Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: There's nothing glamorous about being a police diver. No crystal
Speaker 1: clear water, no coral roofs, no visibility, just darkness, cold
Speaker 1: and waterways so grim that most people wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: go near them. Lane get in and when they go
Speaker 1: under there not looking for treasure. They're searching for items
Speaker 1: relating to crimes. Dead bodies, firearms, drugs, often with nothing
Speaker 1: but their bare hands. In this episode of I Catch Killers,
Speaker 1: I speak with Luke McCulloch, who has spent fifteen years
Speaker 1: in the Western Australian Police. He patrolled the remote Pilbra
Speaker 1: as a country cop, He helped crack the West Perth
Speaker 1: rapist case and spent nearly a decade diving into places
Speaker 1: no one else would go, searching for the things no
Speaker 1: one else wanted to find. Today, we're going to take
Speaker 1: a deep dive, and I mean that literally, into the
Speaker 1: world of a police diver. Luke McCulloch, Welcome to I
Speaker 1: Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Hey Gary, how are you, Matte? Thanks for having me well.
Speaker 1: I always enjoy speaking to police or former police. It's
Speaker 1: always nice to speak to someone that's been in the
Speaker 1: same business and industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, me too, me too, thank you.
Speaker 1: But I never had an ambition of being a police star.
Speaker 1: And I saw a lot of police divers during my time.
Speaker 1: And you're not exactly snorkeling around the Great Barrier roof
Speaker 1: the areas that you've got a search and where we
Speaker 1: send you in. What made you want to be a diver?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're definitely right there, mate. It's not the lovely,
Speaker 2: rottenest island diving, especially from over here in the West
Speaker 2: that you used to. I didn't actually ever intend on
Speaker 2: being a police diver when I first joined the police force.
Speaker 2: I did policing for seven years before I jumped into that,
Speaker 2: and it was mainly just based on the fact that
Speaker 2: I didn't want to do general duties anymore. I'd sort
Speaker 2: of appreciated that lifestyle and that style of work for
Speaker 2: about seven years, as I said, but then I wanted
Speaker 2: to specialize in something, so that came up. And yeah,
Speaker 2: through Marten the Ring.
Speaker 1: Okay, So it wasn't naively you think this is beautiful
Speaker 1: waterways and all that. It'll be nice swimming around rotnear
Speaker 1: Styland on the beautiful summer summer's day or down at
Speaker 1: Claremont at the beaches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I knew what I was getting into. That
Speaker 2: was for sure.
Speaker 1: Well, your book, I've been reading your book, Tales of
Speaker 1: a Diver, Profondess obscurius sur Now, for those that don't
Speaker 1: know what I just said, including myself, that's Latin, but
Speaker 1: translated from Latin that's deep, dark and dirty. So the
Speaker 1: book Tales of a Diver, deep, dark and dirty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was our that was our motto in the
Speaker 2: in the dives quad at the time. So yeah, profund
Speaker 2: US obscurist. So did this deep, dark and dirty?
Speaker 1: And that pretty well sums up the type of places
Speaker 1: you go and what you do under.
Speaker 2: The surface pretty much. Mate. Yeah, sewers, swamps. We do
Speaker 2: get some nice occasional diving out in the ocean where
Speaker 2: we can see a bit of stuff, but more often
Speaker 2: than not, Yeah, it's touch and feel searching around in
Speaker 2: pretty black water.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I've seen you guys go into the sewer
Speaker 1: and I was glad that it's glad that's you guys,
Speaker 1: not not us. What's what's a clean up procedure after
Speaker 1: you dive in the.
Speaker 2: Look? I'll be honest, I'm not sure what it's like
Speaker 2: over there in New South But here we get out.
Speaker 2: There's a lovely garden hose on the back of the
Speaker 2: dive truck and one of us sprays the other one
Speaker 2: with that and we're good to go.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're a little bit rough and ready, but very good. Okay,
Speaker 1: before we and I want to have it sounds like
Speaker 1: a pun here deep dive into your life as a
Speaker 1: police diver, But talk about your police career before that.
Speaker 1: When did you when did you join the police? Why
Speaker 1: did you join the police, And tell us about your
Speaker 1: early days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so grew up here in Perth, born and bred.
Speaker 2: I I was sort of a bit lost in high
Speaker 2: school whereby I didn't really know what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2: I was initially gearing up for university, going to become
Speaker 2: a physiotherapist, and funnily enough, my little brother actually became
Speaker 2: that started working out that study wasn't for me. Didn't
Speaker 2: really want to commit to the university sort of lifestyle,
Speaker 2: and and I also knew that I was a bit
Speaker 2: two hands on to be working indoors all the time,
Speaker 2: so it didn't end up being for me. I subsequently
Speaker 2: decided by about year ten or eleven, I was going
Speaker 2: to go into carpentry, Yeah, because I figured use my
Speaker 2: hands was a good, good idea. But then my dad,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, was saying, well, now you've gone
Speaker 2: the full opposite and now you're going to be outdoors
Speaker 2: all the time, and you don't want to be doing
Speaker 2: back breaking stuff and get to the age of sort
Speaker 2: of mid thirties and hate your life in that regard.
Speaker 2: So I was sort of a bit lost in year twelve,
Speaker 2: didn't really know what to do. My dad is actually
Speaker 2: a police officer, still is so he's just ticked off
Speaker 2: forty years the other day, which is a good effort
Speaker 2: for him.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And my mum was a police officer at the time
Speaker 2: as well, so it sort of felt natural to go
Speaker 2: into that. However, they definitely had a different mindset in
Speaker 2: that regard. When I pitched the idea because I saw
Speaker 2: a CA advert on the TV one night, thought oh,
Speaker 2: I'll just do that. That sounds smart because then I
Speaker 2: get a bit of both worlds. I get to do
Speaker 2: some office based stuff and I'm a bit hands on.
Speaker 2: And immediately as soon as I told him, I said, no,
Speaker 2: that's the worst idea in the world. You shouldn't be
Speaker 2: doing that. So what as a young teenager do when
Speaker 2: the parents say no, I don't like that idea, They
Speaker 2: go head first at it. So I checked the application
Speaker 2: in They eventually came around. I think they half thought
Speaker 2: I'd put in for it and eventually get to a
Speaker 2: point where I thought it wasn't for me. Yeah. I
Speaker 2: was a bit of a pushover as a little kid.
Speaker 2: Wasn't the biggest toughest thing in the world, so I
Speaker 2: think they thought I was a bit too soft for it,
Speaker 2: and I probably was. Let's face it, but definitely grew
Speaker 2: up when I got in there. So I actually joined
Speaker 2: at seventeen as a kid out, and the cadet program
Speaker 2: at the time that they were running was a two
Speaker 2: year program because to become a sworn police officer here
Speaker 2: you had to be nineteen. Little did I know that
Speaker 2: year they actually changed the age app to eighteen as
Speaker 2: a sworn officer. Yeah, so as soon as I'd finished
Speaker 2: on my cadet book, I could put my hat in
Speaker 2: the ring, and I did, and I became a police
Speaker 2: officer at eighteen, and it was something like eighteen in
Speaker 2: two months, the youngest ever a sworn police officer in WA.
Speaker 1: At that stage, you're, well, you think you know things
Speaker 1: at that age, but you're a baby baby, aren't you.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The only thing I had had gone for me at
Speaker 2: the time was my size. I was six or six
Speaker 2: at that stage, already coming out of high school, so
Speaker 2: I was able to rely on that. However, if I
Speaker 2: went to a domestic and told someone that they're not
Speaker 2: allowed to do something to their wife or do something
Speaker 2: in a domestic household, they just look at me and go,
Speaker 2: who the hell are you to tell me? So, yeah,
Speaker 2: I struggled a little bit with that. As I said,
Speaker 2: it grew me up quickly, so I don't regret it.
Speaker 2: But do I recommend doing it at eighteen, No, definitely not.
Speaker 2: I reckon, go go get some experience.
Speaker 1: I think it's an easier path for you if you
Speaker 1: get that little bit of experience, if you're out working
Speaker 1: in the world. Going straight from school straight into the police,
Speaker 1: it's confronting and to have that power power. Tell me like,
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of X cops on them. I
Speaker 1: think they've had parents that have been police. But having
Speaker 1: your mother and father in police, what was it like
Speaker 1: growing up as a kid with police and parents.
Speaker 2: I can't really remember mum being a cop, to be honest,
Speaker 2: because I think I can't remember the exact dage, but
Speaker 2: I think I was about three or four when she
Speaker 2: actually resigned. It wasn't a you know, the police force
Speaker 2: wasn't too privy with females having kids at that stage
Speaker 2: and young families, so it wasn't made easy for her,
Speaker 2: to my understanding, so she pulled the pin on that
Speaker 2: went into her own businesses afterwards and did her own thing.
Speaker 2: But having dad like dad wasn't a hard ass or
Speaker 2: anything like that, like the stereotypical sort of version that
Speaker 2: you would think. I definitely had a lot of respect
Speaker 2: for him, but I actually had respect for him in
Speaker 2: other ways. He was my footy coach growing up, one
Speaker 2: of the toughest men that I'll ever ever know, so
Speaker 2: I actually had a bit more respect and fear for
Speaker 2: him from things outside the police force. He was actually
Speaker 2: he's actually still. He's a forensic police officer, so fingerprints
Speaker 2: is his specialty, right, So it's not exactly, you know,
Speaker 2: shooting and running after crooks. So yeah, it was a
Speaker 2: bit different I suppose to what others would have gone through.
Speaker 1: Okay, so seventeen you went through a cadet ship, which
Speaker 1: is we had it in New South Wales and I
Speaker 1: think there's even talk of bringing it back. And for
Speaker 1: people that don't understand what that is, that you're at
Speaker 1: an age where you're too young to join the police
Speaker 1: and they allow you to do the study and work
Speaker 1: but not go out on the streets until a certain age.
Speaker 1: So it's not a bad system, is it, Because I
Speaker 1: think people in that you get a sense whether this
Speaker 1: is a life for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. It's kind of like a like try before
Speaker 2: you buy. Yeah, it's how I sort of tried to
Speaker 2: describe it. We're the same. It's in the state, it's
Speaker 2: come in, and it's left at times when they haven't
Speaker 2: needed it. I from a policing point of view, like
Speaker 2: an organization, it's a great way to capture people before
Speaker 2: they go off and do Universe go go to trade
Speaker 2: and we lose that. So it's getting him interested straight away.
Speaker 2: We had the benefit of going out, so you did
Speaker 2: all administration stuff back of the station, but every so
Speaker 2: often the idea was that you got taken out of
Speaker 2: patrol and you were just chucked in the back seat
Speaker 2: essentially with a mag light and a radio to appreciate
Speaker 2: what it actually looks like to go on patrol.
Speaker 1: And told not to touch anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're eighteen and two months did you say,
Speaker 1: and there you are graduating from the academy, and did
Speaker 1: you do it you're training at the current academy.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, I think it. Junela had been up
Speaker 2: and running for tenish fifteen ish years before I jumped
Speaker 2: into it, So no, I didn't. I didn't get Maylands,
Speaker 2: which was our original one.
Speaker 1: I've got to say it's one of the most impressive
Speaker 1: police academies I've ever seen, and I love that lake
Speaker 1: in the middle of it everything else. I was over
Speaker 1: there doing some lectures and staying there and I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: this is the gap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even there around their scenario village is second
Speaker 2: to none, you know, to be able to go through
Speaker 2: it literally a village that's been made and they have
Speaker 2: paid actors go through and you're going through different scenarios
Speaker 2: along the way. That was the learning from that was priceless. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have six foot six and you've got
Speaker 1: a limited life experience. They put you in the uniform,
Speaker 1: send you out in the street. What's the worst mistake
Speaker 1: you made in your early early days you're not too
Speaker 1: embarrassed to talk about.
Speaker 2: Look, probably not a massive stuff up, but I definitely
Speaker 2: think the most embarrassing thing at the time was I
Speaker 2: was still in my bloody Pea plates, So I had
Speaker 2: to drive a police car with Pea plates up at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that wouldn't attract attention.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wasn't that engaged in lights and sirens. So
Speaker 2: if we were doing patrols and a priority job came in,
Speaker 2: it was pull over on the side of the road,
Speaker 2: switched with my partner and then I had to keep
Speaker 2: coming in the passenger.
Speaker 1: Seat take the pea plates off. Yeah.
Speaker 2: To be honest, for the first first year or so,
Speaker 2: I just actually preferred to not drive because it was
Speaker 2: less embarrassing.
Speaker 1: Understandable what thereas were you working in? Like the geographical
Speaker 1: what you're in Perth?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so western suburbs generally. I initially got stationed at Wembley.
Speaker 2: I went over to Subiaco that then subsequently amalgamated with Wembley.
Speaker 2: And then my last probationary stint was actually at a
Speaker 2: central Metro traffic unit and by no means no hard
Speaker 2: feelings against traffic coppers, but that just wasn't for me,
Speaker 2: And luckily I had a decent boss there who recognized
Speaker 2: that it wasn't for me. And I remember him bringing
Speaker 2: me into his office towards the end of my time
Speaker 2: when I could have gotten off probation, and he said, McCullough,
Speaker 2: get in here. So I walked in. I thought I
Speaker 2: was going to get in trouble, and he said, look
Speaker 2: between you and me, mate, you're not going to be
Speaker 2: a traffic copper and you never will. So how about
Speaker 2: I just signed your off probation, you get out of
Speaker 2: here and you move on to your next station. And
Speaker 2: I said, sounds good to me. Mate, shook hands and
Speaker 2: part of ways.
Speaker 1: And no disrespect because I still drive and I love
Speaker 1: highway patrol, but they're a different brood, and good on them.
Speaker 1: The work they do is important. We can't I argue
Speaker 1: with that. But yeah, you're either the traffic highway patrol
Speaker 1: type police or you're not. And some of them are
Speaker 1: very good at it, and you can see why they're
Speaker 1: in that in that role, very efficient.
Speaker 2: I constantly say I love them because they do something
Speaker 2: that I don't want to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's a good way of looking at it.
Speaker 1: And we know the road road toll they do make
Speaker 1: a difference, so we definitely need them. So let's not
Speaker 1: let's not attack highway patrol because we do drive and
Speaker 1: we respect them. Okay, So in the areas areas that
Speaker 1: you work, traffic traffic wasn't for you, the type of
Speaker 1: crimes that you were dealing with or the type of work.
Speaker 1: What was your day to day work. And that's around
Speaker 1: Subiaca Oval, the station that you're talking about, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That was the that small station that then amalgamated with Wembley,
Speaker 2: so Subiaco actually became part of Wembley's patch as well.
Speaker 2: But typical Western suburbs sort of crime general Berg is
Speaker 2: going in and around nicer, affluent sort of areas. Our
Speaker 2: western suburbs is obviously very different to your western suburbs
Speaker 2: with the difference of the East Coast and the West Coast,
Speaker 2: your sort of nightlife areas. So Leederville was in our parts.
Speaker 2: Subiaco Claremont had a couple of nightclubs as well. I mean,
Speaker 2: the most sort of stress I got from the public
Speaker 2: was going out of control gatherings and some kid telling
Speaker 2: me that his dad was a lawyer and was going
Speaker 2: to get me in trouble. Not hard work, awesome crew
Speaker 2: we had at the time, loved doing what we did,
Speaker 2: and we did it well. And I just I had
Speaker 2: a ball. Like I said, I'm eighteen nineteen years of
Speaker 2: age at this stage. You got a uniform on, I
Speaker 2: felt bulletproof and I was just having fun. It was awesome.
Speaker 1: What were the good mentors that you had. Did you
Speaker 1: have some good mentors, because I think that's crucial at
Speaker 1: the early stages of your policing career if you can
Speaker 1: lock into someone that can guide you through. Did you
Speaker 1: have some people that you respected then taught you a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely so, and different aspects of who I would
Speaker 2: sort of look up to as well. So I definitely
Speaker 2: had that old school sergeant that was teflon. Nothing could
Speaker 2: stick to him and you just thought, how does he
Speaker 2: get away with everything? But he very much taught me,
Speaker 2: you know, like don't take everything so seriously. You've got
Speaker 2: to have some fun at the same time, because otherwise
Speaker 2: this job will take too much from you. But I
Speaker 2: also I was really lucky to have a couple of
Speaker 2: younger fellas who were a little bit older than me,
Speaker 2: but still respectively looking back now they were quite young.
Speaker 2: They just had really good level heads on them and
Speaker 2: they didn't want to go into things, you know, half
Speaker 2: cocked or lazy. They wanted to do it properly. And
Speaker 2: they were young fit fellas as well, like one particularly
Speaker 2: went on to go to tig so he particularly was
Speaker 2: a really good role model to go all right, this
Speaker 2: is the right way to do it, and also take
Speaker 2: care of yourself, always expect the most of yourself and
Speaker 2: hold yourself to a high standard as well, because it
Speaker 2: can be very very easy as a young copper to
Speaker 2: you know, slide in behind someone who's a nice, lazy copper,
Speaker 2: as jaded as anything. And I've seen a time and
Speaker 2: time again where they just then that they start acting like,
Speaker 2: well the copper starts acting like they're seven years into
Speaker 2: the job or ten years into the job, when they've
Speaker 2: done ten months and they've got that bad attitude straight away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a shame. I think it's crucial who junior
Speaker 1: police are partnered up with and working with in those
Speaker 1: early stages, because you can get these disgruntled police that's
Speaker 1: steering them in the wrong direction. The other thing that
Speaker 1: you've got to look out for not being caught up
Speaker 1: in And it's easy to say, but it's also easy
Speaker 1: to fall into the trap. Get the excitement of the adrenaline,
Speaker 1: Like when you've got a couple of young blakes and
Speaker 1: you say you're working with people that were more senior
Speaker 1: to you, they might have two years experience, and you
Speaker 1: and them are out on the car at two o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning and chasing the adrenaline and the excitement
Speaker 1: that can bring you unstuck as well.
Speaker 2: Oh definitely. Yeah, you know you've got guys that are
Speaker 2: going around looking for looking for fights, and they're trying
Speaker 2: to annoy people and get a mad egged up just
Speaker 2: so they can get into a with someone. And I
Speaker 2: suppose that was a benefit to coming into the police force.
Speaker 2: Not a hot headed young fella. I don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2: I wanted to have a ball and have fun and
Speaker 2: appreciate what it was for. But I didn't like fighting.
Speaker 2: I still to this day, I like the fact that
Speaker 2: I'd drawn my firearm once. In my whole career, I
Speaker 2: never tasted anyone. I never pep sprayed anyone. I never
Speaker 2: had to batten anyone. And I put that down to
Speaker 2: being able to talk to people at the same time
Speaker 2: and not having to worry about going hands on because
Speaker 2: I could actually speak to them and de escalate the
Speaker 2: situation from that. Used to roll my feathers up a
Speaker 2: little bit, to be honest, when someone would come into
Speaker 2: the team and they would go out and they'd start
Speaker 2: annoying crooks or people within the nightclub industry just to
Speaker 2: get a bite out of someone, and I'm like, what
Speaker 2: are you doing. It's just not worth it, mate.
Speaker 1: Not worth it. And what you talk about is a
Speaker 1: skill that's yeah, it needs some people just have it
Speaker 1: in them. Other people can be taught, but some people
Speaker 1: just miss the point entirely. But being able to de
Speaker 1: escalate a situation is crucial to good policing. And I
Speaker 1: used to laugh at you'd have some police in the
Speaker 1: station that we're always assaulted, and you think, hold, what's
Speaker 1: common common in this? Have you stopped to take a
Speaker 1: step back. The majority of us haven't been assaulted. You
Speaker 1: have had ten assaults in the twelve months, in the
Speaker 1: past twelve months. Is it perhaps the way you're speaking
Speaker 1: to people that might might lead that way?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And look, Perth I spent as we were
Speaker 1: saying the other day when we're having a chat, I
Speaker 1: lived over in Perth for a while and it would
Speaker 1: have been around that time, like two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: and those times. So I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: over in Perth, and I call it the wild West
Speaker 1: in some aspects, like there there was no disrespect to
Speaker 1: w a love love the people, but there was a wildness,
Speaker 1: there was a rawness to it, and you could see
Speaker 1: how things could escalate very quickly, like in pubs, and
Speaker 1: that people were willing to fight and if you backed
Speaker 1: them into a corner, they were going to fight.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent and like that. Yeah, there was definitely
Speaker 2: this sort of viable feeling in the air that, yeah,
Speaker 2: you young fellas at the time were trying to make
Speaker 2: a name for themselves. Northbridge was definitely the one that
Speaker 2: would kick off. I as an eighteen year old in
Speaker 2: the police force there and then, like, I never experienced
Speaker 2: Northbridge from a civilian point of view because of what
Speaker 2: I was doing at the time, but it completely ruined
Speaker 2: the idea of Northbridge ever for me because I just
Speaker 2: saw it from a different lights what all mother mates
Speaker 2: were doing at football and from school and stuff. But yeah,
Speaker 2: the amount of times we got caught into Northbridge to
Speaker 2: back up because there was just massive, massive brawls going on, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a.
Speaker 1: Bit well, that's the sense of it. I know north
Speaker 1: Bridge well and I know what you're talking about. It
Speaker 1: felt like a powder kegn. The mining industry was very
Speaker 1: big at that time, so you've got a lot of
Speaker 1: people that were fly in, fly out workers around Perth
Speaker 1: that were cashed up, ridiculously cashed up at the time,
Speaker 1: working hardcore for ten days and then having ten days
Speaker 1: off or figures like that. So they were coming into town.
Speaker 1: They have a good time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, blown awesome steam and spend some cash.
Speaker 1: And a good time they had when you were there.
Speaker 1: There was one I was watching the show Australian Crime
Speaker 1: Investigations and there was a job that I think it
Speaker 1: was a couple of years into your career, when you're
Speaker 1: still working in the Metro area, that you pulled a
Speaker 1: motorbike over that turned into a fairly big investigation. Do
Speaker 1: you want to tell us through that story, because that's
Speaker 1: the type of thing you look for as a young cop,
Speaker 1: isn't it. You want to be the person that gets
Speaker 1: the information that leads to solving a significant crime. Tell
Speaker 1: us about your involvement in that matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we we we're just doing general patrols in
Speaker 2: the Wembley area and we're going down a street called
Speaker 2: Cambridge Street Main Drag within Wembley, very very late in
Speaker 2: the night, if not early morning, and I was with
Speaker 2: my sergeant at the time. He was driving and I
Speaker 2: had another probationer in the back when we saw a
Speaker 2: motorbike on the left hand side the road heading west
Speaker 2: with no headlights on. So at the time it was
Speaker 2: just going to be a standard traffic stop. A bit
Speaker 2: weird that the lights weren't on. That sort of just
Speaker 2: hinted straight away to someone trying to hide and not
Speaker 2: want to be seen. Obviously, when we stopped and put
Speaker 2: the lights on, he stalled, so I got out of
Speaker 2: the car when I had a chat with him, and
Speaker 2: as I was talking to him, he was trying to
Speaker 2: kick the bike in, and it was obvious that he
Speaker 2: couldn't get at the start at the time, and the
Speaker 2: bike was having malfunctions, so that sort of eased me
Speaker 2: a bit at that point, and he was talking to me,
Speaker 2: he didn't seem too evasive at that stage. He was
Speaker 2: telling me the bike was having troubles, and to be honest,
Speaker 2: it was probably just going to be a quick name check,
Speaker 2: and I was actually probably going to offer him and
Speaker 2: go like, may look if your bike his stuff, give
Speaker 2: you a lift and or will follow your home or
Speaker 2: something like that. I'm so glad now that that didn't happen. Obviously,
Speaker 2: he wasn't getting his drivers license when I was asking
Speaker 2: for it, and all of a sudden, the bike kicked
Speaker 2: into life and he just took off, took off quicker
Speaker 2: than I was able to run after him, but I
Speaker 2: still wasn't screaming down the street. So I ran back
Speaker 2: to the car and we chased him, and he subsequently
Speaker 2: crashed into a bus stop. Tried to go up one
Speaker 2: of those box curbs, wheel bent and he went headfirst
Speaker 2: into this bus stop. We got out, he stood up,
Speaker 2: tried to run off again. I chased him down, caught him,
Speaker 2: and when we started searching him, because at this stage
Speaker 2: we were saying why'd you run, what's going on? Why
Speaker 2: have you been evasive? Now he was stating that the
Speaker 2: registration on the bike was out. Still didn't make sense
Speaker 2: to run from the police.
Speaker 1: Run from the cops for that's one hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: A ticket or something like that. So we were searching
Speaker 2: him and the weird thing that I found on him
Speaker 2: was it was an epipenn style object. I knew what
Speaker 2: an EpiPen was. I knew it wasn't an EpiPen, but
Speaker 2: that's the best way I could describe it. And a
Speaker 2: couple other weird things. He had some gloves on in
Speaker 2: his bag and a couple other weird items, but that
Speaker 2: was the main one. So because you obviously had a
Speaker 2: police crash, I tackled him pretty hard when I caught
Speaker 2: him as well, we took him to hospital to make
Speaker 2: sure he was all checked out. And when I got
Speaker 2: to hospital, I thought, I'll show him this. I'll show
Speaker 2: the doctor this EpiPen and just ask what it is.
Speaker 2: Because when I asked him, he said it was for
Speaker 2: blood pressure. The doctor subsequently said, I hope you've had
Speaker 2: gloves on the whole time, because that's a it's used
Speaker 2: by males for erect ol dysfunction. Right, essentially, put it
Speaker 2: to your I don't know if I'm allowed to say
Speaker 2: it your gooch.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we can call it a gooch, or you
Speaker 1: can call it something.
Speaker 2: Else, yep, yep, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: And you do speak funny from wa yep.
Speaker 2: And you inject it and it gives you an instant erection.
Speaker 2: So at that stage now it's starting to get a
Speaker 2: little bit weirder. So due to the offenses that he'd committed,
Speaker 2: we were actually allowed to and it only had just
Speaker 2: recently come in with the CIA Act, the Criminal Investigation Act,
Speaker 2: where we were allowed to take identifying particulars off him,
Speaker 2: DNA fingerprints, photos and all that for the offenses that
Speaker 2: he'd committed. So we did that just because we could.
Speaker 2: It was a new power that we had did a
Speaker 2: significant what we call field report. Field report for the
Speaker 2: listeners is more like a we couldn't couldn't pin you
Speaker 2: to anything, but we're going to pin you to this
Speaker 2: location at this time, wearing this so that if something
Speaker 2: else came out over the next couple of days to
Speaker 2: say that it was a weird person on a bike
Speaker 2: driving around, you're a suspect. So did that, kicked on
Speaker 2: with the rest of the night, finished seven am in
Speaker 2: the morning, went home, went to bed. I got a
Speaker 2: call at about ten or eleven am in the morning
Speaker 2: and it was one of the detectives at Sex Offenders
Speaker 2: Management Unit and my uncle actually at the time was
Speaker 2: working with him, and he had called me and texted
Speaker 2: me as well saying, hey, my boss is about to
Speaker 2: call you about the traffic stop last night. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 2: it's a bit strange. So got a call from him
Speaker 2: and he said that this bike now matched the description
Speaker 2: of a bike that they'd been looking for for a
Speaker 2: couple of months now, but they hadn't hadn't been aut
Speaker 2: of to trackdown or solve It turned out that that
Speaker 2: was that was their guy, So they went and did
Speaker 2: the warrant on his house. DNA profile became positive for
Speaker 2: the DNA found at the scene, and when they did
Speaker 2: the warrant on the on the guy's house, they had
Speaker 2: also worked out that I think he was it was
Speaker 2: a customs or AFP or both, but at the time
Speaker 2: he was customs, I think it was. And he'd had
Speaker 2: a lot of those those arrival cards when you come
Speaker 2: back into the country you write down all your details,
Speaker 2: your name next to kin, email address address, and they
Speaker 2: all had notes on them for female descriptions, you know, blonde,
Speaker 2: blue eyes, tall. He kept a heap of them essentially,
Speaker 2: which was extra creepy. But yeah, he ended up subsequent
Speaker 2: getting getting put in the bin for I think it
Speaker 2: was six or seven years. I think it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I've read some media reports of West Perth
Speaker 1: rapist operation per Steel and he's named Stephen Michael Adams.
Speaker 1: But that break it down in a couple of things.
Speaker 1: That's very rewarding when you're just doing your job and
Speaker 1: you come across something like that, because and that's where yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot ninety nine percent of the time doing that,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't pay dividends, but it's that small percentage where
Speaker 1: it does the fact that you've taken taken the time.
Speaker 1: It's in the early hours of the morning. You're tied.
Speaker 1: It's easy. Oh okay, car, your bike's not working properly,
Speaker 1: and just dismiss it. But they're little things that you
Speaker 1: can do in uniform that I know from a major
Speaker 1: crime perspective are crucial, like when we're investigating homicides, those
Speaker 1: details that the uniform police have put down for a stop,
Speaker 1: just like that, and looking at him as an offender too,
Speaker 1: that's quite worrying, or not quite worrying, it's very worrying.
Speaker 1: And we have over here and you know, across the
Speaker 1: place a lot of serial rapists and they start, they
Speaker 1: get away with one, and the crimes were quite chilling
Speaker 1: that he was committing. So full credit to you for
Speaker 1: buying into that and doing your job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, thank you. It was a really good feeling
Speaker 2: to know what we had just stumbled across because I
Speaker 2: won't I won't put it down till we were hunting
Speaker 2: him or anything like. To be honest, we got the
Speaker 2: called lookout to be kept fors. You know, you get
Speaker 2: three or four of them a day. You go into
Speaker 2: the going to the office, you look at them, three
Speaker 2: or four come in and it's the latest person doing
Speaker 2: bergs or armed hold ups or whatnot, and you remember
Speaker 2: that face or that car to look out for for
Speaker 2: that shift. But the next day there's another three or
Speaker 2: four and you're looking out for that person. So the
Speaker 2: motorbike probably came up on one and months ago. I
Speaker 2: had seen it, but I wasn't looking for it. It
Speaker 2: was just sheer dumb luck. But as you said, the
Speaker 2: doing it correctly and doing your job correctly does pay
Speaker 2: dividends later on. And that was again just because a
Speaker 2: good sergeant at the time. That was the sergeant I
Speaker 2: was talking about. They'd like to have a bit of fun,
Speaker 2: but he also did his job properly. And the other
Speaker 2: probation in the back as well wasn't wasn't you know,
Speaker 2: half with either. He wanted to do the job properly
Speaker 2: and get it all squared away. So they, yeah, they
Speaker 2: have full credit as well.
Speaker 1: And there those little things that sort of call it
Speaker 1: gut instinct. I don't like the use that were too
Speaker 1: much or rely on it too much, but it's just
Speaker 1: something doesn't feel right about this person, and you identify
Speaker 1: that the things that the way he's acting and different things.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of Okay, let's look a little bit
Speaker 1: a little bit closer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like police, you'd know as well as I do. Gary,
Speaker 2: you know, we're very good at reading people. Well, the
Speaker 2: longer you're in the police force, you you get better
Speaker 2: at it. It's it's not too often now that I
Speaker 2: don't read and judge someone and I'm incorrect. Like my
Speaker 2: wife constantly has a giggle about it. And you know,
Speaker 2: we'll be sitting in a restaurant and someone will come
Speaker 2: in and I'll go, that guy is a prick, And
Speaker 2: twenty minutes later they're the ones standing up having an
Speaker 2: argument with the waitress or something like that. You know,
Speaker 2: we're good at it. We've honed it in. And yeah,
Speaker 2: that was one day where it definitely was the spidy
Speaker 2: sensors were tickling, so to say it worked.
Speaker 1: The other benefit you get working in a local area
Speaker 1: in those stations, the longer you stay there, you start
Speaker 1: to not only you know the community, you know where
Speaker 1: something doesn't quite feel right within the community too. That's
Speaker 1: a benefit that you get from it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when it sticks out some different.
Speaker 1: Hey, when you join the police so young, how did
Speaker 1: the perception of the public and your friends and family,
Speaker 1: because I know once you become a police and it's
Speaker 1: a trap that you fall into, that that becomes your
Speaker 1: identity and people, oh, you're a cop. You're a cop.
Speaker 1: Like you gather a party as an eighteen or nine
Speaker 1: eren year old and people will be pointing out, you're
Speaker 1: a cop. And how did you deal with that? Did
Speaker 1: you notice the difference that once you join the police,
Speaker 1: that's what you were marked as the cop wherever you went.
Speaker 2: Yeah, A bit of an interesting one in terms of like,
Speaker 2: definitely my community. I suppose the biggest thing, the biggest
Speaker 2: part of my community that didn't really affect me but
Speaker 2: was the biggest change was definitely my footy club. Standard
Speaker 2: footay club full of a bunch of boys. There definitely wasn't
Speaker 2: female football teams at that stage. Playing in my local club,
Speaker 2: I was quite lucky in the sense of though when
Speaker 2: I played. When I was in high school, I played
Speaker 2: all basketball and in my junior years I played footy.
Speaker 2: But when I left the high school, I went straight
Speaker 2: back to footy. So I actually entered into the club
Speaker 2: again as a copper. So it wasn't I wasn't a
Speaker 2: police officer before I joined, and then they had to
Speaker 2: deal with that they knew me straight away from the
Speaker 2: outset as a copper. I think I held myself in
Speaker 2: good regard and I was a good professional kid, and
Speaker 2: I I didn't make too many enemies or anything. So
Speaker 2: I generally got a lot of respect out of my
Speaker 2: mates from that, and they quickly tuned in to go
Speaker 2: right cool, there's certain things we don't do around Macha
Speaker 2: or you know, there's certain things we don't say, and
Speaker 2: let's just respect what he does for a job. There
Speaker 2: was one or two times it got a bit sticky
Speaker 2: if I saw them out and about, you know, in clubs,
Speaker 2: and yeah, they were intoxicat I had one mate take
Speaker 2: my torch off my belt once and my partner subsequently
Speaker 2: went went ballistic at him, and I was like, mate, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's certain lives you don't cross, because if you'd taken
Speaker 2: something else, obviously that's a lot worse. So he quickly
Speaker 2: learned that one. But no, I didn't get any agree
Speaker 2: for it, and I'm very thankful that those mates who
Speaker 2: I'm still all friends with now obviously respected what I
Speaker 2: did at the time. And within my family, yeah, obviously
Speaker 2: Dad being a police officer didn't didn't change anything for me.
Speaker 1: There. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it When you talk with
Speaker 1: your mates and around that footy culture and all that.
Speaker 1: There's some places you'd rather not be known as a
Speaker 1: name as a cop. But I can just imagine thinking
Speaker 1: that's funny when you're coming into the pub and your
Speaker 1: mate's taking your bat nor whatever, taken a run off
Speaker 1: with your hat and think it's hilarious. I had to
Speaker 1: very I think it was in the first year, just
Speaker 1: come out of probationary constable on night shift, been to
Speaker 1: a party, a big party and out of control party
Speaker 1: as a type of parties that you would go to
Speaker 1: of a very good friend and had a live band there.
Speaker 1: And when I started the night shift, the area that
Speaker 1: I was working covered that party, and there was a
Speaker 1: you have the job list when you start night shift
Speaker 1: and the jobs what jobs, and there was about four
Speaker 1: noise complaints to that particular address. And I said to
Speaker 1: the senior constable or sergeant that I was working with
Speaker 1: at the time, look, I actually just came from that party.
Speaker 1: This could be embarrassing if we go there to close
Speaker 1: it down. So we pulled up there at the party
Speaker 1: and it was a good cop. The person I was
Speaker 1: working with. I said, look, I think I might be
Speaker 1: able to handle this better if I just go in
Speaker 1: on my own. I don't think you really want to
Speaker 1: go in there and see what's going on. How about
Speaker 1: just going and if I can get the music stopped
Speaker 1: with everyone's happy. And so I've walked in and I'm
Speaker 1: in my uniform, walked in and the mates and friends
Speaker 1: are all giving it to me. What are you doing here? Great,
Speaker 1: you can come back. I'm here to tea to turn
Speaker 1: the stop the band plane, turn the music off and
Speaker 1: stop it. They thought that was hilarious, and I had
Speaker 1: to make my point and like, no, it's got to stop.
Speaker 1: This is Yeah, I'm going to get in all sorts
Speaker 1: of shit. As I was walking out there, I'm hearing mates,
Speaker 1: you'll out Jesus jubiling, you've changed more than your clothes
Speaker 1: and that sort of shit. The next day they phoned
Speaker 1: up and apologized or in the afternoon. They weren't awake
Speaker 1: in the morning. But yeah, they're the type of situations
Speaker 1: you can find yourself in. So to tests you in
Speaker 1: a way too, doesn't it. You have to have to
Speaker 1: know the parameters that you can hold.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, And that just reminded me then of there
Speaker 2: was one sticky sort of scenario where two of my
Speaker 2: mates from my footy club were starting to blue with
Speaker 2: each other at the front of a nightclub. Yeah. We
Speaker 2: subsequent there and I work out that I know both
Speaker 2: of them and they're just the quarrying over something stupid
Speaker 2: and I was trying to sort them out and go,
Speaker 2: guys like, if you don't pull your heads in, my
Speaker 2: offside has got to arresture. Well, I have to wrest
Speaker 2: you quite frankly. You know, there's all members of the
Speaker 2: public that are watching, and I'm getting other guys in
Speaker 2: the foota club to tear them apart, and they eventually
Speaker 2: did and same thing. Yeah, next day at footay training,
Speaker 2: very very apologetic, just full of booze and bad ideas obviously,
Speaker 2: But yeah, it does put you in a weird position,
Speaker 2: that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's where it's important if you're working with
Speaker 1: good cops that can guide you through that, because most
Speaker 1: cops have been through situations like that where they're going
Speaker 1: to make a decision in an environment that makes it
Speaker 1: a little bit awkward. You spent three years in the
Speaker 1: Metro area, then you applied to go out into the bush.
Speaker 1: What inspired that and where did you go?
Speaker 2: I went up to South Edland and so I'd left
Speaker 2: Wembley due to that was due to tenure, so I
Speaker 2: had to move on from that area. We have to
Speaker 2: move on continuously over in Waypole here at certain locations.
Speaker 2: And I went over to Scarborough initially, and I think
Speaker 2: I'd only been there for two or three months. And
Speaker 2: my partner at the time she wanted to go bush,
Speaker 2: so she applied for South Headland, got it and I
Speaker 2: subsequently just followed her up got the plus one ticket.
Speaker 2: So look, I'd never I had never intended on going.
Speaker 2: When I was younger, my dad had to go to
Speaker 2: Geraldon for his country service and I say, I have
Speaker 2: to go for country service. I put that lightly because
Speaker 2: it just depends where the police forces are at the time.
Speaker 2: He subsequently had to go because forensic's forensic specialists were
Speaker 2: short in different country areas and he hadn't gone yet.
Speaker 2: So they can pull the card on you. And obviously
Speaker 2: you signed the dotted line when you apply, and part
Speaker 2: of that is that it's expected you'll go country, but
Speaker 2: you can very easily go your whole career and not
Speaker 2: have to go country. Is quite frankly, that's where the
Speaker 2: money is and a lot of people will fight tooth
Speaker 2: and nail to go country. So South Headland was definitely
Speaker 2: one of those places where you actually had to apply
Speaker 2: yourself and put a good application in to get it
Speaker 2: because not everyone could get there. There was a good
Speaker 2: coin to be made, so I was quite lucky that
Speaker 2: my partner at time got it. I got the plus
Speaker 2: one and I had a ball. It was something that
Speaker 2: I just sort of said yes to at the last minute.
Speaker 2: I had no intention of it, like I said, but
Speaker 2: I loved it for the small community that it was.
Speaker 2: It was the best footy I'd ever played. Played country
Speaker 2: footy up there as well. That was a he was
Speaker 2: an eye opener as well to play against different people
Speaker 2: within the town and quite frankly people I'm locking up,
Speaker 2: people who I'm going to add of control bar parties
Speaker 2: and shutting down and then the next weekend I'm subsequently
Speaker 2: playing them. So that went down like a lead balloon sometimes.
Speaker 2: But no, it was a great experience, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: It grew me up again.
Speaker 1: For people that don't know Port Headland up in the.
Speaker 2: Pilbro Yes, Yeah, so you're looking at about sixteen hour
Speaker 2: drive north from Perth if you go through the Guts,
Speaker 2: if you go the coastal way, I think it's another
Speaker 2: eighteen or nineteen hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Okay, so it's very isolated in there. That
Speaker 1: people who have seen that movie Red Dog that was
Speaker 1: filmed up up Brown there, and I spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time up in that region, then the Red Dog
Speaker 1: is not that the movie The Red Dog is not
Speaker 1: dissimilar to the type of people in towns in there.
Speaker 1: It's isolated, great beautiful, beautiful area. Like it's just it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard to describe, but that would have had its
Speaker 1: own own challenges and been a cop in a small
Speaker 1: community like that, you're never really off duey.
Speaker 2: Are No, definitely not like to be in a town
Speaker 2: where quite frankly, I could jog around town I could
Speaker 2: probably do two or three laps of that place for
Speaker 2: a good job for the day. So yeah, you're you know,
Speaker 2: you're in a place where you walk into work, you
Speaker 2: go into the shops where local crap heads are, You're
Speaker 2: probably going out to have a beer and there's probably
Speaker 2: going to be someone that you've locked up before, or
Speaker 2: you're going to be expected to do something because everyone
Speaker 2: knows that you're a copper in town. Yeah, as I said,
Speaker 2: same at the Foota club, So you're never off duty,
Speaker 2: but also you're always watched as well in the same sense.
Speaker 2: But then it would get even more remote again whereby
Speaker 2: we would go and help out outstations. So you know,
Speaker 2: I'd gone and worked and acted up in a place
Speaker 2: called Marble Bar. It's only a three man police station
Speaker 2: and your backup is two hours away. Yeah, so if
Speaker 2: something goes wrong there, you're it. And yeah, you're not
Speaker 2: relying on anyone else, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: That's the responsibility that those country cops carry, Isn't it
Speaker 1: Like you are very much on your own. You've got
Speaker 1: to make make decisions and you just don't have that backup.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't think for people that haven't been
Speaker 1: up in that region can appreciate how isolated the region is.
Speaker 1: You can drive for hours on the road and not
Speaker 1: pass anyone. The first time I went there from Sydney
Speaker 1: and you drive along the road and people wave every
Speaker 1: time a cargoes passed, I couldn't understand stand that. I
Speaker 1: realized cars don't pass that very very social interaction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're meant to Wave. It would have been some difference
Speaker 1: from the policing in the Metro areas because you've got
Speaker 1: some like indigenous communities up there, and that would have
Speaker 1: been another aspect of policing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was huge up there obviously that you know,
Speaker 2: quite frankly eighty five ninety percent of our work i'd
Speaker 2: say so dealing with the mining fivefo persons. But also yeah,
Speaker 2: that that very much indigenous community in and around the
Speaker 2: area as well, coming in from like I'm saying, a
Speaker 2: bush bush place and South Headland is a city to
Speaker 2: them and just assimilating, trying to work out the ins
Speaker 2: and outs and what's right and wrong and their law
Speaker 2: versus our law, white versus black law. It's just I
Speaker 2: do feel for them and it must be such a
Speaker 2: confusing thing and your tread around it so carefully as
Speaker 2: a copper, and you're dead right, it is completely different
Speaker 2: policing to the Metro area, whereby you've got a lot
Speaker 2: more you've got a lot more say in the outcome.
Speaker 2: And we talk again about the ability to de escalate
Speaker 2: a situation because you can't afford for it to get
Speaker 2: out of hand and out of control, and it can
Speaker 2: get out of hand very very quickly, obviously, so you've
Speaker 2: got to treade ward very carefully in that regard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the cultural sensitivity and as you identified, like
Speaker 1: people coming from very remote areas and yeah, that's coming
Speaker 1: into the big smoke a small town like you were
Speaker 1: working at for people. So yeah, I could imagine there'd
Speaker 1: be a lot of challenges, but also rewarding working in
Speaker 1: a country police station, like you can really make a
Speaker 1: difference for a community.
Speaker 2: Oh, definitely, definitely. Like I've still got one of my
Speaker 2: one of my favorite photos were it was on Christmas Day,
Speaker 2: I think, and we were driving around, driving around town.
Speaker 2: I was on day shift. We had the Santa Hats
Speaker 2: on and stuff, and we came to one household which
Speaker 2: was normally a problem household, and it was pretty early
Speaker 2: in the morning, so we weren't getting many dramas but
Speaker 2: rocking up and just having three or four young Indigenous
Speaker 2: kids by the ages of four to six coming out
Speaker 2: and they just thought it was the best thing in
Speaker 2: the world that we were there, just in Santa hats.
Speaker 2: That was all it was. I think we had some
Speaker 2: lollibags or something and they jumped in the back of
Speaker 2: the van, door open. I sat next to it, and
Speaker 2: then they were just jumping all over me like a playground.
Speaker 2: And I've got a photo of that and it's still
Speaker 2: one of my favorite photos from there. Just to have that,
Speaker 2: you know, that happiness from those kids in that regard,
Speaker 2: but then also out in the vast communities and what
Speaker 2: you'd get from them if you connected well and you
Speaker 2: de escalated a situation which was a good outcome.
Speaker 1: That's crucial. I know a lot of Indigenous communities and
Speaker 1: they say, we get the police in. That takes us
Speaker 1: a couple of years to train them, and then when
Speaker 1: we train them, they leave. But they say, and I've
Speaker 1: seen it in communities, if they got a it might
Speaker 1: only be one police officer that gets that rapport happening
Speaker 1: with the communities. That can make a world of a
Speaker 1: world of difference. You also those parts had the deal
Speaker 1: with the mining guys and girls.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, they're different again. You know, they're quite highly strung.
Speaker 2: You're dealing with the mental health side of the firefight life.
Speaker 2: You know, their families are back at home. Some people
Speaker 2: that have come up and they're just working their ass
Speaker 2: off to be able to provide for someone back at home,
Speaker 2: and they want to let some steam off every now
Speaker 2: and then they go to the local pub, but it
Speaker 2: might just get a little bit out of hand, So
Speaker 2: there's that side of it. They're also usually nine times
Speaker 2: out of ten, not small people, so yeah, you're dealing
Speaker 2: with some pretty big lads. So yeah, that had its
Speaker 2: own dynamic as well. Definitely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you talk about the mental health and note
Speaker 1: we're going to touch on it from policing, but I
Speaker 1: think they're starting to identify that. Yeah, the fly and
Speaker 1: fly out life is not not that healthy. I saw
Speaker 1: a lot of people over in wa young guys that
Speaker 1: were getting paid ridiculous amounts of money that probably wasn't
Speaker 1: really warranted. The work that they were doing was hard.
Speaker 1: They were working in the mines, coming back to the
Speaker 1: city and think, yeah, at eighteen, we all should be
Speaker 1: getting paid one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It was
Speaker 1: just unrealistic. And I know it crashed at certain stages,
Speaker 1: but that causes problems and then the people away from
Speaker 1: their families. It seems good on paper, but doing it
Speaker 1: for an extended period of time does have an impact.
Speaker 2: Oh, definitely. And that's the price that you're paying by
Speaker 2: earning that money is you're saying, See, it's work life
Speaker 2: balance and family life, and you're secluded. You are out
Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes, you know, you would
Speaker 2: be considered very lucky to work inside of town like
Speaker 2: south Headland. Normally south Headlands you fly in place and
Speaker 2: then you're actually working another hour and a half two
Speaker 2: hours out of town, which is even more remote. So
Speaker 2: they're getting better at it. It's the same as everywhere
Speaker 2: in society right now. You know, there's the jobs are
Speaker 2: now you know, advertised within the FIFO industry with mental
Speaker 2: health work programs and all these mindfulness things, which is good.
Speaker 2: Can still get better obviously.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, but at least it's been identified. Another
Speaker 1: issue I found fascinating in w A was you had
Speaker 1: a lot of English cops over there that came in
Speaker 1: from the UK, a recruiting program that came in. I
Speaker 1: met a few of them when I was over there,
Speaker 1: and then the people that we're talking about, the UK
Speaker 1: cops have come over, but a lot of them ended
Speaker 1: up leaving the w A police because they could make
Speaker 1: more money in the in the mining industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did. They did two waves of they call
Speaker 2: them transitional police officers. At the time, and the first
Speaker 2: wave was supposed to be the ubut thing. It was
Speaker 2: going to top a numbers up. All these UK coppers
Speaker 2: were thinking brilliant and go to go of you know,
Speaker 2: the sunny life style of Perth in Australia. They came
Speaker 2: over to my understanding, I think they all got citizenships,
Speaker 2: you know, with that, and then they rocked up, thought nah,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go up north and earn a bit
Speaker 2: more money, and they resigned straight away after. So they
Speaker 2: spent all this time and money's swinging them all over
Speaker 2: and then we lost most of them. Or they applied
Speaker 2: for regional police stations, thinking that they could go and
Speaker 2: do that, either for a quick promotion or a quick
Speaker 2: quick pay, and going what the hell have I jumped
Speaker 2: into here?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I would have been an eye opener.
Speaker 1: I spoke to a couple of them that come from
Speaker 1: London and ended up in ye somewhere like Kartha or
Speaker 1: somewhere the Creek or yeah, what what is going on here?
Speaker 1: But okay, so you had had four years up there
Speaker 1: and that was considered that a good experience.
Speaker 2: I loved it. I absolutely loved it. The you know,
Speaker 2: I got some lifelong friends from it. I said, the
Speaker 2: footy I loved the most. That's probably my best memory
Speaker 2: from it. Even though you know you'd be playing footy,
Speaker 2: you'd get rid of the ball and probably ten fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes later you're copping an elbow over the back of
Speaker 2: the head and it's the last crook that you locked up.
Speaker 2: But I actually enjoyed at the end of those games
Speaker 2: going up to the feller buying them a beer and
Speaker 2: going like, yeah, you got me, no dramas, but we'll
Speaker 2: wait till next game and I'll get your back. And
Speaker 2: that gained me also respect within the community as well,
Speaker 2: like the fact that I could take it. I remember
Speaker 2: going to some some out of control parties after a
Speaker 2: night of playing the like the derby team so port
Speaker 2: Headler vers South Headland. I played for port Headlam and
Speaker 2: I'd go to night shift straight after dealing with an
Speaker 2: out of control party and I just played this whole
Speaker 2: team and one of the guys I bought a beer
Speaker 2: for I had a can of solo because I was
Speaker 2: going to work after, but he was the first one
Speaker 2: out the door when I said, hey, mate, you know
Speaker 2: we've been called here because you guys are a bit
Speaker 2: loud and noisy. He actually was the one that went
Speaker 2: inside and turned it down for me, said, yep, I've
Speaker 2: got a sort it. It's all good, no dramas. So
Speaker 2: that paid dividends. The things I learned put me ahead
Speaker 2: a mile and a half of all the other coppers
Speaker 2: that I've graduated with who stayed in the stayed in
Speaker 2: the Metro area. However, it did get me to that
Speaker 2: point where I was like, you know what, I've done
Speaker 2: my decent amount of general duties now and I'm happy.
Speaker 2: I've done a stint in Metro, a stint in Country's
Speaker 2: what's the next thing? And that's where that's what brought
Speaker 2: me to diving.
Speaker 1: And that's so diving. And you thought laying on the
Speaker 1: beach and just snorkeling every now and then and coming
Speaker 1: out and drying off. Okay, you what inspired you to diving?
Speaker 1: Why particular diving because it's a very specialist area of policing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was purely that. I actually was just I
Speaker 2: was willing to cut my teeth on whatever I could
Speaker 2: get into that was a specialist role. I initially tried
Speaker 2: out for the tactical unit, the TIG that we called
Speaker 2: him over here, so I trained while I was up there,
Speaker 2: I had no guidance whatsoever to do that. I was
Speaker 2: young and dumb, I trained poorly, so I didn't make
Speaker 2: the cut for that, but I was I was bloody
Speaker 2: fit at the end of it. And I was never
Speaker 2: ever going to be a detective, that was for sure.
Speaker 2: I wasn't good at him investigating. I just wanted to,
Speaker 2: you know, physically run and catch crooks and then I
Speaker 2: was willing to hand all them off and someone else
Speaker 2: could take the glory in that regard. I just wanted
Speaker 2: to do the running part, so as soon as the
Speaker 2: tactical side of it it was over. There was a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks after the expression of interest came out
Speaker 2: for the diving side. I hadn't ever done a job
Speaker 2: with water police or divers. I'd not had anything to
Speaker 2: do with them. I knew one guy who nowadays is
Speaker 2: still a very good friend of mine. He was in
Speaker 2: the police footy team and he had just made it
Speaker 2: to divers as well. So I remember it coming out.
Speaker 2: I text him and said, like, okay, mate, you guys
Speaker 2: just put an expression of interest out for diving. What's
Speaker 2: involved with it? Like, I'm pretty good in the water,
Speaker 2: I like swimming, but I don't have my dive ticket
Speaker 2: or anything. What do you recommend He straightaway said, look,
Speaker 2: we've we've only just recently changed it up. You need
Speaker 2: to actually have a dive ticket now because we used
Speaker 2: to teach you how to dive, but that just obviously
Speaker 2: took too long, so we want you to have the
Speaker 2: basics and then we'll train you the rest of the way.
Speaker 2: And we know, shit, where am I going to go
Speaker 2: in South Headland to learn how to dive? So I
Speaker 2: actually had to drive some five or six hours south
Speaker 2: down to Xmouth to go and get my dive ticket.
Speaker 2: So I did that. The only course that was available
Speaker 2: during that time though, was literally twenty four hours before
Speaker 2: the selection course started, so I applied for it, saying hey,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go get this dive ticket. Pick me
Speaker 2: and I'll come down and show what I got. And
Speaker 2: it somehow worked. So yeah, I drove back down to
Speaker 2: south drove up to South Edland, got on a plane,
Speaker 2: came down to perse David, mum and dad and the
Speaker 2: next day started the selection course for a week.
Speaker 1: Okay, and what sort of things did they run you
Speaker 1: through in the selection course?
Speaker 2: So that one week's selection course is, believe it or not,
Speaker 2: it's actually no diving. So that's purely just determining whether
Speaker 2: or not you're going to be the right fit. So
Speaker 2: you've got a lot of running, a lot of finning.
Speaker 2: So just laying on your back with the group of
Speaker 2: people that you apply for apply with sorry up into
Speaker 2: the Swan River, you're just finning from edge to edge.
Speaker 2: They'll put you in positions where they say, right, we're
Speaker 2: going to get from this side.
Speaker 1: And when you say finning, just to explain it to people,
Speaker 1: just on your back in the water, just with your
Speaker 1: fins on and just keeping your head up and doing
Speaker 1: what you need.
Speaker 2: Just hours and hours on end of just finning and
Speaker 2: kicking it. Just it turns your turns, your hitt flexes
Speaker 2: into e cords, I tell you. But it's just about
Speaker 2: endurance and perseverance and what you're going to do when
Speaker 2: it gets shit essentially. So you know they would stick
Speaker 2: us in the side of the river and go right,
Speaker 2: we want you to get from this side to that side.
Speaker 2: And they knew farewell that the tide was about to
Speaker 2: go out and you're about to go against it. It's
Speaker 2: only a hundred and fifty meters sort of fin but
Speaker 2: they know that you're not going to be able to
Speaker 2: get there. In fact, you're actually going to go backwards,
Speaker 2: and it's just to see what you're going to do.
Speaker 2: So all unachievable tasks. Want to make sure that you
Speaker 2: don't quit, you don't give up, and you just keep going. Yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of late night wake ups. So middle of
Speaker 2: the night, you're sleeping in your swag and the sergeant
Speaker 2: will come in start ringing the bell. Right, we've got
Speaker 2: a swamp that we need to go search. So we'd
Speaker 2: be jumping into this swamp. God God only knows what
Speaker 2: was in it and what we were smelling, but searching
Speaker 2: that at two or three in the morning. Yeah, a
Speaker 2: little bit of study in terms of the physiology of diving,
Speaker 2: just to somewhat understand a bit more about it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that was a big, big wake up for me in
Speaker 2: terms of, like, shit, I haven't actually done a selection
Speaker 2: course before, and I found out a lot about myself
Speaker 2: in that regard in terms of pushing and what I
Speaker 2: was willing to do. That's sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sleep deprivation and not giving you much feedback, I
Speaker 1: would imagine, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, Yeah, and I hated no feedback because I
Speaker 2: always liked, like, I like succeeding everyone does, yeah, and
Speaker 2: quite frankly, if I fail, that's fine as well, but
Speaker 2: just let me know then I can correct it. But
Speaker 2: when you're just getting told oh, yeah, okay, and then
Speaker 2: they walk off, you're like, shit, did I do good
Speaker 2: or do bad? And that eats up at people and
Speaker 2: they leave subsequently just because I think they've failed and
Speaker 2: they actually were doing fine.
Speaker 1: And I would think some people they'd have to weed
Speaker 1: them out because it would confront like get into this
Speaker 1: swamp and yeah, or a sewer drain whatever, yeah, they
Speaker 1: put you in. Then it wouldn't be for everyone, I
Speaker 1: would imagine. No, So when did they start taking you
Speaker 1: below the surface?
Speaker 2: So you do that one week course. Once you've finished that,
Speaker 2: they'll say yeah or no, you've been invited back for
Speaker 2: the three week You actually go back to your station
Speaker 2: at that point, so I went back to South Headland.
Speaker 2: A couple of weeks later. You get invited back for
Speaker 2: a three week course and that one is very very
Speaker 2: much tied alongside the diving aspects of things. So how
Speaker 2: you actually react underwater, confined space, very dark areas obviously
Speaker 2: no viz and then also the cold the coal was
Speaker 2: a big one, so they put you essentially into hypothermia
Speaker 2: to see what your cognitive load is, how you can react,
Speaker 2: if you can pick up on it, what you're going
Speaker 2: to do to counteract it. And the benefit of me
Speaker 2: being in the squad for so long as I got
Speaker 2: to run these selection courses later, so I've got to
Speaker 2: find out the other side of it. So yeah, those
Speaker 2: three weeks were quite intense as well, but as not
Speaker 2: as physically demanding in terms of endurance, running and fitning
Speaker 2: and all that. It's more technique, I suppose, but a
Speaker 2: bit more mental.
Speaker 1: And the mental aspect of it, the hypothermia and in
Speaker 1: cold water, that can break people down, yeah.
Speaker 2: Big time. Like it's just it's another uncomfortable feeling and
Speaker 2: we want to make sure. Yes, like you know, there's
Speaker 2: a component of the course where we're cutting a piece
Speaker 2: of metal first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm reading that in your book and I was
Speaker 1: fascinated by it. Tell tell people about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I mean it's a it's a great it's
Speaker 2: a great exercise to find out if people will really,
Speaker 2: you know, be able to respond well and operate within
Speaker 2: cold environments. But we're never going to operate in that environment.
Speaker 2: You know it wouldn't be conducive with operational needs and requirements,
Speaker 2: but we take them to the worst case scenario so
Speaker 2: we know that they can operate in anything else. So
Speaker 2: what we do is we we start off the unit
Speaker 2: or the candidates on an afternoon shift. You'll start it
Speaker 2: twelve the twelve in the day and they'll do a
Speaker 2: little bit of PT, get some sort of study out
Speaker 2: of the way. And then we just got told by
Speaker 2: the dive sergeant, right, have a big feed, get a
Speaker 2: lot of water into you because there's a long exercise
Speaker 2: coming and we're working till ten pm a night or something.
Speaker 2: So you go and get a feed in skull as
Speaker 2: much water as you can. Obviously we're going to be
Speaker 2: diving for a while. That's the exercise. And we got
Speaker 2: to the wharf and the sergeant goes right, there's been
Speaker 2: some cast iron rods that we've thrown into the river.
Speaker 2: There's a hacks or blade next to it. Go down,
Speaker 2: find yours. You also got your diving number on it,
Speaker 2: your candidate number. If you don't find it, don't bother
Speaker 2: coming back up because you're not a good police dive
Speaker 2: with Thatt's case, and what we want you to do
Speaker 2: is start cutting off a slither off that metal rod.
Speaker 2: We only want it to be ten to fifteen mil
Speaker 2: whatever it was at the time. You got to the
Speaker 2: end of the shift going there, so you go in.
Speaker 2: You find it to start with the visa isn't that
Speaker 2: bad at the time, But they purposely do it while
Speaker 2: the tide's coming out, so you're getting the muck from
Speaker 2: the rest of the river, so it's making it difficult.
Speaker 2: I tried to establish like a sort of a workbench
Speaker 2: as such, and later I found out that that was
Speaker 2: one of the you know, one of the tests. I
Speaker 2: supposed to get a workbench going to articulate how you
Speaker 2: would operate underwater in a company environment and make it efficient.
Speaker 2: Start hacksaw, and I stupidly got about half an hour
Speaker 2: in I think it was, and I was like, geez,
Speaker 2: I'm not moving very far on this thing. And I
Speaker 2: pulled the hacksaw blade up to look at it, and
Speaker 2: the guys had put it the wrong way around on.
Speaker 1: Me, so it was in. It wasn't just a blade
Speaker 1: that was in a hack you had the saw on it,
Speaker 1: but they'd put the hacks all blade in upside down.
Speaker 2: Upside down, Yeah, and I ended up doing that for
Speaker 2: other candidates later in life. It's just a it's something
Speaker 2: that you do to make sure that you know they're
Speaker 2: operating well and smart and efficient. As I said, so
Speaker 2: work that one out, flipped it over, started getting into
Speaker 2: it at that stage, and then I got to about
Speaker 2: the hour mark and I thought I'm starting to run
Speaker 2: out of air here. So eventually ran out came up.
Speaker 2: So I should also say that it wasn't till the
Speaker 2: end of the shift. It was like, right, you need
Speaker 2: to cut this slither off by the end of your cylinder,
Speaker 2: so don't come up until it's done.
Speaker 1: So how long had you been under the water at
Speaker 1: this stage?
Speaker 2: That'd be about an hour. So the depth that we
Speaker 2: were at and how we're work and give it take
Speaker 2: an hour. So come up. Tell this sergeant, I've effectively
Speaker 2: failed the mission. Yeah, I haven't gotten your slither. And
Speaker 2: he goes, I suppose you want another cylinder then, and
Speaker 2: keep going. I went, yeah, cool, if I'm allowed to.
Speaker 2: So he throws the cylinder in. How to change it
Speaker 2: on the surface, go back under and keep cutting, and
Speaker 2: at that stage I sort of worked out right there's
Speaker 2: about four hours of the shift left. I've done a
Speaker 2: quarter of that. I'm about ten percent of the way
Speaker 2: through this piece of metal. Like, I'm not doing this today,
Speaker 2: so keep going anyway. And I just had this sort
Speaker 2: of mantra going through my head that you know they're
Speaker 2: not going to do anything that's going to kill you,
Speaker 2: So just keep going is what it is, except that
Speaker 2: you're going to fail it. But you know they want
Speaker 2: to see you keep going, so kept going. They come
Speaker 2: down halfway through that rip your mask off. You can't
Speaker 2: see anything. Now, your head's freezing cold. Your mask can
Speaker 2: keep your nose and your eyes quite warm, believe it
Speaker 2: or not. But when that's exposed to the water as well,
Speaker 2: and it's your whole head, the sting is just unbearable.
Speaker 2: So you're doing it with your eyes shut. Not that
Speaker 2: you need your eyes, but it just makes it a
Speaker 2: lot comfier. Yeah, they give your mass back. You've got
Speaker 2: to put that back on. Keep going, And we get
Speaker 2: to the end of the shift and they bring us
Speaker 2: all up. None of us have completed it, so we
Speaker 2: come up. The sergeant goes, right, you've all failed. Have
Speaker 2: a good heart. Think about what you want to do.
Speaker 2: And why you want to be here. Go have a
Speaker 2: shower and go home, be back in the morning. So
Speaker 2: I go have a shower, and I just I could
Speaker 2: not I could not believe how cold I was. It
Speaker 2: was just down to my bones. And I actually went
Speaker 2: into the shower turn the hot water on, and the
Speaker 2: hot water hit me and I just completely blacked out,
Speaker 2: woke up on the shower floor all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: and you know, having some understanding of the physiology now
Speaker 2: of hyperthermia, I knew that, yeah, I was in severe
Speaker 2: hyperthermia and my body had just shut down with that
Speaker 2: heat heat exchange. So I went home, came back. They
Speaker 2: subsequently go, right, you've got another chance, go down, and
Speaker 2: we want you to hurry up and get this done.
Speaker 2: And they all disappear off to the side, and I
Speaker 2: still remember one of the one of the team mates
Speaker 2: came up and said, right, boys, everyone come in, and
Speaker 2: he'd gone past a hardware store on the way and
Speaker 2: pulled out a couple of new hacks or blades out
Speaker 2: from his wetsuit and gave it all to us, said
Speaker 2: get these India, and then hopefully you'll be able to
Speaker 2: cut a bit quicker when you go back in, so
Speaker 2: went back down started cutting, and the new blade definitely helped.
Speaker 2: We'll go in like a bad out of hell. And
Speaker 2: I got to about the I think it was a
Speaker 2: six and a half seven hour mark, whatever it was,
Speaker 2: and I'd finished, came up to the top as proud
Speaker 2: as punches his piece of metal. I looked at the
Speaker 2: sergeants said I got it, and he goes, yeah, one
Speaker 2: side looks a little bit too thick, though, mate, So
Speaker 2: go down and get me another one, and I just
Speaker 2: nearly died. Everything just stopped and I was like, are
Speaker 2: you bloody kidding me? So I went down and I
Speaker 2: reckon I was putting ten percent of the effort in
Speaker 2: that I was doing beforehand to get another piece now.
Speaker 2: And it was only about ten or fifteen minutes later
Speaker 2: that other stuff member came down, got my attention, took
Speaker 2: me over to where the others were we're cutting. There
Speaker 2: was four of us left at this stage, and went
Speaker 2: past the two bays where I thought there was two
Speaker 2: other candidates and they weren't there anymore. But on the
Speaker 2: last candidate. They were all gathered around this last guy
Speaker 2: cutting and the staff member basically communicated to us with
Speaker 2: hand signals right, everyone's to help out. You need to
Speaker 2: get this guy done, and then and then it's and
Speaker 2: then it's done for the done for the session, and
Speaker 2: it was like, oh sweet. So we worked out this
Speaker 2: method of someone holding onto the axas someone pushing, someone pulling.
Speaker 2: We did two minute rotations and before you knew it,
Speaker 2: we'd finished his cutoff, got all up. We're as proud
Speaker 2: as punch. Handed these pieces of metals to the to
Speaker 2: the staff and it's it's actually one of the things
Speaker 2: that at the end of the course we get handed
Speaker 2: back to us, so you think it's done and dusted.
Speaker 2: You're never going to see that piece of metal again.
Speaker 2: And that's that was like, No, that thing I spent
Speaker 2: eight cold hours on, Like that thing's fucking priceless to me.
Speaker 2: But they actually put on a park and that's your
Speaker 2: graduation sort of award night, which is still hanging up
Speaker 2: on my office now, and it's a good memory of
Speaker 2: what you can do and what you push yourself to do.
Speaker 2: And there was a job that I actually got as
Speaker 2: cold as that day and I remember thinking I've done
Speaker 2: this before for eight hours, like I'm going to do
Speaker 2: this for forty five minutes to an hour max, I
Speaker 2: can do it for seven more. I'm sweet. This is good,
Speaker 2: and that's why we do it. It's a perfect example
Speaker 2: of why we do that.
Speaker 1: I think any course that you do, if you have
Speaker 1: those challenges, it makes it more worthwhile. And I can
Speaker 1: certainly understand why they've got to put your through your
Speaker 1: paces in that manner. They're going to see that you've
Speaker 1: got a degree of resilience and you're going to hang
Speaker 1: in there because a lot of the tasks that you
Speaker 1: get to do as a diver are pretty difficult. Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: I think, and this is why it's interesting having a
Speaker 1: chat and then part two we're just going to deep
Speaker 1: dive into the jobs that you've done because the majority
Speaker 1: of people, including police like I never overthink what's going
Speaker 1: on under the water. When I'd be the crime scene
Speaker 1: and gave can you search search that creek? We see,
Speaker 1: we see you dude roll up at the crime scenes.
Speaker 1: The public see you in the media. They always get
Speaker 1: shots of divers searching for a body or searching for
Speaker 1: a weapon, that that type of thing. But what goes
Speaker 1: on under there? And I just I said to you
Speaker 1: this the other day when we're talking. I was blowing
Speaker 1: away when I was talking to a diver at the
Speaker 1: scene and I thought, you know, crawling around bottom of
Speaker 1: a river in the ocean or whatever, around the murky depth,
Speaker 1: no vision. I would have thought you'd have gloves on
Speaker 1: because Aniel might come out and bite your fingers off,
Speaker 1: or you might grab something sharp. And I know we
Speaker 1: do it all with our hands. You need, you need
Speaker 1: the touch to feel what you're looking for, and that
Speaker 1: touch often I'll get you to talk about some of
Speaker 1: the experiences that you've had in part two. But you're
Speaker 1: looking for a body, and yeah, in the pitch black underwater.
Speaker 1: Not I mentioned all the other creepy stuff that might
Speaker 1: get you in the water. You're looking for a body,
Speaker 1: and your success is if you get your hand on
Speaker 1: a body that's been submerged in the water for god
Speaker 1: knows how long, or a skeletal remain you just ain't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely and I and I said to you the
Speaker 2: other day, mate, it's I think if anyone from the
Speaker 2: same same style of work ever says that, Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: And I started handling it better as I got into
Speaker 2: the job and it was less scary. I think they're
Speaker 2: full of shit. The last body that I ever had
Speaker 2: for eight years of the dive squad. Compared to the
Speaker 2: first one, I was shitting myself just as much.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nothing that I think you're ever going to
Speaker 2: is going to prepare you for that. It's about the
Speaker 2: professionalism leading up to it and then what you do
Speaker 2: after it as well. But that moment of that touch
Speaker 2: and grabbing onto that body, it never leaves you, that's
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I can feel my heart beating quicker just
Speaker 1: the thought of it in pitch black, in the water, cold,
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and creeping around on the bottom of a river
Speaker 1: looking for a am looking for a body part.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, we're going to ask you a lot in
Speaker 1: part two, the scariest jobs you've had, the most difficult,
Speaker 1: the most rewarding. We're going to talk about the emotional
Speaker 1: toll it takes, because I think you touched on it there.
Speaker 1: We've got to be realistic, like you're the type of
Speaker 1: work you get called in when something bad has happened.
Speaker 1: You're not been called in for something good. Maybe you've
Speaker 1: had some success where you've helped someone, but invariably it's
Speaker 1: a tragedy that's occurred, and that's where you guys, get
Speaker 1: get called into it, and I'm going to ask you
Speaker 1: about sharks, because we've been talking for an hour and
Speaker 1: you haven't mentioned sharks. And I think if I was
Speaker 1: going to sign up for police divers, that would be
Speaker 1: at the forefront of my thoughts. So we'll have a
Speaker 1: break and we'll be back for part two.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Thanks Garrett.
Speaker 1: Cheers,