Fallen Members

I don't normally post this sort of thing to Linkedin but this is for all of my former colleagues who have struggled to survive. On Sunday 29th April 2018 the Angela Taylor Memorial Run/Walk is being held in Albert Park, Melbourne, Victoria.

Just before 1pm on 27 March 1986 Angela left Russell Street Police Station on a lunch run. A job most of us had done as junior members at some time during our first posting out of the Academy. A short time after 1pm as Angela walked by, a car laden with explosives blew up, severely injuring her and 21 others. Sadly Angela died of her horrific injuries 24 days later and became the first serving police woman to be murdered on duty in Australia.

She was one of us and her fate could have been that of any of us, because we had all walked that same part of that same street many times.

I remember the day well because it was the first day of my holidays, Easter Thursday, and I was in the car on my way to Lakes Entrance. When the news came through that a policewoman was injured I worried it was my sister who was at work in the Russell Street building in a first floor office. I found out later that evening that she was safe.

The bastards who did this planned for the bomb to go off at lunchtime and almost any other Thursday of the year those streets would have been packed as people left the Melbourne Magistrates Court opposite for lunch. Easter Thursday meant that the courts had closed early so the streets were largely deserted.

This was an event that is forever burned into the psyche of every Victoria Police member. It was a time where we went to war and for the next few years more of our own were killed and many of the bad guys also met their end.

For most of us the Victoria Police is an organisation which we feel a great affinity for, whether we still serve or not. Common to men and women in blue everywhere who carry the star an attack on one, is an attack on all of us and the pain of the loss of any member in tragic circumstances hits all of us equally hard. But Angela Taylor, Steve Tynan and Damien Eyre (gunned down in South Yarra in 1988) are the public face of that loss. There are many more men and women who have faced demons and sadly for some they have not been able to overcome them.

My days of working in blue are long gone. No longer will I hear the call of sirens announcing my comrades coming to my aid, nor be the one who turns on those lights and bells to rush to the aid of a comrade in trouble. But I can help in a small way by joining this run and helping raise a little bit of money that will help build new and improved emergency facilities in public hospitals named in memory of fallen police officers. Please support it.

https://www.facebook.com/events/200138904059557/