Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced, the Gadigel people of
Speaker 1: the urination. We pay our respects to elders past and present.
Speaker 1: This episode contains Ben Besant's first hand experience of the
Speaker 1: Link Cafe siege and includes discussions of terrorism, violence, death
Speaker 1: and PTSD. If any of these topics are triggering for you,
Speaker 1: please give this episode a miss or seek help by
Speaker 1: visiting lifelines website at lifeline dot org dot au or
Speaker 1: by calling thirteen eleven fourteen.
Speaker 2: It's December fifteenth, twenty fourteen, and a terrorist has eighteen
Speaker 2: people held hostage inside the Link Cafe in the heart
Speaker 2: of the Sydney CBD. A police operation is underway in
Speaker 2: Martin Place in Sydney, CBD.
Speaker 1: We just got some breaking news as a police operation
Speaker 1: are underway in the heart of the city and several
Speaker 1: police vehicles are at the scene.
Speaker 2: What you're watching is live.
Speaker 1: It's happening here in Martin Place, thirty forty meters from
Speaker 1: We're standing.
Speaker 2: Tactical Operations Unit Officer Ben Besant is in position with
Speaker 2: his M four pointed directly at the target.
Speaker 1: There are dozens and dozens of place, some very heavily
Speaker 1: armed in helmets and care blastsuits.
Speaker 2: Through the window, Ben sees the man wearing a backpack
Speaker 2: stretched by its contents and two wires looping out from
Speaker 2: the bottom, one black and the other red. He knows
Speaker 2: the second that goes off, he and everyone around him
Speaker 2: are dead. He sends off one last text to his
Speaker 2: pregnant wife at home, asking for some photos of their
Speaker 2: young daughter. But Ben has a job to do and
Speaker 2: there's no decision to be made. He isn't leaving these hostages.
Speaker 2: I'm at Middleton and this is Headgame today inside the
Speaker 2: mind of the man brought the Link Cafe Siege to
Speaker 2: a close. I am super stoked to have Ben Bezant
Speaker 2: on my podcast head Game. Now. This man is a
Speaker 2: man of my own heart. He was a tactical Operations
Speaker 2: unit officer in the Linked Cafe Siege. Mate, We've got
Speaker 2: loads to talk about. It's an absolute pleasure having you
Speaker 2: on here. And like I said, mate, you are a
Speaker 2: man of my own heart and I can't wait to
Speaker 2: get into the thicker things. But before we do, how
Speaker 2: did you get it involved with becoming part of this unit?
Speaker 2: Was it always something that you you grew up with
Speaker 2: was your father in the in the police force? Did
Speaker 2: you have a military background? How did that happen?
Speaker 3: Firstly, made a pleasure to be on this on this
Speaker 3: podcast with you and quite the introduction you just gave me,
Speaker 3: which is which is appreciated to start off with your questions.
Speaker 3: My it was more my grandfather. He was in the
Speaker 3: Royal Australian Air Force as a flight engineer. His father,
Speaker 3: so my great grandfather was in the Austrai Lighthorse involved
Speaker 3: in the Battle of Beersheba and stuff like that. But
Speaker 3: growing up, I would say, yeah, my grandfather was a
Speaker 3: huge part of my life, told me lots of stories
Speaker 3: relating to his unit, war stories, all that type of thing.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it always it did have an impact and
Speaker 3: shaping me going forward in life.
Speaker 2: I'd say, why did you choose to go police and
Speaker 2: not military if the military was sort of ingrained in
Speaker 2: you from a young age.
Speaker 3: Yes, So I'd say after I left school, I decided
Speaker 3: I was just scanning to take it easy for a
Speaker 3: little while. I went and worked with my dad doing
Speaker 3: excavation and a number of other jobs. I always imagine
Speaker 3: just joining joining the army through school obviously wanted to
Speaker 3: be in the double A F which require great deal
Speaker 3: of schoolwork and aptitude in that area, which I may
Speaker 3: have fallen slightly short on. So I was processing that
Speaker 3: for a little while. But yeah, I always imagine I
Speaker 3: joined the army. Then a good made of mine who
Speaker 3: was in the police force, having a good chats to him,
Speaker 3: telling us all the sort of things that they do
Speaker 3: and how good it was. And still in the back
Speaker 3: of my mind the whole time, I always imagined joining
Speaker 3: the military. So I did. I signed up with the
Speaker 3: police Force. I joined them. It wasn't fulfilling that side
Speaker 3: of me, the service and the wanting to be more
Speaker 3: military based, so I did join the Army reserves. I
Speaker 3: was in that for probably a year.
Speaker 2: And a half.
Speaker 3: I was trained in infantry, attached to one commando, which
Speaker 3: is the reserve unit over here.
Speaker 2: And that's all wise. Being in the police.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well yeah, they're very dommodating with that. They give
Speaker 3: you a leave for all that. So yeah, my plan
Speaker 3: was to then go on and do selection, and a
Speaker 3: lot of people once they actually get through in the
Speaker 3: reserve selection, then move into the full time commandos. But
Speaker 3: I always knew about the TU the taxic operations unit,
Speaker 3: which is realistically the closest thing to the military within
Speaker 3: the police force.
Speaker 2: So you're like a special force within the police force. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the way it's set up with governments in
Speaker 3: Australia and each state, so we are responsible for the
Speaker 3: counter terrorism response for New South Wales. So that's why
Speaker 3: we take a year of course, as we do above
Speaker 3: and beyond other things. We do helicopter operations, fast ope
Speaker 3: and all that sort of thing, lots of tactical raping courses,
Speaker 3: all our water operations training and then active shooter so
Speaker 3: do all of that and we're trained to do that
Speaker 3: because ultimately, if there's a terrorist attack in New South Wales,
Speaker 3: what happens is we respond.
Speaker 2: So so you're doing you're doing all your tactical training,
Speaker 2: you're fast roping and and your firearms training, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. We're going to jump now, we're going to
Speaker 2: jump straight into into Martin Place. And for those of
Speaker 2: you that no Martin Place, you know the Link cafe
Speaker 2: very well, and you know we know it very well
Speaker 2: because it was global coverage. I remember watching it being
Speaker 2: live streams and but to take me through when you
Speaker 2: woke up, what you know how how the day went
Speaker 2: and how it just transpired into all of a sudden
Speaker 2: being fucking at that door, cameras in your face, the
Speaker 2: whole world's attention is zoomed in on your team.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a big day and it's a day
Speaker 3: that that I'll never forget. I'd say more the aftermath
Speaker 3: of everyone with their opinions. It should have been done differently.
Speaker 3: It should have been done by the special forces, it
Speaker 3: should have been Everyone has an opinion on everything. But yeah,
Speaker 3: so that morning, I was just on shift, so I
Speaker 3: started at seven am. I was actually in our unit
Speaker 3: because we're specialized and obviously see a lot of trauma
Speaker 3: and that they make our unit go and see the
Speaker 3: shrinks that they have within the police force. I'd say
Speaker 3: more a box sticking exercise than anything. But as I
Speaker 3: came back into the office, I knew instantly something something
Speaker 3: was wrong. I just go back slightly before that. Before that,
Speaker 3: we knew it was a matter of time. We've been
Speaker 3: doing lots of c T works, so counter terrorism work.
Speaker 3: We've been arresting. There was a large cellar I think
Speaker 3: it was up to thirty to forty guys. So we've
Speaker 3: been doing a lot of arrests in relation to that.
Speaker 3: Leading up to it, there was the attack there the
Speaker 3: two guys down in Victoria, the counter Terrian police, it
Speaker 3: stabbed obviously after nine to eleven, and there's terrorist incidents
Speaker 3: happening around the world, so we knew something was coming.
Speaker 3: Constant briefings daily. But yeah, as I came back into
Speaker 3: the office, it was it was just a very different feel.
Speaker 3: Straight away, police negotiate a running through the office, which
Speaker 3: is something you never see.
Speaker 2: Its ag fider sentences. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then as I walked in, my sergeant there,
Speaker 3: he's walked up. Just grab your stuff, we're going, and
Speaker 3: I believe I just said to him, so the big
Speaker 3: one's happening, and he's gone, yep, let's go. So that's all.
Speaker 3: I took race downstairs. There was another operator in there,
Speaker 3: our armored vehicle, so we rushed down to Martin Place
Speaker 3: and it was just a scene of chaos as you
Speaker 3: can imagine. There's General Judy's cops everywhere trying to clear
Speaker 3: pedestrians off the street. There was our guys trying to
Speaker 3: file into positions, and I was allocated to the Alpha team,
Speaker 3: the Entry team straight away and we're being briefed honestly,
Speaker 3: as by the seconds things were changing. But right from
Speaker 3: the beginning we were told a man in Middle East
Speaker 3: in appearance with a shotgun and a backpack, claiming to
Speaker 3: have explosives in the cafe. So yeah, I'd say, right
Speaker 3: from the beginning, I knew it was real. Wow.
Speaker 2: So when's the first time you step on the ground
Speaker 2: and you as an individual and as team start processing
Speaker 2: and breaking this down because now you're the eyes and ears.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, and then as you know, you're scrambling
Speaker 3: trying to get in tell the other you're trying to
Speaker 3: work out best positions. Yeah, we had Sierra teams, so
Speaker 3: sniper teams going up. We had three separate sniper teams
Speaker 3: in different locations. They really had very limited vision. And
Speaker 3: initially we pulled up on say, on the street down
Speaker 3: the bottom on Elizabeth Street with Martin place. Then we
Speaker 3: were deployed up on the Phillip Street. It's like a
Speaker 3: truckloading bay, which is only really thirty meters or so
Speaker 3: from the front entry. And yeah, like you said, you
Speaker 3: need eyeball into, you need vision in to see what's
Speaker 3: going on. You can only there's only so much vision.
Speaker 3: The snipers had so that's why myself and my shieldman, PAULI,
Speaker 3: we went to our team there and said, look, this
Speaker 3: is this is not good. We don't have any real
Speaker 3: intel on what's going on. We've had no eyeball into
Speaker 3: there for a while. So he gave us permission to
Speaker 3: push forward. So it was just my shieldman and myself
Speaker 3: was the first cover man. We pushed forward to the
Speaker 3: first of four windows on the cafe, and from there
Speaker 3: I was able to, yeah, get eyeball into the cafe.
Speaker 3: I was able to get quite a bit of vision
Speaker 3: what was happening inside. I saw a number of hostages
Speaker 3: in there who were completely traumatized, visibly shape and crying.
Speaker 3: I saw a number of them holding up the black
Speaker 3: Islamic flags to the front windows opposite Channel seven. And then, yeah,
Speaker 3: I saw him quite quite a few times. I saw
Speaker 3: his shotgun. I saw the way he was moving. He
Speaker 3: was very serious straightaway, and the backpack, it was a
Speaker 3: big black camel mountain back and I could see clearly
Speaker 3: two wires protruding from the bottom. In my mind, my
Speaker 3: shieldman's mind, and my supervisor who pushed forward, we wholeheartedly
Speaker 3: believe it was a bomb right from the beginning, we've
Speaker 3: done lots of specialist training with the military so and
Speaker 3: all that sort of thing, and so from everything, all
Speaker 3: their training, we believe it was a bomb right from
Speaker 3: the beginning, which changes the whole course of the job,
Speaker 3: as you can.
Speaker 2: Absolutely it does. Absolutely, it's you know, you're on tender
Speaker 2: hooks there. You know, you've got your thinking. You know,
Speaker 2: people don't realize hostage rescue is exactly that. You know,
Speaker 2: if you can, if you can rescue all of those
Speaker 2: hostages and you don't have to fire around them. Wow,
Speaker 2: So you're up against the window, You've got good eyes on.
Speaker 2: Now do you ever lock eyes with the terrace? Do
Speaker 2: you ever lock eyes with the with the target? And
Speaker 2: when you get there and you see the hostages, is
Speaker 2: there ever a moment where you're just like whoa, Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we actually got vision into the cafe, probably up
Speaker 3: to thirty minutes or so. The whole time he was
Speaker 3: walking around or any anytime he went past the window,
Speaker 3: he'd always have the shotgun on a hostage, so he'd
Speaker 3: always be marching a hostage around with him or to
Speaker 3: the back of the head. So for everyone, for people
Speaker 3: out there saying it should have been a sniper shot,
Speaker 3: rot from the beginning. That obviously avoids that. As you know,
Speaker 3: the body's natural reaction if your shot is to jerk,
Speaker 3: hence to pull the trigger, which would kill a hostage.
Speaker 3: We didn't realize at the time through the building manager
Speaker 3: that it used to be a bank to so they're
Speaker 3: glasses tough and glass to it specialized around for that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then and then also on top of that, common
Speaker 3: practice for that time the dead man switch on the
Speaker 3: bomb too, isn't it. So you shoot him even if
Speaker 3: you shot him in the right spot, he didn't kill
Speaker 3: a hostage released dead man switch, everyone in the cafe
Speaker 3: is dead instantly, So that was always a consideration there.
Speaker 2: So you're feeding back intel, I suppose you're receiving at
Speaker 2: tenfold as well. What's the process like through your head
Speaker 2: put us in your head in that time when all
Speaker 2: of this information has just been you're being overwhelmed with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So our primary job is to get intel on
Speaker 3: each of the hostages, back descriptions of them, and we
Speaker 3: did manage to see them for quite a while, and
Speaker 3: as much intel and information on him, I'd say on
Speaker 3: a personal level, me seeing a lot of these hostages
Speaker 3: as you can imagine you get a bit of an
Speaker 3: emotional attachment to them, so it becomes more than just
Speaker 3: a job with just numbers, and you're overwhelming instinct with
Speaker 3: people who in our line of where you want to
Speaker 3: you want to go in and rescue, You want to
Speaker 3: do your job. You want to be allowed to do
Speaker 3: your job and go in and that wasn't allowed to
Speaker 3: happen for quite a long time.
Speaker 2: What's going through your head?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: As the times ticking.
Speaker 3: We were there for up to sixteen hours, so it
Speaker 3: was a It was a long day, and we obviously
Speaker 3: chatted amongst ourselves in a group, and we all believed
Speaker 3: it was a bomb, and we sort of the darking
Speaker 3: of joking about it. We all go in there, we
Speaker 3: be your medals for the missus and the families, all
Speaker 3: that sort of thing. But yeah, then it became quite
Speaker 3: real where we one hundred percent believe we run into
Speaker 3: that cafe, he's going to set the bomb off. Every
Speaker 3: one of us is going to die. So that was
Speaker 3: a confronting realization, but it was something that everyone in
Speaker 3: my team and I believe the other team, we all
Speaker 3: had to get over and we dealt with emotionally that
Speaker 3: the moment we run in there, beyond probability, we all
Speaker 3: believe we were going to die. So that was that
Speaker 3: was difficult for us, to the point we all sent
Speaker 3: messages home on I did. I sent message to my
Speaker 3: wife at the time, tried saying my goodbys who text
Speaker 3: messaged without Alami? I know what I thought? Yeah, I
Speaker 3: got it to send some some picks on my little girl.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that was that was a real, very real
Speaker 3: and confronting moment. She being pregnant too. I never believed
Speaker 3: I was going to be able to see my my
Speaker 3: second you know.
Speaker 2: And how did that work for you? Psychological? Does it
Speaker 2: ramp you up? Does it gee you up? Or is
Speaker 2: it a case of listen, I just wanted to see
Speaker 2: your face before before this, before this ship show kicks off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say with this job it was it was
Speaker 3: different than other jobs. I'm assuming I'd probably deal with things.
Speaker 3: It's the same with you just deal with the situation
Speaker 3: and worry about ramifications later. Normally it's it happens, but
Speaker 3: being there for sixteen hours and talking about it amongst
Speaker 3: your mates and yeah, it just became very real. And yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: one hundred percent believe that I go in there that
Speaker 3: I'm going to die. So I was in a roundabout
Speaker 3: way saying goodbye, and I just wanted to see a
Speaker 3: couple more pics of my daughter again. One of my
Speaker 3: best mates, PAULI, is a shield man. He's showing me
Speaker 3: some pics of his He's yeah, young like so, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think in a roundabout way. Yeah, he even said
Speaker 3: to me, I love you, bro, and yeah, I said,
Speaker 3: I love you man. So in sort of a rand
Speaker 3: about way, we were sort of saying goodbye to each other.
Speaker 2: So fucking emotional rollercoaster.
Speaker 3: Yeah wow.
Speaker 2: And then you get the green light, tell me about
Speaker 2: that coming over the radio, right, you know, greenlit, let's go.
Speaker 3: So as you know, you're prepared the whole day, but
Speaker 3: then you have different situations where ramps right up and yeah,
Speaker 3: you adrenaline's pumping. You've got to try and deal with that,
Speaker 3: not suppress it, but use it. But yeah, so highs
Speaker 3: and loads all day. But then the radio call coming
Speaker 3: over that they believed they were settling down for the night,
Speaker 3: and then it was within thirty seconds of that we
Speaker 3: heard the first shotgun within the cafe go off. So yeah,
Speaker 3: from that very moment where completely high and we're completely ready.
Speaker 3: We're just desperate to go in. I remember even looking
Speaker 3: forward at Paulie and he's just rocking on his feet.
Speaker 3: We're just like just desperate, just just waiting go and
Speaker 3: then yeah, no call. We didn't go in from that
Speaker 3: point with the shotgun, we didn't have too much intel
Speaker 3: coming in. Straight away. We knew hostage had run out.
Speaker 3: We had one one guy actually run up and then
Speaker 3: run down Phillip Street so we could see him, so
Speaker 3: we knew hostages come out. We knew he'd been fired on.
Speaker 3: And then we get that coming over the radio and
Speaker 3: it's yeah, so we're just ready, we're heightened one hundred percent,
Speaker 3: we're mentally prepared. And then there was a second shotgun
Speaker 3: blast went off a little bit later. That was when
Speaker 3: he actually took one of the hostages. Tory Johnson had
Speaker 3: him on his knees and the first round he's actually
Speaker 3: fired above his head. We didn't know this at the time,
Speaker 3: but this is obviously what I know now. Our snipers
Speaker 3: had very limited vision. Then there was a third a
Speaker 3: third shot rang out and still remember the words coming
Speaker 3: over hostage down, white window two, hostage down, what window too?
Speaker 3: So we knew he'd now execute to hostage. Yeah, which
Speaker 3: is difficult to still even talk about. Yeah, the code
Speaker 3: word the EA co woard came over Tiger. Tiger Tiger.
Speaker 3: So paulis shellman carrying ballistic shield. As you know, they're
Speaker 3: pretty they're pretty heavy, but set off a great rate.
Speaker 3: He sprints down to the front entry windows. It's two
Speaker 3: large paned glass windows propped on the left. I'm in position,
Speaker 3: muzzle up just over his left shoulder, got my light
Speaker 3: source on steering into the cafe, just desperate to find him.
Speaker 3: A lot of glare coming back off the cafe. And
Speaker 3: as I'm sure you know, everything in these situation just
Speaker 3: slows down like so much's it's ridiculous how much it's
Speaker 3: slow down. And I remember looking in scanning, I've seen him.
Speaker 3: Our EA was the last two blokes on the stack
Speaker 3: to try and punch through the first window with a
Speaker 3: breaching shotgun and deployee sand and flash grenades through the
Speaker 3: first window. That's our only form of distraction we were
Speaker 3: approved to use. And as I touched on before, we
Speaker 3: couldn't get through. It used to be a bank, so
Speaker 3: the rounds they had couldn't get through. So even that
Speaker 3: didn't work. But as I've looked in, I've sighted him
Speaker 3: my light, so I've picked him up. He's still wearing
Speaker 3: his white shirt. Still see the straps on the backpack.
Speaker 3: He's initially looking up to them. Then he's seen me
Speaker 3: and he's ye swiveled. He had his shotgun off his
Speaker 3: hip and swiveled it straight to face me, and we
Speaker 3: had our eyes completely locked. At that point, I was
Speaker 3: just waiting for the breacher, which felt like it took
Speaker 3: too long in the moment because everything had slowed down
Speaker 3: so much. They might have been a second or two,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: But even a split second, even a.
Speaker 3: Split second, and he can't really explain it to people
Speaker 3: who haven't lived it. But then yeah, he's breached out
Speaker 3: the glass window on the left, Paul. He's stepped in
Speaker 3: and I just as soon as I took my first step,
Speaker 3: just fire a movement, just bang, cracked off around at him.
Speaker 3: I ad my light, saw some laser pointer center body mouse,
Speaker 3: and I got off two rounds, i'd say, and that's
Speaker 3: when he fired on us the first time. And in
Speaker 3: a dark space like a cafe, you can imagine a
Speaker 3: muzzle flash from a shotgun, huge flash. I knew it
Speaker 3: at that point being fired upon, but still my shield
Speaker 3: man's sort of some cover. So yeah, I just kept
Speaker 3: I just kept moving to the threat, as we were
Speaker 3: trained to do. Just push to the threat, and I
Speaker 3: just kept firing on the move. I did hear someone
Speaker 3: screaming out man down, man down, behind me, but I
Speaker 3: knew I had to block it out because my job
Speaker 3: and the only chance I believed in that time, was
Speaker 3: to get him down. So he was incapable of detonating
Speaker 3: the bomb, so I was completely fixated on him, and
Speaker 3: getting rid of him is a threat. I had to
Speaker 3: block everything out. I continued to walk forward, just firing
Speaker 3: in the movement. Every time the muzzle of stabile ized,
Speaker 3: just crack another round off, and I hit something with
Speaker 3: my foot that there was a partition. At some point,
Speaker 3: I stopped and just kept firing, and that's when he
Speaker 3: fired off his second round. And in that moment I
Speaker 3: became this is probably seven meters away, you know, pretty close.
Speaker 3: You doing well to miss with a shotgun at that range.
Speaker 3: And I became very aware in that moment that I
Speaker 3: was now on my own. My shield man had been
Speaker 3: the first round that he cracked off actually hit the
Speaker 3: other glass entry door, clipped his shield as well, and
Speaker 3: that the whole weight of that glass came down on
Speaker 3: top of him and it just just pulled him the
Speaker 3: shield down momentarily, like we said before, but enough for
Speaker 3: me to keep pushing forward. But yeah, in that moment,
Speaker 3: I still remember behind my rifle, just squinting. I was
Speaker 3: sure I was going to get hit, you know, a
Speaker 3: shotgunder that range, and I didn't. It's just good. And
Speaker 3: then yeah, I kept kept firing on him, and then
Speaker 3: I yeah, within my head the questioning why hadn't he
Speaker 3: gone down? I knew my rounds were hitting. I was
Speaker 3: sent a body mask, my laser pointers on him, so
Speaker 3: I just moved it up onto his head and kept firing.
Speaker 3: And then yeah, I knew I'd hit him. He started
Speaker 3: to crumple in that moment, I can't be sure if
Speaker 3: he's taken a knee or not. So yeah, I followed
Speaker 3: him down and fired another couple of times still until
Speaker 3: he came to arrest, And yeah, I was just completely
Speaker 3: fixated on him with my ready to go, ready to
Speaker 3: fire him. Even if he twitched or moves, I would
Speaker 3: have would have fired. Again, He's the only threat, He's
Speaker 3: the one can potentially detonate a bomb. So just stayed
Speaker 3: fixated on that moment until one of the studies that
Speaker 3: were deployed may well have bounced off the ground and
Speaker 3: just cracked up and just bam straight in my left ear.
Speaker 3: I've still got tindus and hearing loss to his day
Speaker 3: in that moment. That was enough to snap me out
Speaker 3: of everything being slowed down and just my fixation on him.
Speaker 3: And then I heard someone screaming out with me, with me,
Speaker 3: and that was my shield man. Then he's pushed forward.
Speaker 3: I pushed forward on his shoulder and stood over him,
Speaker 3: and yeah, I knew very quickly he was no longer
Speaker 3: no longer a threat. He's just poor blood on the ground.
Speaker 3: He's I was only there moment earlier. But it's still
Speaker 3: a moment I think about.
Speaker 2: It happens so slow, like you said, habits start that
Speaker 2: it's hard not for it to be imprinted in your mind,
Speaker 2: whether you like it or not. You're so hyper focused
Speaker 2: and things that you could the detail of things. You know,
Speaker 2: you can still remember his face, his face expressions. You know,
Speaker 2: it's embedded there for it us. So it's not like
Speaker 2: you can sort of unprocess it because again, until you've
Speaker 2: been there and understand it. You're taking every single bit
Speaker 2: of detail in every single you know, subconsciously, every single
Speaker 2: and moment, in every single millisecond. Is it counts and exactly.
Speaker 2: It's hard to really explain, but I can't. I get it, mate,
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And for me, it felt like minutes rather than second. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was a lot of the criticism I received personally
Speaker 3: later on Why did I fire on him and shoot
Speaker 3: him so many times? And all the ballistics testing, everything
Speaker 3: that came out proved that the reality was that the
Speaker 3: whole time from the point that the window was breached
Speaker 3: and I took my first round to my last was
Speaker 3: three to four seconds. Title, you know, but yeah, and
Speaker 3: that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to keep
Speaker 3: firing until he's no longer a threat.
Speaker 2: When you said you snap back into the room, because
Speaker 2: it is it's almost like you're in this bubble and
Speaker 2: then it's happened and you snap back out of it
Speaker 2: by something or someone. Are you straight into the to
Speaker 2: releasing the hostages at this stage that you're like, like
Speaker 2: the target's been neutralized. That's mission complete on that side.
Speaker 2: Now the next next stage is too is to extract
Speaker 2: the the the hostages, because obviously you know you're dealing
Speaker 2: with not only live hostages, but you're dealing with with
Speaker 2: dead hostages.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, of course, there's so like we were talking
Speaker 3: about before the moment that the stung grenade went off,
Speaker 3: it was like I returned back to reality, real time,
Speaker 3: pushed forward to him, stood over him, realize he's no
Speaker 3: longer a threat. I was still processing that in the moment,
Speaker 3: only a couple of seconds or whatever, but my shieldman, Paulie,
Speaker 3: push forward beyond screaming you have been saved to a hostage.
Speaker 3: In that moment, yeah, I realized now like now our
Speaker 3: priority is to get as many hostages out as we can.
Speaker 3: Priority has changed. First priority to neutralize him, I will
Speaker 3: say too. When I was standing over him, looking down,
Speaker 3: I was looking at the backpack, I can still see
Speaker 3: it's full as wires coming out. So even in that moment,
Speaker 3: I still believed it was definitely a bomb. So now
Speaker 3: a new priority before it potentially goes off at any
Speaker 3: time is to get as many out, and that's what
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 2: Well, May got an extract from your book Tiger Tiger, Tiger,
Speaker 2: and which is phenomenal book. And there's a paragraph in
Speaker 2: there that I thought explained it really well, you know,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to read that paragraph and this is
Speaker 2: when you heard tiger, Tiger, Tiger, And it says, but
Speaker 2: the brutal reality, as we saw it, was that as
Speaker 2: soon as we entered the cafe, everyone was going to
Speaker 2: die in a massive ied explosion. In that moment, this
Speaker 2: inevitably hit us like a proverbial mat truck. Our training
Speaker 2: had incorporated strategies for deliberately putting away distracting feelings about
Speaker 2: being killed, but now death seemed almost a certainty. No
Speaker 2: one spoke. We just stood there, our rifles at the ready,
Speaker 2: shoulder to shoulder, ready to go, waiting for the whistle
Speaker 2: to blow, deep in our own thoughts. Wow, and I
Speaker 2: know that you broke that down and said exactly what
Speaker 2: you were you felt you were doing, obviously running into
Speaker 2: a suicide mission. But when did you realize that that
Speaker 2: suicide mission sort of was no longer? When did you
Speaker 2: realize that, actually, now we've got the upper hand. I've
Speaker 2: survived this. And the reason why I say it probably
Speaker 2: wasn't because the chaos of the situation, but to have
Speaker 2: that mindset before you breach you breach, you face the terrorists,
Speaker 2: You've got all of these hostages, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: was there a moment where you think I'm not going
Speaker 2: to die, you know we're safe, or you know we've
Speaker 2: lived through it or with it, or did just the
Speaker 2: situation take over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So on entry, as I went to engage him,
Speaker 3: I believed I'd take one or two steps in boments
Speaker 3: all over. But all I can do in the moment
Speaker 3: is try and get him down, and that was our
Speaker 3: only hope that I saw it for us, all the hostages.
Speaker 3: The moment, I was standing over the top of him,
Speaker 3: so he's now dead, no longer a threat. I was
Speaker 3: processing that, but also processing that I can see the bomb.
Speaker 3: It's still there. It hasn't gone off. So even in
Speaker 3: those few seconds I was there, that was Yeah, I
Speaker 3: was processing weight. I'm in here, I've actually killed him.
Speaker 3: I'm standing over he's now dead body. The bomb hasn't
Speaker 3: gone off, So yeah, I'd say. In in that that moment,
Speaker 3: it changed slightly in my mind. I didn't think I
Speaker 3: was safe, but I was still shocked and surprised. I
Speaker 3: was I was still alive and he's now dead. At
Speaker 3: my feet. So now priority has now changed. Let's get
Speaker 3: as many hostages as we can because this may well
Speaker 3: go off at at any time.
Speaker 2: What's the situation like when you're getting the hostages out,
Speaker 2: is it just get them out as quick as possible
Speaker 2: and get them to safety and then start to process
Speaker 2: what's what the hell has gone on?
Speaker 3: Yeah, next phase is search as hard, as fast and
Speaker 3: as hard as you can. First hostage I went to
Speaker 3: was actually Luis, I hope with Paulie. He was on
Speaker 3: She was sitting on the floor in a pretty pretty
Speaker 3: bad way, you know, definitely suffering from shock and everything.
Speaker 3: Paul He's tried lifting up. I'd rush to side. I
Speaker 3: went to pick her up, and we're trying to rush
Speaker 3: her out as quick as we could. And realized she
Speaker 3: wasn't helping her. She wasn't she wasn't walking with what
Speaker 3: was going on. And I looked down and that's when
Speaker 3: I saw her foot. I believe it was shrapnel that
Speaker 3: she copped and there was her foot was only literally
Speaker 3: been held on with a couple of attendons and just
Speaker 3: dragging behind her. So yeah, in that moment, wasn't much
Speaker 3: time to process. Oh shit, Okay, we picked up fireman's
Speaker 3: carry and then rushed her out, rushed her out the front,
Speaker 3: and yeah, the paramedics were all waiting. They rushed into her.
Speaker 3: Quickly turned to go back into the cafe. That's when
Speaker 3: I looked down to my left and there was someone
Speaker 3: all in black receiving a lot of treatment by paramedics.
Speaker 3: That's when the man down, man down came rushing back
Speaker 3: to me. I thought it was my supervisor just quickly
Speaker 3: in the moment, because yeah, I believed initially it was him,
Speaker 3: because I knew there was a man down, didn't know
Speaker 3: the story behind it. And then yeah, it came quickly
Speaker 3: aware that it was Tory Johnson who'd been executed, which
Speaker 3: is obviously very confronting. But then a couple of the
Speaker 3: other operators come out. One of them bumped into me
Speaker 3: with a hostage. So yeah, I just punched straight back
Speaker 3: into the cafe. And the lights were now on in
Speaker 3: the cafe. And as you notice, as soon as you
Speaker 3: turn lights on from a dark space, the whole whole
Speaker 3: field everything changes. Being dark, everything feels so much bigger
Speaker 3: and more. As soon as the lights are on it
Speaker 3: it's changed. And it was not only a scene of chaos,
Speaker 3: it was just it was a It was a brutal scene.
Speaker 3: There was there was smash class everywhere. There were spent
Speaker 3: bullet cartridges, stun grenades, screaming distraught hostages and just just
Speaker 3: blood everywhere. The place is filled with smoke. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I just went straight pushed straight to the back and
Speaker 3: one of the other team leaders screaming out using more
Speaker 3: tactical terms I won't use here, but just search everywhere,
Speaker 3: search the place. We've got to get out of here
Speaker 3: as fast as we can. The bomb's going to go
Speaker 3: off at any time. So I started scanning the back
Speaker 3: of the back of the cafe, like sort of behind
Speaker 3: where where he's still bleeding out on the floor. And
Speaker 3: that's when there's a lot of tables in the back
Speaker 3: corner stacked up with other tables on top and chairs
Speaker 3: and everything. And as I looked down, I could see
Speaker 3: what was the top of someone's head. I knew it
Speaker 3: was a hostage. Screamed out to my I made them right,
Speaker 3: and he yeah, we were just rushed in, just throwing
Speaker 3: the tables as fast as we could. We just tried
Speaker 3: getting to her as fast as we could, and then
Speaker 3: each table we removed, we can see more and more
Speaker 3: of her. Yeah, so I've quickly taken a knee. Her
Speaker 3: head came to rest on my forearm, and yeah, I
Speaker 3: knew she was in a real bad way. From that point,
Speaker 3: I knew in that moment there was nothing I could
Speaker 3: really do. One of the boys screaming out be from
Speaker 3: behind him, we need medics, So I knew. I knew
Speaker 3: the paramedics were on their way, and literally, as we're
Speaker 3: looking at each other's eyes, all I could really do
Speaker 3: was just will her to take another breath, and then
Speaker 3: finally she didn't, she stopped breathing. It's i'd say, still
Speaker 3: the toughest moment of my life, having her die in
Speaker 3: my arms like that, and then we later finding out
Speaker 3: that she'd been killed by police shrapnel. I know, if
Speaker 3: you look at it factually and everything else that's all
Speaker 3: come out, and the rounds we're using fragged a lot.
Speaker 3: The rounds that even hit I may well have gone
Speaker 3: through him to to hit her. But it's sort of
Speaker 3: something that I've always blamed myself for. And I'd say,
Speaker 3: through all the other things I went through, all the
Speaker 3: other jobs I went through, this is the one thing
Speaker 3: that I knew I couldn't process couldn't, couldn't lock away,
Speaker 3: And I'd say, it's the reason why I'm not still work.
Speaker 2: And you know what, mate, we have a whole tendency
Speaker 2: as soldiers to do exactly the same thing. We take
Speaker 2: something that was completely out of our control and we
Speaker 2: take it personally, We own that, we own it personally
Speaker 2: when ultimately, you know we shouldn't. It's easier said than done.
Speaker 2: I've got good friends, and I went through a process
Speaker 2: myself of being in a patrol and someone getting blown
Speaker 2: up and thinking well, I should have been there, that
Speaker 2: should have been me. I should have gone point that day.
Speaker 2: And then I look at the grand scheme of things
Speaker 2: and you know that that I d didn't have my
Speaker 2: power's name on. It didn't have my name on. It
Speaker 2: was just, you know, it just happened in it in
Speaker 2: a way. And again with ricochets and collateral damage. It's
Speaker 2: one of those where the personal element, if you can
Speaker 2: try and take away that personal element and go right, well, actually,
Speaker 2: this is what I've personally done and what I personally controlled,
Speaker 2: which you know ultimately saved multiple hostages and you took
Speaker 2: out an evil individual, you took out a threat to
Speaker 2: not only humanity, but to you know, to for further
Speaker 2: chaos and destruction if they would have got their own way.
Speaker 2: In your book, you talk about, you know, the high
Speaker 2: price that you've paid for your service. What tolld did
Speaker 2: the siege take on you?
Speaker 3: I'd say right from that moment. I've obviously witnessed and
Speaker 3: seen and been part of a lot of other traumatic incidents,
Speaker 3: and I was after it. I did manage to stay
Speaker 3: on in the TIU for another six years after it,
Speaker 3: but all the others, everything else I've seen, I've been
Speaker 3: able to lock away, you know, and just I'll deal
Speaker 3: with that later, which is obviously not right, but it's
Speaker 3: something you do to keep to keep operational. But I knew,
Speaker 3: I knew this one instantly. It's really taken its toll.
Speaker 3: I had to fight everything I had because all I
Speaker 3: wanted to do is be with my support network, which
Speaker 3: were which are the boys, you know the other opera
Speaker 3: and my symptoms were to be Yeah, my half of
Speaker 3: vigilance is the next level. Anytime I was at work,
Speaker 3: I'd walk around literally my hand on my gun the
Speaker 3: whole time. I'd even see just randoms, other police or
Speaker 3: anyone just just being shot and bleeding out in front
Speaker 3: of me, not that I'd done it, but just that
Speaker 3: was what was happening. Anytime I saw a blond woman,
Speaker 3: I'd instantly believe it was Katrina and just instant panic
Speaker 3: attacking it and just have to concee little. It slowly
Speaker 3: did get better over time, and I managed to get
Speaker 3: back to a point where I believe I was effective operationally.
Speaker 3: But yeah, for the six months following it was it
Speaker 3: was bad, and and I didn't I didn't want to
Speaker 3: tell anyone. I wanted to deal with it myself. I
Speaker 3: wanted to be with the boys. I wanted to be
Speaker 3: with the be with them, and as you know, that's
Speaker 3: your support network for people who have been through similar
Speaker 3: things and the the ones you you're with all the time.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I did manage to lock it away, I'd
Speaker 3: say for managed to last for another six years until yeah,
Speaker 3: my cup just to stay overflowed. I could tell it
Speaker 3: was creeping in and it was starting to overwhelm me,
Speaker 3: and had a mate of mine telling me to go
Speaker 3: and see it's good, good psych that he you and
Speaker 3: bought it for a long time, and eventually I did,
Speaker 3: And yeah, that was when my whole journey in my
Speaker 3: fight with PTSD started.
Speaker 2: From that point, I say, how are you getting on now?
Speaker 3: So that started the whole new phase of my life
Speaker 3: is with PDSD. And initially I'd say it was getting
Speaker 3: the better of me. It was pretty much alcoholic not sleeping, nightmares,
Speaker 3: all that sort of thing that went on for longer
Speaker 3: than I'd like. Eventually, I remember a moment where I
Speaker 3: just snapped at my girls and it was unreasonable. I
Speaker 3: knew I had to sort it out. When I did,
Speaker 3: I force myself under the guidance and my psyched to
Speaker 3: go and do a stint in the psych hospital. That's
Speaker 3: extremely confronting, which I did. But yeah, my new fight
Speaker 3: was that, and it's not I was unwilling to have
Speaker 3: that as my identity. I'm not willing to have anything
Speaker 3: beat me. PDSD wasn't going to beat me, and I'm
Speaker 3: pretty stubborn that way. And yeah, I just applied sort
Speaker 3: of what I learned in THEU just to confront the
Speaker 3: threat and then use every resource you can. And that
Speaker 3: then led into the book and my journey with it.
Speaker 3: The way I go about fighting PTSD and put it
Speaker 3: in the book, and that's getting good traction. And it's
Speaker 3: now helping a lot of people, which is something I want.
Speaker 2: Saving lives again, Mate, saving lives again. Honestly, there's no
Speaker 2: fluff for threat. It saves lives. Mate.
Speaker 3: In a way, I feel like that's my news service.
Speaker 3: And yeah, getting my name out there that was important
Speaker 3: to me because not only I want to put my
Speaker 3: name to my story and tell the untold action to
Speaker 3: the tear every brave operator on the day, but then
Speaker 3: my journey with PTSD, which has already helped people I
Speaker 3: know will help people.
Speaker 2: You want to tell your story, Mate, You want to
Speaker 2: tell your story, and I'm glad that I can be
Speaker 2: part of that, Mate with my podcast head Game. But
Speaker 2: your book, Tiger Tiger, Tiger Listen, your story's in there.
Speaker 2: It's a phenomenal book. I would recommend that anyone go
Speaker 2: and buy it and Benny listen. It's been an absolute
Speaker 2: pleasure having you on this podcast, Mate. But ultimately, what
Speaker 2: you're doing, and again I know it's hard to hear
Speaker 2: is with your books and with your story is you
Speaker 2: are saving lives, Mate. So that's what you are, Mate,
Speaker 2: your life saver. Continue to save lives, Mate, and hopefully
Speaker 2: this podcast will help as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I really really appreciate than you are having
Speaker 3: me on and getting the word out there, because now, yeah,
Speaker 3: I just want to get out and speak to as
Speaker 3: many people and help as many as I can. So
Speaker 3: appreciate it.
Speaker 2: This man, my guest today, was Ben Pissant. To find
Speaker 2: out more about his experience in the link Cafe Siege,
Speaker 2: you can read the full story in his book, Tiger
Speaker 2: Tiger Tiger. I'll link the details in the show notes,
Speaker 2: or you can head to Tiger Tiger Tiger book dot com.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me for this episode of
Speaker 2: head Game. If you enjoyed it, please leave me a review.
Speaker 2: I'm at Middleton. Catch you in the next episode.