by Steve Deeks
“That’s what you call a good contact,” I replied with massive understatement. With no police or security at the hospital we would have been lame ducks in a dark corner of the car park. “Someone didn’t want the media reporting this incident,” Brad added solemnly.
After racing down the freeway, now finally safe, we eventually pulled into a McDonald’s where we grabbed some food and gathered ourselves. “Mate, that was a bit fucking hairy,” Paul shouted, relief pouring out of him as we walked across the car park. Despite repeated phone calls to police media no confirmation was forthcoming on whether the victim had died or not. “Fucking cops… up to their usual tricks,” Paul groaned.
We made our way back to the office once we’d finished our food. With it gone 5am I was beginning to feel weary, yet I was only too aware that I still had the task of writing the story in front of me. It was hardly the best time of day to be delivering my best pros, but that was the nature of the shift and something I would just have to get use to. In any case, I wasn’t complaining. After all I wasn’t lugging about conference furniture. After downing an energy drink I checked with the police and ambulance media departments for any further updates before settling down to write, which despite heavy eyes and a slow functioning brain I finished in good time and left the office just after 7am. If I had been under any false impressions about the danger of the shift I was certainly under no illusions now and knew I would need my wits about me – and possibly to invest in a bullet proof vest.
On a lighter note, during my next day shift the tale of me contacting the head of police media in the early hours had spread like wildfire, much to the delight of those in the office. “I hear you got him out of bed,” one reporter laughed.
“Yeah, I don’t think he was too impressed,” I replied dryly.
“Well he’s getting paid a fortune so I wouldn’t worry about it,” one of the editor’s laughed. Strangely enough I never was able to pin down the head of police media for clear the air talks. My hope of bringing an end to the bitter war with police now in tatters. But at least I had made my mark and would be fondly remembered for pissing off the head of police media on my first night in the job.
Having just about recovered from the ordeal of my opening night in the job my first Saturday night shift was now upon me. I waited eagerly outside the front of the dark and eerily quiet offices at 10.30pm for the photographer, Daniel, wondering what delights the night would bring this time. Standing patiently for several minutes, a car that looked like an unmarked police vehicle, due to its installed light-bars on the roof, screeched round the corner before pulling up. The electronic window went down before a head appeared from inside. “Hey, you Steve, the new night reporter?” a hyper voice shouted.
I walked over to the car. “That’s right, you must be Daniel?”
“Yep that’s correct,” he said, fiddling intently with the numerous cables that were bulging out of the variety of technological gadgets across the front and back seats. “Oh fuck it, call me Dan,” he added.
I glanced around the car and was astounded, not to mention nearly blinded, by the array of flashing lights. I had never seen so much technology in one place, certainly not in a car, which wouldn’t have been out of place in a James Bond film. Dan had the look of a crazed mad scientist and spoke at high velocity on technical themes, which I knew I would never understand even if my life depended on it.
Painstakingly he then went through all the different code permutations of the fire and ambulance services and what each one meant. “So this one means someone’s possibly dead, probably of old age or suicide,” he said rolling his eyes exasperatedly, while holding his finger forcefully in the air to make sure I didn’t speak as he paused for further details. “Ah who gives a fuck,” he added, once it was confirmed someone was receiving treatment after trying to take their own life. Although amusingly brutal, a clinical assessment of whether the information was newsworthy was being carried out, albeit in an idiosyncratic way. Most of the time the details over the scanners were of no use. But this certainly didn’t halt Dan’s never-ending commentary on dissecting the incoherent ramblings.
I found myself doing a lot of nodding and made some reassuring noises to confirm I was listening. But in truth all I could hear was a whirlwind of words stuffed together that made no sense to me. On the rare occasion he stopped for breath I would attempt to ask a question, only for him to halt me mid-flow by quickly raising his palm, as he turned up the volume of the scanners. “Wait….could be a stabbing…nope it’s just an old dead person…god bless the old dear,” he said disappointedly. Whilst unashamedly nerdish he was undoubtedly entertaining, though I did find the energy being sucked out of me as I tried to keep up.
After a casual meander around the city we pulled up on a side road where police were cunningly hiding to haul suspect cars over. We parked further down the road and then waited. After no more than five minutes a car came past and with pinpoint accuracy Dan predicted the chain of events. “3…2…1…and there’s the lights,” he declared confidently, as the police lights and siren suddenly came on at that exact second, prompting the vehicle to pull over. “The poor fuckers never saw it coming.” The tone of his voice suggesting he could not possibly have been any further away from caring about the driver’s dilemma than he already was, as he whipped out his camera and grabbed a couple of quick fire shots.
With only a series of false alarms, Dan suggested we head up to near the Harbour Bridge to a road where the council had recently started handing out huge fines to motorists who were parked in a zone that had recently changed to a non-parking area at midnight, which naturally many of the vehicle owners were unaware of. The changes had been written for the benefit of those with super human sight on the side of the road, or for those who just so happened to be carrying a magnifying glass.
A large group of sneaky parking attendants were congregated around the corner waiting for the clock to strike midnight before pouncing en-masse with military precision, whacking fines on hundreds of vehicles and demanding significant sums of money each time for their crimes. The ploy was worth thousands of dollars each week to the council but left a sour taste in the mouth of many a motorist. So, like Batman and Robin, we set about our jobs with relish.
By just 12.30am we counted over 80 fines had been dished out by the prolific parking attendants. After slowly crawling our way up and down the dark quiet road we pulled up alongside some parked cars before Dan opened his window and lined up a shot of a parking attendant slapping another ticket on someone’s windscreen. “That’s it…come to daddy,” Dan said with devilment, as if he was a predator lining up his prey. “Aha got you, you little cunt,” he added joyfully as he pulled the trigger on his camera before bursting out into a Dracula style laugh, taking delight at his capture.
Now we had the shot I could do my stuff. I excitedly jumped out of the car and strolled across the road to where the attendant was. “Excuse me sir,” I began, flashing my press card smugly in his startled face. “I’m with the press. I was just wondering, could you tell me how many fines you’ve handed out so far tonight? And how many do you do normally do in a night? And in a week?” The man rolled his eyes as the realisation set in that he, the hunter, had now turned into the hunted. I was met by a deafening wall of silence as he awkwardly continued writing out another fine for some unfortunate soul he had picked on.
Despite his unwillingness to provide a quote, I nonetheless persisted in the face of adversity. “Why do you all hide around the corner? How many of you are there tonight?” Still nothing, apart from a telling look that said he despised every ounce of my being. Still, the irony wasn’t lost on me and at least he now knew how it felt to be caught out. “Enjoy the rest of your night,” I added before walking off.
As angry vehicle owners turned up we filled them in on what had been happening, before I quickly launched into a series of rage-provoking questions, ensuring they knew that we would be doing everything in our power to raise awareness of the
issue. “You must find it extremely frustrating what the council have done to you and countless others?” I asked the shocked drivers, who were still trying to absorb that they had to pay an extortionate fine for something they knew nothing of.
“But I paid for a parking ticket earlier,” disbelieving vehicle owners would say, thinking there had been some mistake.
“Yes but that doesn’t count after midnight now following the recent changes,” I replied with an understanding shrug of my shoulders, before sitting back and waiting for the inevitable explosion of rage.
“Well they should fucking make it clearer then, not have it written in small print on a dark road,” one man, turning purple with anger, spewed. “This council is a disgrace. They’re already getting top dollar from us and now we have to bend over and take it up the arse from them,” the disgruntled individual added, before turning and launching a further volley of abuse at the parking attendant who had scuttled across the road by now.
“Mind if we get a picture of you? And your name?” I added, ensuring we had a face and name to go with the quotes. Dan then lined up pictures of the victims by their car, ideally with the parking attendants in the background, as the fuming drivers continued to unleash a torrent of abuse in the direction of the council employees. After doing our bit we went back to the car and made off into the city night pleased with our work. “That probably won’t even get a run in the paper,” Dan announced smiling, as we made off waving to the irate drivers. “They did something similar on this a while back. Least we got to shit up the parking attendants though.”
The night continued with us chasing down assaults in the city centre, only to find out they were either bogus or had dispersed by the time of our arrival. I had come to realise that Dan was not afraid to put his foot down or invent his own special highway code; in particular slamming on the brakes and reversing all the way back down one-way roads after thinking he had heard something of importance on the scanner, only to discover a few seconds later it was nothing.
Speeding along I got the impression my colleague wasn’t particularly fond of other road users. “Cunts…get out my way,” he constantly yelled at motorists, who had the barefaced cheek to be doing the speed limit. Many people, sensing Dan’s urgency with him repeatedly flashing his lights and honking his horn when in thick traffic, would sharply move out of our way, leaving a space through the middle of two lanes having wrongly presumed we were an unmarked police car.
On the way to a traffic accident we sharply veered across the road and to avoid being hit by an oncoming car were forced to take the turning slightly early, cutting across white markings. Unfortunately, the vehicle we had just avoided was a police truck, with the officers inside taking umbrage to Dan’s driving, performing a quick u-turn to chase us down. Despite performing a couple of turns down side roads they remained on our tail, so we pulled into a petrol station hoping we would not be spotted. It was not to be, however, as two rather large policemen pulled up and came over and angrily read the riot act, prompting a backlash from Dan. “We were in a hurry to get to the accident round the corner,” the photographer pleaded, before confirming to the confused officers that we were members of the media.
But, unfortunately, my workmate hadn’t grasped the ability to know when to stop talking. “If you guys hadn’t gone encrypted then we would know straight away what was happening and wouldn’t have to drive in a hurry.” His best deflective efforts didn’t wash and if anything riled them further with one exasperated officer looking like he wanted to strangle Dan. Having been banned from driving before and being only one minor offence away from another one, Dan tried a different tact: grovelling. It seemed to work as after a lengthy lecture he was handed a reprieve and sent on his way. Shortly after, with reports of another traffic accident, we sped off through the lit up night roads.
There had been a pile-up on the busy Parramatta Road, the east-west artery of metropolitan Sydney. With ambulances, fire crews and police everywhere we knew instantly it was a significant crash. There were no deaths but the scale of the incident meant it had a chance of making the paper. After getting the necessary details at the chaotic scene we escaped to the office where I bashed out the article, all while Dan was bending my ear, before heading home.
I was soon into the nightshift routine: go to the office and see if there’s any specific item that needs to be covered, then head out in the car for a general roam, attending any incidents, genuine or not, if it’s deemed to be newsworthy enough. Such was the morbidity of the shift, the overriding criteria on whether something was of interest seemed to largely depend on if someone had died or was likely to die. But the caveat to this was that it didn’t generally include suicides, drug overdoses and old people due to the fact such occurrences were nothing out of the ordinary.
There were exceptions to the rule; such as if it was a drugs overdose by a celebrity’s son or daughter, or there was something suspicious about someone dying, as well as if there was a trend for that particular night, say three suicides in the same area. Also the location of an incident was significant as to whether it was worth exploring and forcing ourselves away from McDonalds, where we spent a healthy amount of time hanging out munching on burgers and ice creams waiting to pounce on any possible action. For example, a non-serious stabbing in one of the gangland western suburbs would barely raise an eyebrow, as they were as common as muck. But if one took place in the leafy eastern areas, inhabited by the rich and famous, burgers had to either be wholly devoured or eaten on the run to get to the scene pronto. The aim was always to beat the police to the incident before they had a chance to put a crime scene up and deny us getting as close to the trouble as possible.
When I met up with Dan during our next shift he appeared more relaxed and began to open up. While I had picked up on the fact he was not the biggest fan of the police, I was surprised to learn that his animosity had gone to new levels after his expensively assembled equipment had apparently been smashed following an altercation with beleaguered cops one time, who apparently had unceremoniously put an end to his attempts to capture shots of an incident.
Deploying an extremely dry form of sarcasm was one of his weapons against them. “Thank you officer you’ve been most helpful,” he said to one, who told us to clear off after there had been reports of a stabbing. “I’ll do my best to stop you being in the photo with your hat off,” he grinned, as we screeched off. Suffice to say it was a well-known fact that cops regularly got a dressing down by their superiors when caught not abiding by the strict uniform code, in particular with regard to not having their caps on. So what better way to expose them by putting their picture in the newspaper. After all, it had been known to happen before so was a viable yet perfectly legitimate way to influence them.
A while later Dan was once again using the cap trick. But this time it was to win them over as we attended a four car pile-up down Elizabeth Street. “Excuse me officer,” he said politely. “I think you might want to put your hat on as your superiors won’t be happy if you’re seen not wearing the full uniform.”
“Oh yeah, good point. Cheers mate,” the relieved policeman replied, before turning a blind eye to Dan encroaching on the cordoned off area to get the best shots.
And we were not immune from influence either. So how friendly the police were to us could swing which way a story went. A point sometimes forgotten by some officers, much to their own detriment. During one shift, it looked like a highly publicised police clampdown on booze related crime and disorder was working. With it late in the night we still didn’t have any stories of note, despite Dan’s plea to the scanners, “Come on…give me a hostel fire,” he shouted, staring pleadingly at the radios. At the very least we hoped for some drunken punch-ups with some good shots of cops arresting those involved so we could do a story on the success or failure of the police blitz. We headed to George Street just before 3am and waited outside the busy Starbar, a notorious spot where it often kicked off between swarms of the loitering d
runkards after kick out time. The police had the same idea and were out in force, demonstrating a visible presence to any people thinking of misbehaving.
Despite plenty of annoyingly sloshed people being rowdy and rambling incoherently, there was no drama until just before closing time when a pissed-up man reluctant to leave was ushered out of the bar by bouncers. Although not aggressive the medium sized fellow refused to vacate the area. And then, in the blink of an eye, about six large male officers steamed over and grabbed his arm, clearly aggravating him. The silent protester, seething at the strong treatment, dug his feet in and would not move, provoking the policemen to put him in his place. “Yes…finally,” Dan excitedly screeched, before quickly taking up position just feet from the melee, following a friendly chat with the duty officer who had agreed on this occasion to give him a free reign of camera snapping (something they would rarely be so willing to indulge, often citing some obstruction act we had breached when really they just didn’t want us there).
On this occasion, though, the police were more than happy to get the publicity, proud to show the public the tough zero tolerance stance they had taken on supposed drunken yobs. Using an array of special moves the officers brought the publicly humiliated man face down on the street with his arms and legs bending in all kinds of directions, as he let out an animalistic scream of deep pain in front of the gathered masses tortuously transfixed on the man’s demise like a Medieval hanging. Several wincing women had to look away, such was the barbarity of it all. Just for good measure, though, with the man totally defeated lying face first on the street, one officer gave the man a solid knee in the back, while another turned toward the circle of watching revellers and smiled, seemingly proud of his efforts in triumphing over the individual. Some brave anti-establishment figures in the crowd showed what they thought of it all. “Were you bullied at school? Have you have got a small cock mate or something?”