes, and
6:35
Speaker 3: I think the public were more accepting of different methods
6:39
Speaker 3: should we say.
6:41
Speaker 1: I've got to tell you that I think there's a
6:42
Speaker 1: popular view these days that a few more of these
6:45
Speaker 1: crooks needs shooting, that it's not the worst thing in
6:48
Speaker 1: the world that a few are taken off the streets.
6:50
Speaker 1: I know it's not palatable to the humanists and the liberals,
6:54
Speaker 1: but when you see the level of crime out there
6:56
Speaker 1: and the lack of fear alex that seems to be
6:59
Speaker 1: there in the streets these days. I certainly in your
7:01
Speaker 1: era the idea was to put the fear of God
7:04
Speaker 1: into them. We share a mentor Brian Francis Murphy the Skull,
7:08
Speaker 1: who his policing career went from the early fifties through
7:10
Speaker 1: the late eighties. And I asked him once how many
7:13
Speaker 1: times did you shoot? Somebody said, ah, forty or fifty.
7:17
Speaker 1: I said, what, I couldn't believe it. Imagine the career
7:20
Speaker 1: like that today. And that's the sort of attitude people
7:22
Speaker 1: had back in the day to putting fear into the crooks.
7:25
Speaker 1: What were some of the lessons you learned early on
7:27
Speaker 1: about your authority, the use of the firearm, and the
7:31
Speaker 1: limit of what you could do.
7:34
Speaker 3: Look, you learned a lot about human behavior and how
7:37
Speaker 3: to get results using certain techniques and tactics. Those things
7:41
Speaker 3: have changed significantly these days. The villains they don't particularly
7:46
Speaker 3: fear the police because they know that the police are
7:49
Speaker 3: bound by the rules. They don't fear the courts. They
7:52
Speaker 3: don't fear being sentenced to jail, as is reflected. And
7:55
Speaker 3: if you look at the newspaper, these people are running
7:57
Speaker 3: around robbing people, cutting people's heads off, stabbing them to
8:01
Speaker 3: death in the street, mutilating them. They're getting hit on
8:04
Speaker 3: by and it's a daily event. Back in the day
8:08
Speaker 3: when we were doing things, if a person did something
8:10
Speaker 3: like that and he was apprehended by the police, he
8:12
Speaker 3: would have an extremely difficult time getting out on bail.
8:17
Speaker 3: The bail laws were different. And the recent changes in
8:20
Speaker 3: the bail laws. When I say recent, i'm talking in
8:21
Speaker 3: the last few years. These too good to lefty lawyers
8:25
Speaker 3: in a lot of cases of the lawmakers and they
8:28
Speaker 3: think the rights of the villains outweighed the safety of
8:31
Speaker 3: the public. That wasn't the case back in the day,
8:34
Speaker 3: you know. And as far as crooks or criminals, violent
8:38
Speaker 3: criminals being frightened to the police, that's a thing of
8:40
Speaker 3: the past. They're ramming police cars on a daily basis,
8:44
Speaker 3: you know, they're trying to run over police. It's like
8:46
Speaker 3: a video game to them. Back in the day, if
8:49
Speaker 3: you decided you wanted to ram a police car as
8:50
Speaker 3: a villain, you pretty well signed your own death warrant.
8:54
Speaker 3: A vehicle is every bit as deadly a weapon as
8:57
Speaker 3: a handgun or a rifle or as a shotgun is.
9:00
Speaker 3: So if somebody chooses they want to run over a
9:02
Speaker 3: policeman or smash into a police car, in my view,
9:06
Speaker 3: any force that's used in order to stop that from
9:08
Speaker 3: occurring is not an unreasonable.
9:10
Speaker 4: Level of force.
9:11
Speaker 2: It's gun day.
9:12
Speaker 3: It's definitely a gun day, that's for sure. So they're
9:15
Speaker 3: not frightening the coppers, they're not frightened of the courts.
9:18
Speaker 3: So there's only one group of people that they can
9:21
Speaker 3: be frightened of, and that's the public, including other villains.
9:24
Speaker 3: But they should be frightened of the public. They wander
9:26
Speaker 3: into people's houses, wantonly in their arm with edged weapons,
9:30
Speaker 3: robbing them, indecently, assaulting them, raping them, and they know
9:35
Speaker 3: they do it with relative impunity, especially if they're under
9:38
Speaker 3: the age of our ten years.
9:40
Speaker 4: Things are going to change.
9:42
Speaker 2: Do you think they can change?
9:43
Speaker 4: Of course they can change.
9:44
Speaker 3: What can be done now, Well, firstly, there needs to
9:47
Speaker 3: be some sort of push it from the public. They're
9:49
Speaker 3: going to say enough's enough, We've drawn the line in
9:51
Speaker 3: the sand. This cannot continue to go on.
9:53
Speaker 4: And then the.
9:54
Speaker 3: Government really has to have the sand to say, Okay,
9:59
Speaker 3: enough is enough. Civil liberties are fine, and we all
10:03
Speaker 3: live in a beautiful free country and we've all got
10:06
Speaker 3: We enjoy good civil liberties, but not at the expense
10:10
Speaker 3: of people being frightened to leave their houses, frightened to
10:13
Speaker 3: send their children into the city, frightened to go out
10:16
Speaker 3: to a shopping set of women are frightened to drive
10:18
Speaker 3: their car down the road and pull up at a
10:20
Speaker 3: light for fear of somebody coming along and dragging them
10:22
Speaker 3: out of the car and robbing them.
10:24
Speaker 4: This is what's happening in Melbourne and Sydney and Sydney.
10:28
Speaker 3: But my knowledge of Sydney isn't as in depth as
10:30
Speaker 3: it is here in Melbourne. And I'm sure that any
10:33
Speaker 3: of the major capital cities in the world things aren't
10:36
Speaker 3: that different. But the villains have got Sooner or later
10:39
Speaker 3: the wheel will turn and we will reach critical mass
10:43
Speaker 3: and people will say other enough, I will do whatever
10:46
Speaker 3: it takes to defend myself and my family.
10:49
Speaker 1: Is it about putting fear back into the crooks?
10:52
Speaker 3: Well, I think fear is probably a for want of
10:55
Speaker 3: a better term, it's probably not bad. It's good Old
10:58
Speaker 3: operant conditioning. You know, if they choose to conduct themselves
11:02
Speaker 3: in a certain wad, there has to be some sort
11:04
Speaker 3: of percussions.
11:05
Speaker 2: The courts, in my view, have lost.
11:07
Speaker 3: Their ability to be able to just dissuade these people
11:11
Speaker 3: from committing these offenses. They obviously put them in front
11:14
Speaker 3: of the public. But okay, remember magistrates back in the day,
11:17
Speaker 3: if you choose to assault the police, you will guaranteed
11:21
Speaker 3: a stretch in jail, No problem at all. Now it's
11:25
Speaker 3: a mass mandatory. You hit the coppers. He gives us stuff.
11:28
Speaker 3: They bring in all these laws and say, oh you know,
11:30
Speaker 3: if you are soul, I remember the police force, you'll
11:32
Speaker 3: get a minimum of six months jail. That is utter rubbish.
11:36
Speaker 3: It doesn't happen so really, Sooner or later the government
11:41
Speaker 3: have got the power to be able to create a
11:44
Speaker 3: situation where there is going to be a real terrant.
11:48
Speaker 3: So the people that are appointing these magistrates was the
11:51
Speaker 3: Attorney General and the other senior government officials, which in
11:55
Speaker 3: Victoria in most cases hate the coppers anyway, are the
11:58
Speaker 3: ones that have got the power to do it. They
12:01
Speaker 3: choose not to, sooner or later the public will force
12:03
Speaker 3: them to do it, Like I hate.
12:06
Speaker 1: Politics and I don't like talking about it in the
12:07
Speaker 1: real crime studio, but I think this is relevant. We've
12:09
Speaker 1: seen in Sydney and Melbourne police commissioners who can't say
12:13
Speaker 1: boo without talking to the Police Minister and answering to
12:17
Speaker 1: negative publicity in the Daily Telegraph of the Herald's Sun,
12:20
Speaker 1: and so we've seen a whittling down where the frontline
12:23
Speaker 1: officers do not feel supported, particularly when push comes to
12:27
Speaker 1: shove dealing with crooks who are not afraid of them.
12:31
Speaker 3: Well, at the risk of sounding political, again, every senior
12:34
Speaker 3: rank when I say senior rank, I'm talking about commander
12:36
Speaker 3: and above in the Victoria Police is a political appointment, right,
12:40
Speaker 3: So that thin bulurry line between the separation of powers
12:45
Speaker 3: is thinner and blurrier all the time. You can tell
12:48
Speaker 3: looking at some of these senior officers they're wetting themselves
12:51
Speaker 3: with fears that they're not game to do it for
12:54
Speaker 3: fear of being criticized, and they're highly sensitive to criticism.
12:58
Speaker 1: Well, they lose their jobs. So that these commissions lose
13:00
Speaker 1: their jobs and our verst publicity.
13:02
Speaker 3: I can remember other chief commissions in the past that
13:04
Speaker 3: didn't care about that.
13:06
Speaker 4: I'd say I'm here to do the right team.
13:08
Speaker 3: Now, if that doesn't fit within your political feelings, bad luck.
13:12
Speaker 4: I'm going to do it anyway. You sack me. A
13:15
Speaker 4: classic situation he is with Shane Patton, a top copper.
13:18
Speaker 4: Shane Patton is.
13:20
Speaker 3: A real copper, a real bloke as a red hot
13:23
Speaker 3: go They guarantee they're going to give him a further
13:27
Speaker 3: extension to his career. Politically, he's out of sync with him.
13:31
Speaker 3: He's out on his ass the next day.
13:33
Speaker 1: Yes, undermined and by his political masters who were just
13:36
Speaker 1: before saying going to renew you. He goes in the
13:39
Speaker 1: papers talking about his next term. Within a week, bomb
13:42
Speaker 1: he's gone.
13:43
Speaker 4: He's gone out. What does that, Tyler?
13:44
Speaker 3: They've got this poor bugger from New Zealand coming. He
13:48
Speaker 3: doesn't know whether he's bums as punched, drill little bored
13:51
Speaker 3: at the moment, he's not gave us say for fear
13:54
Speaker 3: of being broadsided, you know, like he makes all the
13:58
Speaker 3: right noises and all that sort of stuff. But Shane
14:00
Speaker 3: made all the right noises too. He is capable of
14:03
Speaker 3: doing the job. When you're a leader, when you in command,
14:05
Speaker 3: you've got a command. You can't go getting your testicles
14:10
Speaker 3: bloody powdered by the politicians. You've got to be brave
14:13
Speaker 3: enough to stand up and do the right thing for
14:17
Speaker 3: the sake of doing the right.
14:19
Speaker 1: Yes, because the last time they brought an outsider into Victoria,
14:22
Speaker 1: Christine Nixon from New South Wales, didn't that go well,
14:26
Speaker 1: there you go.
14:27
Speaker 2: You were still on the job.
14:27
Speaker 3: Then, well I was, and I'll quite frankly say that
14:31
Speaker 3: the appointment of Christine Nixon was one of the things
14:34
Speaker 3: that made me reconsider my career as far as staying
14:36
Speaker 3: in the police force was concerned. And then subsequent appointments
14:39
Speaker 3: from people outside the organization didn't fill me with much
14:43
Speaker 3: confidence when I knew that the people put it this way.
14:46
Speaker 3: When Nixon came to Victoria Police, it was head and shoulders,
14:51
Speaker 3: the best police force in Australia, but absolutely professional. It
14:56
Speaker 3: had its issues the same as every other, but it
14:57
Speaker 3: was well run, it was well managed. All of a sudden,
15:00
Speaker 3: this thing comes along. Everybody's calling everybody by their first
15:03
Speaker 3: name and having a big love in all over the place.
15:06
Speaker 3: They're appointing people because of the correct gender or the
15:09
Speaker 3: correct sexual orientation. All of a sudden, the whole thing
15:12
Speaker 3: goes to hell.
15:13
Speaker 1: In a handbasket, and back then you had a paramilitary
15:17
Speaker 1: police force. In my opinion, it was on though it
15:19
Speaker 1: was obviously transforming into a corporate look.
15:21
Speaker 3: It was a disciplined organizer. I don't know whether i'd
15:23
Speaker 3: take it as far as paramilitary, but I'd say it's
15:26
Speaker 3: a disciplined organization. There is a chain of command.
15:29
Speaker 1: Inasmuch so it was because the sergeants had a lot
15:32
Speaker 1: of power, They had a lot of influence within the stations.
15:35
Speaker 1: And you were a sergeant in those days and you
15:37
Speaker 1: ran your team as if that was the entirety of
15:40
Speaker 1: Victoria Police. They answered to you, You mentored them, you
15:43
Speaker 1: looked after them when they had critical incidents. But now
15:46
Speaker 1: it's more like it goes up the chain now and
15:48
Speaker 1: everyone's now beholden to the top brass who are rarely
15:51
Speaker 1: on the front line.
15:52
Speaker 3: When you join the police force, or when I joined
15:54
Speaker 3: the police force, as it constable, you were taught about leadership.
15:57
Speaker 4: You are a formal leader.
15:59
Speaker 3: Even at the lowest rank in the police force, you
16:01
Speaker 3: were a leader right and as you moved through the
16:03
Speaker 3: police force, you learned more about leadership, You learn more
16:06
Speaker 3: about management, and you learn about accepting responsibility and wearing
16:10
Speaker 3: and owning things that you did and things that you
16:13
Speaker 3: had control of. These days, they're petrified to do that.
16:16
Speaker 3: What they do is they run it up the tree
16:18
Speaker 3: instead of managing things at their level or at the
16:22
Speaker 3: level immediately above them. All of a sudden, you've got
16:24
Speaker 3: a superintendent standing out there talking about things that sergeants
16:28
Speaker 3: should be talking about and getting back to sergeants. You
16:30
Speaker 3: know these guys. When I was a young black, the
16:34
Speaker 3: sergeant was a god. You know what he said happened
16:37
Speaker 3: that there was no arguing the toss. These days, nobody
16:42
Speaker 3: really cares much about the rank. I don't even think
16:44
Speaker 3: a lot of the people that are holding the rank,
16:46
Speaker 3: they're not really convincing as leaders.
16:49
Speaker 1: You joined in seventy five. Over that period there was
16:52
Speaker 1: a group of crooks who were getting very bold. They
16:55
Speaker 1: lost their fear of the police. We saw the bombing
16:58
Speaker 1: of Russell Street police headquarters. We saw the rampage of
17:03
Speaker 1: Max Clark Pavelo marinod mad Max who shot I think
17:06
Speaker 1: five or six police officers before he was killed. And
17:10
Speaker 1: leading up to October nineteen eighty eight, when Damienair and
17:14
Speaker 1: Stephen Tynan, constables were murdered in Wall Street South he era.
17:19
Speaker 1: You were at the center of all that issue back then.
17:22
Speaker 1: What was the attitude towards the crooks then and what
17:25
Speaker 1: was the mindset of people like you who are on
17:28
Speaker 1: the front line.
17:29
Speaker 4: Look, it was very much an US and them scenario.
17:31
Speaker 3: You know these days it's different, But back then, if
17:35
Speaker 3: somebody chose to conduct themselves like that, you know, the
17:40
Speaker 3: rule book found itself on its way out the window.
17:44
Speaker 3: You did whatever it was required in order to bring
17:47
Speaker 3: these blakes, take them out of the public, and put
17:50
Speaker 3: them in jail. Say with the bombing of Russell Street,
17:52
Speaker 3: for instance, the guys that did that, that was an evil,
17:56
Speaker 3: sinister act to kill as many coppers as they possibly
18:00
Speaker 3: could because they hated the coppers. They set up an
18:03
Speaker 3: robbery well away to the focus from what they were
18:06
Speaker 3: doing or what their intended act, which was effectively an
18:10
Speaker 3: active internal terrorism. You know, they loaded a car with explosives,
18:14
Speaker 3: put it out in the front of Russell Street, and
18:15
Speaker 3: then at that time of day they functioned or they
18:20
Speaker 3: caused that explosion to occur and kill as many people
18:23
Speaker 3: as they could. Fortunately, for many of the members of
18:25
Speaker 3: the public, there wasn't as many people around as these
18:29
Speaker 3: people wanted to be Angela Taylor, and a few other
18:32
Speaker 3: people that were unfortunate to be nearby suffered the consequences,
18:36
Speaker 3: and there's a brutal death for that young woman.
18:38
Speaker 2: It really was.
18:39
Speaker 1: And you look at the circumstances of that bombing and
18:41
Speaker 1: you realize it was only the incompetence of the bombers
18:45
Speaker 1: that avoided much greater loss of life, because their plan
18:49
Speaker 1: was to drive the vehicle under Russell Street into the basement,
18:52
Speaker 1: and they would have brought the whole building down. And secondly,
18:55
Speaker 1: they didn't know how to make a blister of their explosives,
18:59
Speaker 1: so they packed them all in the car. Some of
19:01
Speaker 1: the unexplodeds have ended up on buildings next door. Imagine
19:05
Speaker 1: the scale of the explosion had they've been more competent.
19:11
Speaker 3: Well, it was fortunate for everybody. I think that they
19:14
Speaker 3: weren't particularly good at making bombs. But even though they
19:17
Speaker 3: did their research and they made a highly effective bomb,
19:20
Speaker 3: it's the tactics that they used and some of the
19:23
Speaker 3: techniques didn't come up to scratch as far as getting
19:26
Speaker 3: maximum effect or maximum damage for the reasons you've pointed out.
19:31
Speaker 3: But that doesn't take it away from the fact that
19:33
Speaker 3: these guys, you wouldn't pick them in a million years as.
19:35
Speaker 4: To the sort of people that would do that sort
19:38
Speaker 4: of thing.
19:39
Speaker 3: And really the investigators in that initial stage, they had
19:43
Speaker 3: no idea who it was and if it wasn't for
19:46
Speaker 3: a detective sergent from the Stole Mode of Vehicle Squad
19:49
Speaker 3: who identified a certain modus operandi. But it came to
19:53
Speaker 3: altering the appearance of a vehicle, he said, I know
19:56
Speaker 3: who does things like that? He nominated the offender. That
19:59
Speaker 3: changed the complexion of the investigation and led to the
20:02
Speaker 3: arrest of all of the offenders.
20:05
Speaker 1: And Stanley Taylor, Craig Minogue and a couple of others.
20:08
Speaker 1: They run masters the bombers there. And I mean, you
20:10
Speaker 1: could say people make excuses for stan Taylor and say
20:13
Speaker 1: that he was brutalized in H Division, and he came
20:16
Speaker 1: out with her who cares?
20:18
Speaker 2: Who cares?
20:18
Speaker 3: You don't go to H Division if you're officer in
20:21
Speaker 3: charge of the glue Club. You go to Hate Division
20:24
Speaker 3: because you're a crook, a bad guy. You know, if
20:26
Speaker 3: you're brutalized, they're too bad, So sad who cares?
20:30
Speaker 1: And Craig Minogue he's now he's now a PhD, isn't
20:33
Speaker 1: he he's got.
20:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, only we get to use it, thank god. I
20:37
Speaker 3: suppose the only good thing he did in his life
20:39
Speaker 3: was killedt idiot tas Marcus.
20:41
Speaker 1: Alex tas Marcus who killed he'd killed Barry Quinn had
20:45
Speaker 1: he not inside pantrid set him on fire.
20:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, he tipped a container of glue on him and
20:51
Speaker 3: then let him up.
20:53
Speaker 2: And then Monogad waited.
20:54
Speaker 3: We call it an own goal in the trade.
20:59
Speaker 1: The self cleaning oven. You stand back and let him
21:01
Speaker 1: burn each other up. But of course then Monogad waited
21:03
Speaker 1: by the door when this markers coming in with a
21:04
Speaker 1: bag full of waits and smashed him over the head.
21:06
Speaker 2: That was the end of him.
21:07
Speaker 3: It beat him to death with a bag full of words.
21:09
Speaker 3: Arguably the best thing he did for the public, indeed.
21:12
Speaker 1: But as the rank and file officer who's pulling on
21:15
Speaker 1: his uniform leaving home, kissing his wife goodbye and his kids,
21:20
Speaker 1: when these things are going on, stressful, well, look it is.
21:24
Speaker 3: I suppose to some degree you don't think of the
21:26
Speaker 3: stressful aspects of it because you know what you're getting
21:28
Speaker 3: yourself in for.
21:29
Speaker 4: You.
21:30
Speaker 3: Look, you don't go to those crime squads or a
21:32
Speaker 3: special operations group of things like that. If you think
21:34
Speaker 3: you're going to be getting an easy ride through, you
21:37
Speaker 3: go there with the best intentions. You're out there to
21:40
Speaker 3: make a difference and catch the worst of the worst,
21:44
Speaker 3: and you're prepared to confront them. It takes a fair
21:46
Speaker 3: bit of grit to do that, and if it turns
21:49
Speaker 3: out that you pay the supreme price, so be it.
21:54
Speaker 3: You're gone in there with your eyes open, knowing what
21:56
Speaker 3: is possible and what's likely to happen.
21:59
Speaker 1: And then we have the Flemington crew Victor Pierce, Gary Abdullah,
22:03
Speaker 1: Marc Melitano, and Graham Jensen, who were all part of
22:07
Speaker 1: the lead up and the execution of those two police
22:10
Speaker 1: officers Steve Tynan Damien Air in nineteen eighty eight.
22:13
Speaker 2: This was now a random attack.
22:16
Speaker 1: What was the impact on your cohortant generation of that moment.
22:20
Speaker 3: I don't know whether it was so much of a
22:22
Speaker 3: random that was an absolute planned execution. They decided that
22:26
Speaker 3: they were going to go out and kill a couple
22:27
Speaker 3: of defenseless young coppers, So they set up a stolen
22:31
Speaker 3: car in a dark street in South Sierra, armed themselves
22:35
Speaker 3: with superior weapons to what the coppers had. When the
22:38
Speaker 3: young Blakes turned up, they murdered them in cold blood
22:41
Speaker 3: in the street, and that personally, to me, it was
22:46
Speaker 3: absolutely infuriating. And anybody that says any copper and any
22:52
Speaker 3: detective at the times that says he wasn't made furious
22:55
Speaker 3: by that's not telling you the truth.
22:57
Speaker 2: Where were you then?
22:58
Speaker 4: I was a.
22:58
Speaker 3: Detective in the major crime squad then, actually i'd just
23:02
Speaker 3: been promoted to sergeant. I was doing a sub officer's
23:04
Speaker 3: course at the time.
23:06
Speaker 1: But there was a perception that now all bets were off,
23:09
Speaker 1: that there was going to be some more bloodshed, and
23:12
Speaker 1: it didn't really matter how it was achieved. These fellows
23:15
Speaker 1: were either going to be brought in in the divvy
23:17
Speaker 1: van or in the coroner's wagon.
23:19
Speaker 3: Well, whatever had to happen had to happen. You can't
23:22
Speaker 3: allow people like this to prevail. I think people need
23:26
Speaker 3: to understand it's not a competition out there. The coppers
23:28
Speaker 3: have got to win. They must win. They're a thin
23:32
Speaker 3: blue line. If they don't win these confrontations, if they
23:36
Speaker 3: don't come out in front of these competitions, there is
23:38
Speaker 3: nobody out there to protect the public, and the public
23:42
Speaker 3: need protection and needed protection from people like that, as
23:45
Speaker 3: they need protection from these lunatics running around doing what
23:49
Speaker 3: they're doing today.
23:51
Speaker 1: You're also involved in the final moments of Mad Max
23:54
Speaker 1: Pablo Maronov Max Clark, as he called himself at that time,
23:57
Speaker 1: he was running around shooting police officers. Tell us about him.
24:01
Speaker 3: Well, look, the guy you call Mad Max of Pavel,
24:04
Speaker 3: the vassal of Maaro.
24:06
Speaker 4: He was a burglar.
24:07
Speaker 3: He was a really good burglar who happened to have
24:10
Speaker 3: a skill set well above most burglars.
24:13
Speaker 4: This guy was very, very good with.
24:16
Speaker 3: Weapons, especially handguns, and every time he had a confrontation
24:20
Speaker 3: with the coppers when it came to the use of handguns,
24:23
Speaker 3: he came out in front. He is the element of surprise,
24:26
Speaker 3: his high level of skill training that he probably received overseas.
24:30
Speaker 4: In the military.
24:31
Speaker 3: He won every gun battle that he got involved with
24:34
Speaker 3: the police. He didn't kill any police, but he severely
24:37
Speaker 3: wounded a number of them. Just luck, really well, it
24:40
Speaker 3: was more good luck than good management. Some of the
24:43
Speaker 3: stuff he did was fairly brutal, and especially shooting. That
24:47
Speaker 3: wounded sergeant that was on the ground came up behind
24:50
Speaker 3: him with a forty five automatic pistol with a modified
24:53
Speaker 3: projectile that actually had been drilled out to cause maximum
24:57
Speaker 3: expansion and shot him between the shoulder blades and turned
25:00
Speaker 3: him into a paraplegic.
25:03
Speaker 4: That was particularly look at the end of it.
25:07
Speaker 3: All the day that we got him, he was armed
25:10
Speaker 3: with a nine milimeter a pistol, a stolen submachine gun,
25:15
Speaker 3: and he had a confrontation with the police as a
25:19
Speaker 3: result of which he was shot to death.
25:23
Speaker 1: There's a couple more stages to that. I'd like it
25:26
Speaker 1: because it was quite a moment, wasn't it, Because you
25:28
Speaker 1: were there on the scene, but you weren't quite there.
25:30
Speaker 2: Where were you?
25:31
Speaker 3: Well, there was four of us that were initially deployed.
25:34
Speaker 3: It was very tenuous information that we received that we
25:38
Speaker 3: were regards to this offender. We couldn't tell who it
25:41
Speaker 3: was at the distance that we were. We couldn't approach
25:44
Speaker 3: where he was easily. We had to observe him from
25:48
Speaker 3: a distance. We weren't sure who he was. Up until
25:51
Speaker 3: such time as John Kapernowski and Rod MacDonell actually did
25:54
Speaker 3: the intercept. We had a communications issue, a failure as
25:58
Speaker 3: a result of which during that communications failure, when they
26:01
Speaker 3: decided they wanted to intercept Max, the gunfight ensued.
26:05
Speaker 4: The other half of the crew didn't know what was
26:07
Speaker 4: going on.
26:07
Speaker 2: You could see that from your distance.
26:09
Speaker 3: No, I couldn't see it. They decided to intercept him
26:11
Speaker 3: a bit down the road. We didn't know that they
26:13
Speaker 3: were going to carry out the intercept because their communications
26:15
Speaker 3: had failed. Once we became aware that the gunfight had
26:19
Speaker 3: occurred and the two coppers were wounded, initially we thought
26:22
Speaker 3: the offender had actually gotten away until we located the
26:26
Speaker 3: van in a paddock just out of Wallen. I didn't
26:30
Speaker 3: even know it was Mad Max until we had approached
26:32
Speaker 3: it and I could see him laying in the driver
26:36
Speaker 3: side of the vehicle with his with his right arm
26:38
Speaker 3: pretty well shot away and blood coming from his forehead,
26:42
Speaker 3: and he had a blonde wig on, which made it
26:45
Speaker 3: fairly hard to identify him. So I actually didn't know
26:47
Speaker 3: that it was until I took the wig off his head,
26:48
Speaker 3: and then bang, you know new strataway that it was
26:51
Speaker 3: Mad Max.
26:52
Speaker 4: He was obviously dead.
26:54
Speaker 1: Because McDonald had managed to get a shot off even
26:56
Speaker 1: though he was wounded, and he had the big SG
26:59
Speaker 1: round in his shotgun.
27:00
Speaker 3: McDonald was shot through the chest. He was armed with
27:03
Speaker 3: a Remington eight cv shotgun on the passenger side of
27:06
Speaker 3: the van. Kapit was on the driver's side of the
27:09
Speaker 3: van when Mad Max engaged them. He fired at Kapranovski, first,
27:14
Speaker 3: effectively putting him out of the fight, shot off one
27:16
Speaker 3: of his fingers in his master hand. The second round
27:19
Speaker 3: hit him in the humorous of his left hand, which
27:22
Speaker 3: effectively rendered him incapable of engaging so he couldn't fire.
27:26
Speaker 3: He then turned his attention to McDonald, who was on
27:29
Speaker 3: the passenger side, fired around shot McDonald in the chest.
27:33
Speaker 3: McDonald returns fire with a shotgun. A shotgun blast, as
27:38
Speaker 3: you quite correctly said, using SD's which are quite a
27:41
Speaker 3: powerful load, has hit Max in the right forearm, which
27:46
Speaker 3: was his master hand, the hand that he was holding
27:49
Speaker 3: the gun in.
27:50
Speaker 4: It pretty well blew.
27:51
Speaker 3: That arm off almost and as he fired that round,
27:56
Speaker 3: Max accelerates away in the vehicle, cuts through a fence
28:00
Speaker 3: and drives out into a paddock. McDonald does a reload
28:03
Speaker 3: on the hop they call a tactic or reload by
28:06
Speaker 3: as his weapon. One pellet from that round enters through
28:10
Speaker 3: the back window of the van, striking Max in the
28:14
Speaker 3: back of the head, killing him pretty well instantly, and
28:18
Speaker 3: the vehicles eventually come to a stop. The thing that
28:21
Speaker 3: actually killed him was that round that one round through
28:24
Speaker 3: the head. The other injury that he received was survivable,
28:27
Speaker 3: but it was quite a significant injury.
28:29
Speaker 1: This was a cumbination of a desperate man hunt. What
28:33
Speaker 1: was it like for you being on the scene there
28:35
Speaker 1: when the threats been neutralized, the reign of terror is over.
28:39
Speaker 1: What was the emotion that you felt.
28:40
Speaker 3: Well, you know, you're got it. There's a fairly major
28:42
Speaker 3: adrenaline Russia occurring. There's very emotions are bouncing all over
28:47
Speaker 3: the place, you know. But the fact that we had
28:49
Speaker 3: identified him as being the person that we were after,
28:52
Speaker 3: and the fact that he was dead. I suppose a
28:55
Speaker 3: sense of relief came over us. You know, the SoJ
28:58
Speaker 3: guys that were there with us, you know, they once
29:01
Speaker 3: were satisfied that he was no longer a threat. It
29:04
Speaker 3: see him brother sigh of relief.
29:07
Speaker 1: Because you go into operational and arms training after that. Understands. Yeah,
29:11
Speaker 1: with these experiences in mind, what are you telling young
29:15
Speaker 1: recruits coming into the academy, coming into the squads about
29:19
Speaker 1: what they're going to encounter.
29:21
Speaker 3: My role at the fosteranit of the forums operational survival training,
29:24
Speaker 3: and it was I was actually an instructor trainer, so
29:27
Speaker 3: we were training instructors to teach coppers how to win
29:31
Speaker 3: gun battles pretty well. And people see the public seem
29:34
Speaker 3: to think, oh, the coppers carry guns and they do
29:37
Speaker 3: target practice and fire the guns. Yeah, they do do
29:39
Speaker 3: target practice, but ultimately they're taught to fight with the
29:43
Speaker 3: weapons systems that they're issued with. And there's a big
29:46
Speaker 3: difference between shooting targets and shooting human burnings. The use
29:49
Speaker 3: of force, the use of force continuum, all the tactics,
29:52
Speaker 3: the techniques, all the other equipment that's open to them,
29:55
Speaker 3: how to use it, how to apply it, how to
29:57
Speaker 3: make the judgment calls. And that's trained both mechanically developing
30:02
Speaker 3: psycho motor skills and also the psychologic and you're going
30:06
Speaker 3: to be psychologically very very switched on. You're going to
30:09
Speaker 3: pass a lot of tests in order to be able
30:11
Speaker 3: to be the person that's going to get out there
30:13
Speaker 3: and be prepared to enter into a gun battle and win.
30:16
Speaker 3: As I said earlier, the coppers have got a win well.
30:18
Speaker 1: Particularly when you're not supposed to be proactive, you've got
30:22
Speaker 1: to respond appropriately in the circumstances.
30:26
Speaker 3: Coppers are always reactive, So no matter what happens when
30:31
Speaker 3: you're out there you are reacting to a stimulus, so
30:34
Speaker 3: the offender has always got the advantage. The offender has
30:37
Speaker 3: got the advantage and the fact that he knows when, where,
30:40
Speaker 3: and what he's going to do. The coppers are reacting
30:43
Speaker 3: to that stimulus, so they're at a tactical disadvantage in
30:48
Speaker 3: most cases. Where there are tactical situations where the police
30:53
Speaker 3: may have a tactical advantage, but that's not directly relevant
30:57
Speaker 3: to general policing.
30:59
Speaker 1: We spoke to George Hateley from a SOOG from Victoria
31:02
Speaker 1: about his confrontation with Normally at the airport in the
31:05
Speaker 1: early nineties. It's a classic situation like that where I
31:08
Speaker 1: remember that where Lee has tried to rob the ANSET terminal.
31:11
Speaker 1: He's driving away. The vehicle isn't accepted by the SOG members.
31:16
Speaker 1: Lee's on the ground, he's got his forty five, He's
31:19
Speaker 1: going to give up. George has got his shotgun leveled
31:22
Speaker 1: at Lee. Then Lee raises his gun again and George fires.
31:27
Speaker 3: George showed a hell of a lot of restraint in
31:30
Speaker 3: not killing him prior to that. But our soog are
31:33
Speaker 3: probably one of the finest in the world. These guys
31:36
Speaker 3: are trained magnificently They're not there to kill people, you know,
31:40
Speaker 3: they're there to stop threats. Their roles are counter terrorist
31:43
Speaker 3: roll even though from time to time they do roles
31:45
Speaker 3: other chasing other violent criminals. But if the soger at
31:49
Speaker 3: the scene, they kill somebody, if they shoot somebody, means
31:53
Speaker 3: things have got as bad as they could possibly be
31:55
Speaker 3: and there was no other tactical option because George's responds
32:00
Speaker 3: to a different kettle fish. That's a different kettle of
32:02
Speaker 3: fish to general policing. Right, you're talking about extremely highly
32:06
Speaker 3: trained men as opposed to guys that have got good,
32:09
Speaker 3: solid training. But the level is totally different with people
32:14
Speaker 3: like George.
32:14
Speaker 1: As you see, I have great sympathy for people on
32:17
Speaker 1: the div van now. I think three quarters of their
32:19
Speaker 1: jobs are domestic violence interventions. They don't know what they're
32:23
Speaker 1: coming into, crossing the threshold. There could be a weapon,
32:26
Speaker 1: that could be anything there. And they're supposed to be counselors,
32:29
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be police officer, are supposed to be.
32:31
Speaker 2: All kinds of things.
32:31
Speaker 3: Let's realize the problem you see in my humble view,
32:35
Speaker 3: all murders are usually occurred by people that know each other,
32:38
Speaker 3: and domestic arguments are often the scenario where you know
32:43
Speaker 3: mum's stabs, dads, dads dabs, mum love triangles, all of
32:47
Speaker 3: those human frailties that create motives and want people to
32:52
Speaker 3: kill each other. The couples on the div van get
32:54
Speaker 3: a call a mom and dad are yelling at each other,
32:56
Speaker 3: They hear dishes breaking, they turn up. They don't know
32:59
Speaker 3: what they're going to face you. Initially, what I think
33:02
Speaker 3: should happen is they should identify it for what it
33:04
Speaker 3: is to a triage. If somebody needs to be arrested,
33:06
Speaker 3: they arrest them and they should hand the whole shooting
33:08
Speaker 3: match over to pardon the pun They should hand it
33:12
Speaker 3: over to social workers to deal with. What happens these
33:15
Speaker 3: days is they do all that rough tough stuff and
33:18
Speaker 3: take the physical threats away, and then they're going to
33:21
Speaker 3: get into the touchy fairly, put them before courts and
33:24
Speaker 3: make everybody feel nice and fluffy stuff. That's where if
33:28
Speaker 3: you want to tie up a police divisional van, send
33:30
Speaker 3: them to a domestic argument because you know you've got
33:33
Speaker 3: their undivided attention for a minimum of four hours.
33:36
Speaker 1: Particularly after the Raw Commission here in Victoria highlighted the
33:39
Speaker 1: inability of police in these situations, the failure to prevent
33:43
Speaker 1: these things, going from a domestic argument to a homicide.
33:47
Speaker 3: Well, the thing is all of this stuff. It's analyzed
33:50
Speaker 3: to with an inch of its life in a currenter's
33:53
Speaker 3: court or when there's embarrassed across examining someone. But ultimately
33:58
Speaker 3: it takes a matter of seconds. Somebody picks up the
34:00
Speaker 3: wilt chair's stay sharp knife from the kitchen bench, runs
34:03
Speaker 3: it through mum's chair.
34:05
Speaker 4: There you have it. A murder. You know, that's as
34:08
Speaker 4: much as it takes.
34:09
Speaker 3: And I have seen human beings with every conceivable type
34:12
Speaker 3: of knife, screwdriver, scissors, whatever you can imagine, sticking them
34:17
Speaker 3: into each other and killing each other. I reckon, I've
34:19
Speaker 3: seen pretty well every way you can do it. How
34:21
Speaker 3: do you sleep like a baby?
34:25
Speaker 2: Why do you?
34:27
Speaker 3: How would you say it? Look, my eyes have seen
34:29
Speaker 3: things that my brain will never forget. You just got
34:32
Speaker 3: to learn to live with it.
34:34
Speaker 1: You don't, You can't live without those memories.
34:36
Speaker 3: I mean you look, no, Look, there's there's some occasionally
34:40
Speaker 3: something will trigger something off and it'll remind you of
34:43
Speaker 3: a scenario or remind you of something tragic that's occurred,
34:48
Speaker 3: and you think of what I've seen people do to
34:51
Speaker 3: each other out there, and you think the world's not
34:55
Speaker 3: that bad a place. But humans will continue to be humans,
34:59
Speaker 3: and they'll continue slaughtering each other and doing horrible things
35:02
Speaker 3: to each other because of the human is that they have.
35:07
Speaker 3: And the people that are refereeing it, which are the coppers,
35:10
Speaker 3: will always be the ones that are scrutinized, will always
35:13
Speaker 3: be the ones that are in the hot seat. It's
35:16
Speaker 3: all being analyzed.
35:18
Speaker 1: Would you join again now, knowing the environment today, the
35:22
Speaker 1: constraints obstacles, you would have to operate away.
35:25
Speaker 3: And if I joined today and I conducted myself like
35:29
Speaker 3: I did when I joined, I'd last about a minute
35:32
Speaker 3: and a half out there.
35:33
Speaker 2: I reckon, how do we put fear back into the crooks?
35:37
Speaker 3: The thing is that the fear is a driver and
35:41
Speaker 3: it's a behavior modifier. I suppose you could use say
35:45
Speaker 3: Singapore as an example. You know, I know it's an
35:48
Speaker 3: extreme example, but the use of corporal punishment for people
35:51
Speaker 3: that choose to conduct themselves in a violent and nasty
35:55
Speaker 3: way out in the street. If you choose to conduct
35:57
Speaker 3: yourself like that, you bring the punishment onto yourself. The
36:01
Speaker 3: villain's out there, especially these young people They understand and violence.
36:06
Speaker 3: They know what violence is. They use it when it's
36:09
Speaker 3: exacted against them. Their attitude changes very very quickly. They
36:13
Speaker 3: know if the odds are stacked against them, they lose
36:15
Speaker 3: interests pretty smartly. Don't worry about that. Where they've got
36:18
Speaker 3: the upper hand, when they've got a stolen vehicle or
36:21
Speaker 3: an edged weapon. They never attack anyone who's capable of
36:26
Speaker 3: defending themselves effectively. They always attack someone who is not
36:30
Speaker 3: capable of defending themselves, the weak women people, when they're
36:35
Speaker 3: vulnerable in their houses. So they've got the upper hand,
36:39
Speaker 3: there is no fear, or there's a minimal amount of fear.
36:42
Speaker 3: When the odds are stacked in the other way, well
36:44
Speaker 3: it's a different kettle of fish. You find that their
36:46
Speaker 3: behavior changes a lot.
36:48
Speaker 1: Indeed, just to finish, you can set the record straight
36:53
Speaker 1: about an issue that Carl Williams faced out in broad
36:56
Speaker 1: Meadows when you were the sergeant there in the late nineties.
36:59
Speaker 1: He always believed that the Moran clan is sworn enemies
37:05
Speaker 1: had sent the police to a location where he and
37:08
Speaker 1: his father when you're manufacturing drugs. But I think you've
37:11
Speaker 1: got a different version of that, and this actually Carl
37:15
Speaker 1: used this as a motivation for his feud with the Moranes,
37:19
Speaker 1: but it wasn't quite the way that he thought it
37:21
Speaker 1: had transpy What actually happened.
37:23
Speaker 3: Well, I was a detective senior says that in charge
37:27
Speaker 3: of broad Meadows, So I believe on that day my
37:31
Speaker 3: detectives were investigating something totally different that Williams or any
37:36
Speaker 3: of the Marines weren't even in the picture. They went
37:39
Speaker 3: to what was referred to as the walk up flats
37:42
Speaker 3: in broad Meadows. They are going to execute a warrant
37:44
Speaker 3: for a fraud matter. They could hear something happening upstairs,
37:48
Speaker 3: like a machine operating like a washing machine, and being
37:52
Speaker 3: clever detectives they've worked not many people kept washing machines
37:55
Speaker 3: upstairs in bedroom. So they end up gaining entry onto
37:59
Speaker 3: this place and that happens to be Williams's drug manufacturing lab.
38:02
Speaker 3: And the machine that was operating was a pill press.
38:06
Speaker 3: So they found themselves all of a sudden standing up
38:09
Speaker 3: to their knees in amphetamines and other drugs. As a
38:15
Speaker 3: sheer fluke, and a lot of these things in situations
38:19
Speaker 3: like this is exactly what happens. Police stumble across things.
38:23
Speaker 3: But I say life's like a box of chocolate. You
38:25
Speaker 3: never know until you open up and have a look.
38:27
Speaker 3: You pull up a vehicle on the side of the
38:29
Speaker 3: road where a routine stop and there's a Blake's got
38:32
Speaker 3: missus mcgilla cuddy in the booth.
38:34
Speaker 4: That they murdered. You know, there is no difference.
38:37
Speaker 2: Poor missus mcgilla cuddy, so Williams.
38:40
Speaker 3: Not that it matters anymore, but Williams has got tickets
38:42
Speaker 3: on himself. Nobody sent the coppers anywhere as far as
38:46
Speaker 3: arresting him as concern. He was just stiff that he
38:49
Speaker 3: was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
38:51
Speaker 1: That was your part in his downfall, Alex Christich. So
38:57
Speaker 1: many amazing stories there. And I just think about the
38:59
Speaker 1: people who are on the front line of police these days.
39:02
Speaker 1: How do they feel about the constraints about the life
39:05
Speaker 1: of resources, the politics, the whole thing. If you're out there,
39:08
Speaker 1: either you're in the force or you're thinking of joining,
39:10
Speaker 1: why don't you drop me alnge let me know how
39:12
Speaker 1: you're feeling, you know, Adam Shanner, writer a gmail dot com. Otherwise,
39:16
Speaker 1: I'd love your feedback on this episode. And if you
39:18
Speaker 1: ever have a story, you can either call crime stoppers,
39:21
Speaker 1: what don't under triple three? Triples are or you can
39:23
Speaker 1: talk to me here at Real Crime. This has been
39:25
Speaker 1: Adam shanned for Real Crime. Thank you for listening.
39:35
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