# The night police dog Vader outperformed an entire human team: David Raymond Pt. 2

An episode of [I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506667049), 5 Oct 2026, 58 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/5bc8c2ed-b718-4f44-beb3-ac2a005246cc/2a219e65-88bf-455b-b258-b4d7006a5a42/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=786928c3-10c1-4cef-a7bf-ac2a005246d0

Vader was Australia's most fearless police dog. This is his story. In Part 2 of I Catch Killers, Gary Jubelin sits back down with retired Queensland dog handler David Raymond, who spent 36 years in the job, 26 years in the Dog Squad Vader tracked offenders for 3-4 hours through dense cane fields, found 7 fugitives hiding in one night when no human team could, and once held onto a wanted criminal by the thigh while David punched the driver through the window of a moving 4WD to stop him. David also breaks down the jobs that didn't go to plan, ramming the wrong red Holden ute while chasing an armed hold-up offender 80km south of Cairns, and arriving at a bloody scene that looked like a murder but wasn't, plus what the harness, booties, and heat management really mean for dog welfare, why a dog can sense fear and adrenaline before a handler can see it. You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram: @icatchkillers Tiktok: @icatchkillerspodcast Facebook: @icatchkillers See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives
[0:05] Speaker 1: see a side of life the average person is never
[0:08] Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For
[0:12] Speaker 1: 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what
[0:14] Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
[0:17] Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking
[0:21] Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The
[0:24] Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
[0:26] Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
[0:29] Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the
[0:31] Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
[0:34] Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
[0:38] Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. In
[0:46] Speaker 1: part two of my chat with former Queensland cop David Raymond,
[0:50] Speaker 1: we dive back into the wild world of policing with
[0:52] Speaker 1: a dog by your side. David takes us through the
[0:55] Speaker 1: dramatic arrests and high-speed chases he shared with his faithful partner, Vader,
[1:00] Speaker 1: the police dog. I've always thought dog handlers have the
[1:04] Speaker 1: most dangerous job in the cops. They're front and centre
[1:06] Speaker 1: when things go sideways, chasing down offenders in real time.
[1:10] Speaker 1: It's policing at its rawest. But dogs don't just catch crooks.
[1:14] Speaker 1: They save lives and crack cases wide open too. This
[1:18] Speaker 1: episode is a wild ride. Have a listen. David Raymond.
[1:22] Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of I Catch Killers.
[1:25] Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
[1:26] Speaker 1: Given the amount of arrests that Vader's made, maybe we
[1:30] Speaker 1: should call it Vader Catches Bad Guys. Call this episode
[1:34] Speaker 1: because he certainly caught a few. Hey, you, 26 years
[1:40] Speaker 1: as a dog handler or 36 years in the cops.
[1:43] Speaker 1: It's a long time in the cops. I'm going to
[1:44] Speaker 1: embarrass you here a little bit. Then I'll attack you
[1:46] Speaker 1: after that. You've got a host of awards from your
[1:50] Speaker 1: policing career. And I'm not making light of this. They're
[1:54] Speaker 1: important awards. The Australian Bravery Medal, the Queensland Police Service
[1:59] Speaker 1: Valor Award, Australian Police Medal, Commendation for Brave Conduct, Notorious
[2:03] Speaker 1: Service Award. You should be very proud. of your service.
[2:09] Speaker 2: Absolutely. And when you say you're going to embarrass me, look,
[2:13] Speaker 2: I'm very much supportive of people who've earned those medals
[2:17] Speaker 2: to wear those medals. You know, we had this medal
[2:19] Speaker 2: that's for 10 years service in the Queensland Police Service
[2:22] Speaker 2: and everybody got that. That's from the cleaner and they
[2:25] Speaker 2: call it the cleaner's medal. But if you do your
[2:28] Speaker 2: 10 years of policing, you deserve that medal. So wear
[2:32] Speaker 2: it with pride, you know. I think it's just the
[2:34] Speaker 2: most amazing thing. I often hear people put that in
[2:36] Speaker 2: the drawer. Well, I don't think it should be set
[2:40] Speaker 2: in the drawer. You got that for a reason, you know. And, yeah. So, yeah.
[2:47] Speaker 2: And that's just it. And being operational for all that
[2:51] Speaker 2: time of the 36 years, you're going to come across
[2:53] Speaker 2: these jobs and you're going to pick up those awards.
[2:58] Speaker 2: You have to... be at the right place at the
[3:01] Speaker 2: right time. And that was me. I mean, you've heard
[3:03] Speaker 2: the term shit magnet, which all the coppers seem to use.
[3:07] Speaker 2: And that was just me. I just tended to be
[3:09] Speaker 2: there at the right time at the right spot. And
[3:12] Speaker 2: I loved every second of it, every second of it.
[3:14] Speaker 1: But it's a long service and you haven't shied away
[3:17] Speaker 1: from it. You're out there in the front line. So
[3:20] Speaker 1: you should be proud of it. So that's my compliments
[3:24] Speaker 1: to you. Let's take you down a peg or two now.
[3:28] Speaker 1: But you even managed to pull this one off, and
[3:30] Speaker 1: I'm not sure how. So one particular arrest in the book,
[3:35] Speaker 1: the time you and your mate Andy rammed the wrong
[3:37] Speaker 1: car in the pursuit and very bravely arrested the wrong
[3:40] Speaker 1: man who was protesting his innocence. Even with that one,
[3:44] Speaker 1: you came out smelling as roses. Can you tell us
[3:47] Speaker 1: what happened there?
[3:50] Speaker 2: And we were, there was an armed hold up, which
[3:52] Speaker 2: had happened about 80 kilometres south of Cairns, a little
[3:56] Speaker 2: town called Ninnisfar. And what had happened was old mate
[3:59] Speaker 2: had assaulted his partner. He'd threatened her with a firearm,
[4:02] Speaker 2: a pistol. Then he'd, on the way through, he'd full
[4:05] Speaker 2: of drugs, full of alcohol, hopped in the car, started
[4:07] Speaker 2: driving towards Cairns. On the way, he did an armed
[4:09] Speaker 2: hold up. And I stick up at the, one of
[4:11] Speaker 2: the local convenience stores there and continue on his way.
[4:15] Speaker 2: We had a big troop carrier at that stage, the
[4:16] Speaker 2: two dogs. The dog spot had a big troop carrier,
[4:19] Speaker 2: the big bull bar on the front. So if any
[4:20] Speaker 2: car needed ramming, which we were allowed to do in
[4:22] Speaker 2: those days, we would be able to ram the car.
[4:25] Speaker 2: And keeping in mind that this bloke was armed and
[4:28] Speaker 2: obviously dangerous and would fire shots, that we were sent
[4:31] Speaker 2: down there. Plus if he escaped, we'd be in a
[4:33] Speaker 2: position to track him if we needed to. We're driving
[4:37] Speaker 2: down the highway. We get to a little place called
[4:40] Speaker 2: Bahena Creek. At that stage, we've heard another vehicle is
[4:44] Speaker 2: ahead of us that we were following closely. We were
[4:47] Speaker 2: following a marked uniform car. Behind us, it was us
[4:51] Speaker 2: with the dog squad. But further on, there was another
[4:53] Speaker 2: uniform car that had stingers or the road spikes, if
[4:55] Speaker 2: you like. And they were going to throw these road
[4:59] Speaker 2: spikes out and hopefully punch our four tires. As we're
[5:02] Speaker 2: driving along, this bloke is described as in a red
[5:07] Speaker 2: Holden ute. So we're driving down the highway. We get
[5:12] Speaker 2: the call from the vehicle ahead with the tire spikes.
[5:15] Speaker 2: We've stung the car. four flat tires, and we've gone, beautiful,
[5:19] Speaker 2: here he comes. At that time, we're sitting in a
[5:21] Speaker 2: car with headlights coming towards us. The uniform car, it's
[5:25] Speaker 2: a red Holden U. So the uniform car in the
[5:27] Speaker 2: front of us has done a U-turn, and we've done
[5:29] Speaker 2: a U-turn as well to follow it. We've overtaken that
[5:31] Speaker 2: car because we thought, well, we got the bull by
[5:33] Speaker 2: if we need to ream or ream, so we ever
[5:34] Speaker 2: took that uniform car. Whacked our lights and sirens on.
[5:38] Speaker 2: Old mate's done a left turn up this little dirt track,
[5:41] Speaker 2: and we thought, he's running. We've got on the radio,
[5:43] Speaker 2: he's running, he's running, he's running. We're following him. And
[5:45] Speaker 2: we haven't wanted to go any further. So the driver
[5:48] Speaker 2: of the vehicle, police vehicle, I was sitting passenger, has
[5:50] Speaker 2: rammed into the side of the car. And I've gone,
[5:52] Speaker 2: I've gone, hey, no, mate, he's got a gun. He's
[5:53] Speaker 2: got a gun. I don't want to be on this side.
[5:56] Speaker 2: You know, it's right for you to do it, but
[5:57] Speaker 2: am I going to get shot? So we rammed the car,
[5:59] Speaker 2: but we haven't given him any chance. And we jumped
[6:01] Speaker 2: out and we've dragged him out and thrown him onto
[6:03] Speaker 2: the ground and smashed the window because he wasn't going to,
[6:06] Speaker 2: he's looking as if to say, what's going on? I
[6:09] Speaker 2: don't want anything to do with this. So we dragged
[6:11] Speaker 2: him out, thrown him onto the ground. We're sitting on
[6:12] Speaker 2: top of our little prize. And all of a sudden,
[6:16] Speaker 2: we've looked and we've seen on the highway is this,
[6:19] Speaker 2: we've heard this car coming along with four flat tires, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat.
[6:23] Speaker 2: I go on, look at my partner. I go, look
[6:25] Speaker 2: what we've done. It's a red-holder ute.
[6:26] Speaker 1: I mean- What's the chances?
[6:28] Speaker 2: This is the Bruce Hart. What are the chances of two?
[6:30] Speaker 2: These are single-lane roads. It's not like your M5 or M1,
[6:33] Speaker 2: what you've got down there, that sort of place. But
[6:35] Speaker 2: this is just a lonely street. And here's this car
[6:38] Speaker 2: driving past two red-holder utes in a row. So- embarrassed.
[6:43] Speaker 2: I remember old Blake, when I dragged him down, he's going,
[6:46] Speaker 2: I'm an accountant, I'm an accountant. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
[6:48] Speaker 2: we're Starsky and Hutch, whatever, mate. You know, that sort
[6:51] Speaker 2: of attitude and threw him on the ground, the poor bugger.
[6:54] Speaker 2: So anyway, so just to end the story because it
[6:57] Speaker 2: was a bit embarrassing there, a bit funny, a bit embarrassing.
[7:00] Speaker 2: We hopped in our police cars and we thought, oh, well,
[7:03] Speaker 2: so we handed him our uniform stuff. We said, you
[7:05] Speaker 2: look after this bloke. We got back in the chase
[7:06] Speaker 2: and followed this bloke. And, uh, again, we got him
[7:10] Speaker 2: behind him and this time he did the same thing.
[7:13] Speaker 2: He took, you can, with those, with those four, um,
[7:16] Speaker 2: odd known cars have gone 30 kilometers with flat tires.
[7:19] Speaker 1: When the tires have been punctured.
[7:21] Speaker 2: Even on rims, you know, they, they can, they can
[7:23] Speaker 2: continue along for a long way. Eventually they stop. But, uh,
[7:26] Speaker 2: so anyway, so we followed this bloke and he did
[7:28] Speaker 2: the same thing. He went down this dirt road. I thought, oh,
[7:30] Speaker 2: here we go again. Exactly the same thing. We're sure
[7:32] Speaker 2: we had the right car this time. And this is
[7:35] Speaker 2: my story. So, uh, Old mate stopped. He's jumped out
[7:38] Speaker 2: with the firearm. My partner, the driver, has jumped out
[7:43] Speaker 2: of his side. He's got him pointed the gun towards him.
[7:47] Speaker 2: My door was actually opened on a little cane paddock,
[7:50] Speaker 2: and old mate was standing in front of this cane paddock,
[7:52] Speaker 2: so I'd been hidden from view. So this is my story.
[7:56] Speaker 2: I've run out, and I've come out into the bush
[7:58] Speaker 2: and tackled him with the gun and knocked the gun
[7:59] Speaker 2: out of his hands, whereas my mate reckons I jumped
[8:02] Speaker 2: out of the car, ran around scared, bumped into him,
[8:04] Speaker 2: and the gun's fallen. fallen away. So you decide which
[8:08] Speaker 2: story you think is true, but I know which one
[8:10] Speaker 2: I want to do.
[8:10] Speaker 1: Well, how lucky do you get? You get a practice
[8:13] Speaker 1: run to apprehend an innocent man, and then you apprehend
[8:17] Speaker 1: an armed offender.
[8:19] Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. But how embarrassing. Embarrassing.
[8:23] Speaker 1: And Vader's probably got a different version as well, that
[8:26] Speaker 1: he tracked the person and launched himself out of the
[8:30] Speaker 1: police car. So where the truth lies, no one knows. Yeah, exactly.
[8:33] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[8:34] Speaker 1: I've got another one that I'd like you to tell
[8:37] Speaker 1: the story. And this is, I've made a note here,
[8:40] Speaker 1: Vader solving a murder that wasn't a murder.
[8:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had a job, a male
[8:46] Speaker 2: person that had been knocking on these people's fences. I
[8:51] Speaker 2: turned up, I was first on the scene actually. And
[8:53] Speaker 2: there was, it's like something out of a movie because
[8:56] Speaker 2: it was a brand new painted white picket fence and
[9:00] Speaker 2: there was just blood all over the thing. where the
[9:05] Speaker 2: deceased had been trying to get into the house to
[9:08] Speaker 2: get help. That's what it looked like, and it appeared
[9:11] Speaker 2: to have stab wounds all over him. I got onto
[9:16] Speaker 2: a track. The Ambos turned up and did their job,
[9:19] Speaker 2: as did the detectives. I got onto a track, and
[9:22] Speaker 2: I tracked it. It was only a short track. It
[9:24] Speaker 2: was only a couple of hundred metres, maybe a little
[9:25] Speaker 2: bit more. And I've come to a house down the road,
[9:30] Speaker 2: I've put the dog in there. The dog's indicated that
[9:32] Speaker 2: somebody's in there. This is just a classic example of tracking.
[9:35] Speaker 2: And unbeknown to me, there was also blood trails. There
[9:40] Speaker 2: was a blood trail all the way to this house.
[9:42] Speaker 2: So if I had to follow the blood trail, I
[9:43] Speaker 2: probably could have done it, but the dog actually did
[9:45] Speaker 2: the job. But what's actually happened is, unfortunately, because I've
[9:51] Speaker 2: rung the detectives. I said, get down here. This is
[9:53] Speaker 2: where the offenders are. We knocked on the door, couldn't
[9:55] Speaker 2: get hold of anybody. Nobody came out. Eventually, we got
[9:59] Speaker 2: hold of somebody. who basically said they'd been drinking with
[10:01] Speaker 2: that fellow prior to it. And he walked home and
[10:05] Speaker 2: he'd fallen over into, as it transpired, he'd fallen over
[10:08] Speaker 2: in the gutter and had actually smashed a couple of
[10:11] Speaker 2: bottles of alcohol that he'd been carrying and one of
[10:14] Speaker 2: them pierced one of the major arteries there. And he'd
[10:17] Speaker 2: managed to stagger all the way down there and tried
[10:19] Speaker 2: to get in there. So it wasn't actually a murder
[10:20] Speaker 2: after all that. Right.
[10:23] Speaker 1: And these are the twists and turns. Like when you
[10:25] Speaker 1: saw that first up, you would have just naturally assumed
[10:28] Speaker 1: it's foul play here.
[10:30] Speaker 2: Oh, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, for sure.
[10:32] Speaker 1: It's interesting how these things turn out. Another time, and
[10:38] Speaker 1: we're giving props here to Vader, but the time that
[10:43] Speaker 1: he caught seven offenders for one offence.
[10:46] Speaker 2: Unlawful use of motor vehicle, which is quite a common thing,
[10:48] Speaker 2: I think, not just in Cairns, but all the way
[10:50] Speaker 2: around Australia these days. And we have the pursuit policy, obviously,
[10:54] Speaker 2: in Queensland. I'm not sure whether it's the same down south,
[10:57] Speaker 2: but irrespective of what it is, you can only chase
[11:00] Speaker 2: a certain offences. And rightly so, too. We want to
[11:03] Speaker 2: make sure the public is safe. And part of our
[11:06] Speaker 2: mantra is to make sure that the suspects are kept safe.
[11:10] Speaker 1: And look, just on that, you said about the police
[11:14] Speaker 1: pursuits and we've certainly tightened up down here and I
[11:16] Speaker 1: would imagine in all jurisdictions about it. It's a real
[11:20] Speaker 1: difficult situation, isn't it, with the pursuits where you've got
[11:25] Speaker 1: a stolen car and it could be kids driving it.
[11:27] Speaker 1: You don't know. You don't know who the person behind
[11:29] Speaker 1: the wheel is and not to pursue. And yeah, I
[11:34] Speaker 1: think the public opinion would be, but you've got to
[11:36] Speaker 1: chase these people down. But then we've also seen the
[11:38] Speaker 1: horrendous consequences of of a police pursuit where innocent people
[11:42] Speaker 1: are being caught up in it. So it is a
[11:44] Speaker 1: difficult call on which way to go.
[11:46] Speaker 2: And then you've got that human emotion of the police
[11:48] Speaker 2: officer who all he wants to do is just catch
[11:50] Speaker 2: the bad guys and put him in jail. I don't
[11:54] Speaker 2: think people see the psychological side of that, knowing that
[11:57] Speaker 2: you could possibly have stopped that happening, but due to
[12:02] Speaker 2: policies and procedures, you couldn't do anything with it. And
[12:05] Speaker 2: it's almost like the police services right around Australia go, Okay, well,
[12:11] Speaker 2: because that'll be the first question they'll ask if there's
[12:13] Speaker 2: an accident. I'll say, well, were the police involved? Were
[12:15] Speaker 2: the police chasing? You know, the bosses come back and say,
[12:17] Speaker 2: were the police chasing?
[12:17] Speaker 1: You'll be going, no.
[12:18] Speaker 2: And they go, oh, thank goodness. So that's there. That's
[12:20] Speaker 2: to protect the brand to a certain degree. And I
[12:24] Speaker 2: can understand where they're coming from there. But it goes
[12:27] Speaker 2: against every grain in your body when you can't do it.
[12:30] Speaker 2: And it hurts when you know that you had the
[12:32] Speaker 2: opportunity to probably intercept that car, whether it be ramming
[12:35] Speaker 2: or whether it just be um, trying to, trying to
[12:38] Speaker 2: stop it, uh, that you can't, you can't do it.
[12:42] Speaker 1: Well, the road, road spiking, uh, that, that helps. That's, uh,
[12:45] Speaker 1: that's a, a way that we can contain the, contain
[12:48] Speaker 1: the situation too.
[12:50] Speaker 2: And now we have police helicopters up here in, uh,
[12:52] Speaker 2: all the major cities throughout the Queensland, which was a great.
[12:54] Speaker 1: And you know, helicopters, pole air, it's limited. We've only,
[12:57] Speaker 1: each state's only got so many, uh, uh, helicopters, but
[13:01] Speaker 1: I would imagine drones will come into the play pretty
[13:03] Speaker 1: soon too.
[13:04] Speaker 2: Oh, you'd hope so. And they'll just follow the thing. And, uh,
[13:07] Speaker 2: Hopefully we can catch more. But sometimes these things just
[13:11] Speaker 2: make the person drive more erratically. But there's no easy fix.
[13:16] Speaker 2: And don't get me wrong, I'm not bagging the department.
[13:19] Speaker 2: The QPS has been the best thing in the world
[13:20] Speaker 2: for me. And I love my career. But I just
[13:23] Speaker 2: think there's a few things I could do better.
[13:25] Speaker 1: Well, let's get back to the story where you and
[13:28] Speaker 1: Vader put a stop to stolen vehicles by catching seven
[13:31] Speaker 1: people for one offence. Tell us about that.
[13:35] Speaker 2: I remember going down, the call was coming in to
[13:37] Speaker 2: say that they've been seen down this dirt road. I
[13:41] Speaker 2: started going that way. And as I'm going into this
[13:43] Speaker 2: dirt road, coming out as a stolen car, that's one
[13:47] Speaker 2: of the times when I had to stop all my
[13:52] Speaker 2: goodness in me to stop from ramming that car. It
[13:54] Speaker 2: just felt like ramming it. It wasn't going really quickly,
[13:58] Speaker 2: and I probably could have, but being juvenile, I knew
[14:01] Speaker 2: they were juvenile, so I could see it in the car.
[14:03] Speaker 2: So I rung it in. I just did a U-turn
[14:04] Speaker 2: and started following at a distance to see what I did.
[14:07] Speaker 2: I saw them come towards the highway and at their
[14:10] Speaker 2: highway is a T-intersection, which was in those days, the
[14:15] Speaker 2: highway was actually single lane. It's now double lane. So
[14:17] Speaker 2: they would never have done what they'd done. But the
[14:20] Speaker 2: car went through the intersection. How they didn't smash in
[14:23] Speaker 2: anybody who's got me beat, but they crashed into this
[14:26] Speaker 2: cane paddock and I turned up a few minutes later.
[14:30] Speaker 2: Of course, everybody's out of the car, seven of them,
[14:32] Speaker 2: gone into the cane paddock. Generally speaking, they don't go
[14:35] Speaker 2: too far out of the cane paddock because there's snakes.
[14:37] Speaker 2: It's very hot. You're getting cut by all the cane.
[14:42] Speaker 2: But you don't think about that because it's only two
[14:44] Speaker 2: or three days later all the cuts turn up. So,
[14:47] Speaker 2: of course, I get in there with the dog and
[14:49] Speaker 2: we started searching for them. And I think after, it
[14:53] Speaker 2: might have been close on three or four hours, it
[14:55] Speaker 2: was getting dark because this happened about probably at three
[14:57] Speaker 2: o'clock in the afternoon. probably about seven o'clock when we
[15:00] Speaker 2: finally managed to round up the seventh offender who thought
[15:05] Speaker 2: he'd got away. And I thought he got away. I
[15:06] Speaker 2: was actually taking the dog back to the car and
[15:09] Speaker 2: I looked up into the distance along this road and
[15:11] Speaker 2: just out of this little light pole, I saw this
[15:14] Speaker 2: little head run across the road into another cane paddock
[15:17] Speaker 2: and I got off. Okay, got him now. So I
[15:19] Speaker 2: brought the dog back and I got the dog in
[15:21] Speaker 2: there and tracked through and managed to get the seven
[15:23] Speaker 2: of them. So yeah, seven offenders in the one hit
[15:25] Speaker 2: was a fantastic effort.
[15:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good cleanup for that. And how else
[15:30] Speaker 1: would you do it without a dog, like realistically? And
[15:33] Speaker 1: you made the point that policing up there, you can't
[15:36] Speaker 1: draw on the resources. The resources are not unlimited from policing.
[15:41] Speaker 1: So very real chance without a dog, they would have
[15:43] Speaker 1: got away.
[15:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no doubt. You might've got one or two
[15:47] Speaker 2: because a lot of them don't go into the cane
[15:49] Speaker 2: too far because it is a bit scary in there.
[15:51] Speaker 2: But the ones that go in a fair way, the
[15:53] Speaker 2: only way you're going to get Mind you, the tracking
[15:56] Speaker 2: area for that dog, because not too many people walk
[15:58] Speaker 2: through the cane, so there's only one track in there,
[16:00] Speaker 2: so that dog will keep following the track. Two of
[16:03] Speaker 2: them were running towards a cane farm, and I thought
[16:06] Speaker 2: they were actually going to– I was tracking them out,
[16:08] Speaker 2: and I saw them running off in the distance. I
[16:11] Speaker 2: called police, so the police dog get on the ground,
[16:12] Speaker 2: and I saw them running as fast as they could.
[16:14] Speaker 2: I thought they were trying to get away from me.
[16:15] Speaker 2: But what they were trying to do is they were
[16:17] Speaker 2: trying to flag down the cane farmer so they could
[16:19] Speaker 2: get on the truck away from the dog. They were
[16:21] Speaker 2: that scared of the dog. They just wanted the farmer
[16:23] Speaker 2: to help them out.
[16:24] Speaker 1: What's the look on the fleeing offender's face when they
[16:27] Speaker 1: turn behind and they see a police dog coming at them?
[16:31] Speaker 2: Generally speaking, it's one of fear or they'll stop and
[16:34] Speaker 2: they'll put their hands up and go straight to ground
[16:35] Speaker 2: or they'll do as they're told, which is the main
[16:38] Speaker 2: thing they do. But, you know, the problem is if
[16:42] Speaker 2: you hide from a police dog, there's a big chance
[16:46] Speaker 2: you're going to get bitten because we don't know where
[16:47] Speaker 2: they're armed. We don't know what their demeanour is. We
[16:50] Speaker 2: don't know anything. So if you're out in the open,
[16:51] Speaker 2: you're not going to get bitten. If you're going to
[16:53] Speaker 2: run into and hide in a cane paddock or in
[16:55] Speaker 2: the bushes or under the house or something like that,
[16:57] Speaker 2: I'm not going to risk myself, put myself in there.
[16:59] Speaker 2: I don't know whether you're armed, whether you've got a firearm.
[17:01] Speaker 2: So that dog's going to go and he's going to
[17:02] Speaker 2: apprehend you and bring you out. So just a bit
[17:05] Speaker 2: of advice if you're listening, put your hands up.
[17:07] Speaker 1: Okay. Do you think that the dogs also, and it's
[17:11] Speaker 1: like a primeval fear, like a savage animal coming after you.
[17:14] Speaker 1: I think we can all understand that. We had a
[17:18] Speaker 1: guest on the podcast, Horse, his nickname, but an SAS bloke,
[17:23] Speaker 1: the dog handler there, and said when they're overseas in
[17:28] Speaker 1: combat zones or war zones, that the dogs, they were
[17:31] Speaker 1: looking for signs that dogs could pick up concerns and
[17:35] Speaker 1: all that. They can almost smell the fear or smell
[17:37] Speaker 1: the danger. Is that what you encountered working with your dogs?
[17:41] Speaker 2: Well, a bit of a story. There was an offender
[17:46] Speaker 2: who had escaped from the police air wing which the
[17:48] Speaker 2: police air wing is a series of aircraft that run
[17:51] Speaker 2: between Thursday Island, which is about 1,000 kilometres north of here,
[17:55] Speaker 2: all the way down to Brisbane, and they transport police
[17:58] Speaker 2: for courses. Mostly they transport prisoners to fort or to
[18:02] Speaker 2: prisons and stuff like that. So a young fellow had
[18:05] Speaker 2: escaped from the air wing, the young detectives, let him
[18:09] Speaker 2: off out of handcuffs to go to the toilet, and
[18:12] Speaker 2: of course he's clogged out this window and gone. So
[18:15] Speaker 2: they rang me. I was the on-call officer. So I
[18:18] Speaker 2: turned up there and there were so many police out there.
[18:20] Speaker 2: The air wings on the opposite side, it's a bit
[18:23] Speaker 2: difficult to explain if you don't know Cairns, but the
[18:25] Speaker 2: air wings on the opposite side where the main aircraft are.
[18:28] Speaker 2: So they fly out of there. I turned up there
[18:30] Speaker 2: and there were a lot of police looking around this
[18:32] Speaker 2: field area for this offender. So I couldn't get a track.
[18:36] Speaker 2: So I decided I'd go and do a bit of
[18:37] Speaker 2: a search over across the road there into the highway.
[18:42] Speaker 2: And there were a lot of mangroves and stuff like
[18:44] Speaker 2: that there, bush land. So I put the dog through there, searched, searched, searched,
[18:48] Speaker 2: couldn't find him. So after about an hour, I thought,
[18:50] Speaker 2: that's it, I've had enough. I can't find him. It
[18:52] Speaker 2: was very hot. So I started taking the dog back
[18:55] Speaker 2: to the police vehicle. And I'm walking past this street
[19:00] Speaker 2: and I see three or four detectives standing outside this
[19:01] Speaker 2: house talking about what their next course of action is.
[19:04] Speaker 2: I went down to tell them I can't find them.
[19:06] Speaker 2: They're standing beside, there's a fence there, there's a bush there,
[19:09] Speaker 2: and there's the house behind it. And I've gone in there.
[19:13] Speaker 2: I reckon I said, hey, team, unfortunately, I haven't had
[19:17] Speaker 2: any luck, and the dog has just lunged into the bush,
[19:20] Speaker 2: and I've heard this blood-curdling scream from this offender. He's
[19:23] Speaker 2: been hiding in the bush right in front of these detectives. No,
[19:27] Speaker 2: he was hitting very well, but the adrenaline had just
[19:29] Speaker 2: come off. He sees the police dog coming along, and
[19:32] Speaker 2: the adrenaline has just drained from him. So the dog
[19:34] Speaker 2: knew exactly who he was looking for, if you know
[19:37] Speaker 2: what I mean. So, yeah. straight in there and dragged
[19:39] Speaker 2: him out and I said, there you go, got him boys,
[19:41] Speaker 2: see ya's, you know, that type of stuff. So yeah,
[19:43] Speaker 2: so that gives you an idea of the actual absolute
[19:46] Speaker 2: fear that the dog has on it. But then again,
[19:49] Speaker 2: also the dog feels the fear on you as well.
[19:51] Speaker 2: If you feel uncomfortable doing it, many times you'd be
[19:53] Speaker 2: sitting in the police car and there'd be a call
[19:56] Speaker 2: to say male person armed with a knife at such
[19:59] Speaker 2: and such a location. You as a police officer would
[20:02] Speaker 2: be going through your head, especially a single officer, you'd
[20:04] Speaker 2: be going, okay, what's the safest route to take? Have
[20:07] Speaker 2: I got my gun, your guns, your firearms there? Thinking
[20:11] Speaker 2: all this stuff, what's my plan of action when you're
[20:13] Speaker 2: getting there? So all this time, and you still haven't
[20:16] Speaker 2: got lights and sirens on, all this time the adrenaline's
[20:18] Speaker 2: coming off, that dog in the back starts crying and screaming, going,
[20:21] Speaker 2: I'm going to a good job, going to a good job.
[20:23] Speaker 2: So that gives you an idea of what, you know,
[20:25] Speaker 2: they know, they know when they're going to stuff.
[20:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. You'd have to put a lot of trust
[20:30] Speaker 1: in them too. Like when you do go into situations
[20:33] Speaker 1: like that, you want to know that your dogs are,
[20:36] Speaker 1: on high alert and going to do what he's supposed
[20:39] Speaker 1: to do.
[20:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, and you feed off each other. He's hoping that
[20:42] Speaker 2: you're on high alert as well.
[20:43] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[20:44] Speaker 2: And that, you know, you can– you feed off each other.
[20:48] Speaker 2: It's incredible.
[20:49] Speaker 1: When you get a good result, do you sort of
[20:51] Speaker 1: look at each other with a knowing grin? Does he
[20:54] Speaker 1: pick up on the happiness and the pride?
[20:57] Speaker 2: Euphoria is the word because you just feel so glad.
[21:01] Speaker 2: And a lot of times when you're tracking, you're going,
[21:02] Speaker 2: this thing's following the kangaroo. Back it in. or, you know,
[21:05] Speaker 2: you're thinking what it is, but inevitably they're following the offender.
[21:09] Speaker 2: It's just, you always second, always second guess your dog.
[21:11] Speaker 2: Even after 26 years, I was still second guessing my
[21:13] Speaker 2: dog for some stupid reason. And generally speaking, once the
[21:16] Speaker 2: dog's on that track, he's going to find them. And
[21:18] Speaker 2: when you find them, it's just such a great feel.
[21:21] Speaker 2: It's just a really, really good feeling, especially if there's
[21:23] Speaker 2: other police watching, you know, which is a great thing.
[21:26] Speaker 2: Because a lot of times you find the offenders that,
[21:29] Speaker 2: you know, you're four or five Ks away from any
[21:31] Speaker 2: help or anybody else. And And so they don't actually
[21:34] Speaker 2: see the apprehension and, you know, the 30 fences you've
[21:38] Speaker 2: gone through, the creaks you've gone through. And I remember COVID,
[21:41] Speaker 2: I was injured. I injured my knee. And I was
[21:44] Speaker 2: sitting in one of the COVID hotels where passengers would
[21:48] Speaker 2: come in and they'd be quarantined for two weeks, I think. Anyway,
[21:52] Speaker 2: whatever it was, and I'd sit outside. I was injured,
[21:54] Speaker 2: so I decided I'd sit in there for the two weeks.
[21:56] Speaker 2: And I remember one of my staff sending me through
[21:58] Speaker 2: a photograph of a track he'd done that night. Unlawful
[22:01] Speaker 2: use again. And I hear him going through the bush
[22:05] Speaker 2: and it's F this and F that and F this
[22:07] Speaker 2: and getting tied up in wait a while and all
[22:09] Speaker 2: these prickles and falling over rocks and stuff like that.
[22:12] Speaker 2: But he finally got to the offender and, you know,
[22:15] Speaker 2: police with a police dog come out and got these
[22:17] Speaker 2: couple of offenders for use. And the track lasted probably
[22:20] Speaker 2: half an hour. And I thought, I looked at that
[22:23] Speaker 2: and I went, what the hell am I doing here?
[22:24] Speaker 2: I am in air conditioning watching the cricket on the TV,
[22:28] Speaker 2: getting paid double time and a half for overtime. And
[22:32] Speaker 2: here's old mate, you know, one of my team out
[22:34] Speaker 2: there going through going. I thought, oh. But in saying that,
[22:38] Speaker 2: the euphoria of catching somebody overrides every single easy, easy
[22:42] Speaker 2: way out.
[22:43] Speaker 1: You'd have to have a high level of fitness, obviously,
[22:46] Speaker 1: with it to do that as well.
[22:49] Speaker 2: Absolutely. And that's a very important trait of every single
[22:51] Speaker 2: dog handler we got out there. I was lucky because
[22:54] Speaker 2: I never had to work on my fitness. I was
[22:56] Speaker 2: just naturally had one of those in my genes that
[22:59] Speaker 2: I didn't have anything. Come to doing an exam or
[23:02] Speaker 2: a test, you can forget it. I was hopeless. But
[23:04] Speaker 2: coming to physical fitness, I was just very lucky that
[23:07] Speaker 2: I was just a natural at physical fitness.
[23:09] Speaker 1: Because you need that combination. You need the aerobic conditioning,
[23:14] Speaker 1: but you also need the strength with climbing over the
[23:16] Speaker 1: fences and The whole combination of things.
[23:18] Speaker 2: And up cliffs and some of the places you've gone,
[23:20] Speaker 2: you just look and you go, wow, what was I thinking?
[23:23] Speaker 2: You go back even now and you look at them
[23:25] Speaker 2: and go, you know, one job I did where I
[23:29] Speaker 2: was chasing an offender and Vader's gone over the fence.
[23:34] Speaker 2: I'll throw Vader over the fence. It was an assault
[23:37] Speaker 2: of an 80-year-old woman. Dog's gone over the fence. I'll
[23:40] Speaker 2: throw him over. Bang, he's gone. I've then climbed over
[23:43] Speaker 2: the fence. And as I've got to the top, I've
[23:45] Speaker 2: tripped and I've fallen over the fence. And I've reached
[23:48] Speaker 2: out to the ground to hit my hand. And a
[23:50] Speaker 2: picket fence, a picket, a star picket's gone through the
[23:53] Speaker 2: webbing of my hand in here. Okay. And, you know,
[23:56] Speaker 2: with stitches in here. But it's like, if I had
[23:59] Speaker 2: it been another 20 centimeters that way, I've got it
[24:01] Speaker 2: straight through my chest or had I thrown the dog,
[24:03] Speaker 2: you know, he would have been impaled on it. You
[24:05] Speaker 2: just don't know what you're coming across to. But you
[24:09] Speaker 2: just do it, you know.
[24:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's the chaos of the thrill of the
[24:13] Speaker 1: chase when the adrenaline's kicked in and the things that
[24:15] Speaker 1: you do. Another one, you seem to have a predisposition
[24:20] Speaker 1: for ramming cars or cars getting rammed. What's the story
[24:24] Speaker 1: where someone, the bad guy, I assume it's the bad guy,
[24:28] Speaker 1: is trying to push your mate Mark's vehicle over an embankment?
[24:31] Speaker 1: Tell us that one, because that's another chaotic story.
[24:35] Speaker 2: The offender in this case had done, he was one
[24:38] Speaker 2: of for better, 100 offences. And again, with the pursuit policy,
[24:42] Speaker 2: we couldn't chase him. I had a bit of a
[24:45] Speaker 2: personal one on this too because I'd arrested him prior
[24:48] Speaker 2: to that and had been put in a violent arrest
[24:50] Speaker 2: where we had a bit of a fight and I
[24:53] Speaker 2: came out on top. And he was actually parked outside
[24:56] Speaker 2: the front of my house at one time. And my
[25:00] Speaker 2: daughter had rung and said, there's a man in a
[25:02] Speaker 2: car at the front and we traced it back to him.
[25:04] Speaker 2: So it was a bit of a.
[25:05] Speaker 1: That gets personal. Yeah.
[25:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, it does get very personal when you're doing things
[25:09] Speaker 2: like that. And he was just a loose unit and
[25:11] Speaker 2: just very violent. But he'd taken up with a female,
[25:16] Speaker 2: introduced her to ice, and they decided that they were–
[25:19] Speaker 2: and as I say, he'd been wanted for a number
[25:21] Speaker 2: of offences. We, again, we saw him on the highway,
[25:26] Speaker 2: got a call the highway. We were travelling behind him
[25:30] Speaker 2: because she'd got called off. We see him going to
[25:32] Speaker 2: a cane farm basically along the street in the distance.
[25:37] Speaker 2: But it was at an area that I knew fairly well.
[25:42] Speaker 2: So I knew the only way that he'd come out
[25:44] Speaker 2: was in this particular area here, in this particular driveway.
[25:48] Speaker 2: I thought that's the way he has to come out.
[25:50] Speaker 2: There's no option. So I parked my car on that
[25:54] Speaker 2: spot and it was only five minutes later I see
[25:57] Speaker 2: him come out of this particular road. Now he could
[26:01] Speaker 2: have probably reversed back that way, but there was nowhere
[26:03] Speaker 2: to go because that had been shut off by another
[26:05] Speaker 2: uniformed car. And in front of us was this big driver,
[26:09] Speaker 2: this big steep driveway. But there was a fence, a
[26:15] Speaker 2: wire chain fence that was there. So I had no option.
[26:18] Speaker 2: The only way he could go was through me. I
[26:22] Speaker 2: was sitting in front. Behind me was my partner in
[26:26] Speaker 2: another dog squad car behind me. And we knew we
[26:29] Speaker 2: had him fairly well contained. There was no way he
[26:31] Speaker 2: was going to get away this time. So he had
[26:34] Speaker 2: to drive through me or drive through the fence. I thought, well,
[26:37] Speaker 2: he's not going to do that. Should have known because
[26:40] Speaker 2: that's what he does. He comes straight at me. I
[26:43] Speaker 2: remember it was like at the old duel in the movies,
[26:46] Speaker 2: you see. I turned my lights on and he turned
[26:48] Speaker 2: his lights on and we revved our engines together. And,
[26:52] Speaker 2: of course, he just ran straight into the front of
[26:53] Speaker 2: my car and didn't disable my car. But just I
[26:57] Speaker 2: didn't get a bit of a shock. I thought, is
[26:59] Speaker 2: he really going to do this? It's just like. Is
[27:01] Speaker 2: this real? Is this real? So he ran my car
[27:05] Speaker 2: and then he's reversed up and turned his car around
[27:09] Speaker 2: and driven straight through this massive big gate and took
[27:12] Speaker 2: it down. It was two meters high. So going up
[27:14] Speaker 2: the top there. My partner's then overtaken me because I thought,
[27:17] Speaker 2: is my car going to go? He's overtaken me and
[27:19] Speaker 2: started chasing towards the top. They got to the top
[27:21] Speaker 2: of this hill and there's an embankment. There's a house
[27:23] Speaker 2: behind us there. And And old mate, the baddie, has
[27:28] Speaker 2: decided he's going to ram my partner's car because my
[27:30] Speaker 2: partner parked in front of him to stop him from
[27:32] Speaker 2: going anywhere. He was a fairly big four-wheel driver, was
[27:34] Speaker 2: a Triton. This bloke had a big Toyota Land Cruiser.
[27:37] Speaker 2: So he reversed up and started smashing into the side
[27:40] Speaker 2: of my partner's car. I've come up behind him and
[27:44] Speaker 2: I've gone, oh, here we go. Like he's pushing him
[27:46] Speaker 2: to the side of this cliff. And I thought he's
[27:50] Speaker 2: going to push him over the side. So I ran
[27:52] Speaker 2: my car into the side of the baddie's car. And
[27:56] Speaker 2: then another police car, the DDO, he was a great bloke.
[27:59] Speaker 2: He's come up and rammed into, um, the back wheels
[28:02] Speaker 2: to stop the car from going. So there's all these
[28:05] Speaker 2: written off police cars. And, um, what, uh, what happened
[28:08] Speaker 2: is then I've managed to run around there to measure
[28:10] Speaker 2: drag the spoke through the, through the window. Cause the
[28:13] Speaker 2: car didn't stop. He, he, one of the cars had
[28:16] Speaker 2: got underneath the car and actually lifted the back wheels.
[28:18] Speaker 2: It was funny. And the wheels were just spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning. And, um,
[28:23] Speaker 2: So we managed to get hold of that. But I
[28:24] Speaker 2: remember getting out of the car and looking, there's lights going,
[28:27] Speaker 2: there's just damage lights. There's just chaos everywhere. There's all
[28:31] Speaker 2: these fences of vehicle, police vehicles around and lights and
[28:34] Speaker 2: sirens going off and everything like that. But when we
[28:36] Speaker 2: got interviewed in relation to it, my partner actually had
[28:40] Speaker 2: to get in his interview and basically say that he
[28:43] Speaker 2: feared for his life and that I was his hero
[28:46] Speaker 2: for saving his life just to get us out of trouble,
[28:48] Speaker 2: I think. It was a bit of a tough pill
[28:51] Speaker 2: to swallow.
[28:51] Speaker 1: I'm just thinking of all the forms and all the paperwork.
[28:54] Speaker 1: You see that stuff on TV and everyone just wanders
[28:58] Speaker 1: or walks away from it.
[28:59] Speaker 2: A few days later when the bill came in for
[29:01] Speaker 2: all the damaged police cars, because on the night you
[29:04] Speaker 2: rang the boss and said, hey, mate, I've done this.
[29:05] Speaker 1: Oh, great.
[29:05] Speaker 2: You got him. Fantastic. But It's two or three days
[29:08] Speaker 2: later and they go, oh, what's this cost us? You know,
[29:10] Speaker 2: that's when they get all the pennies.
[29:12] Speaker 1: When the excitement's dropped off, yeah, and then the paperwork
[29:16] Speaker 1: and then the bills come in. Talking climate with dogs,
[29:19] Speaker 1: and maybe this is an indication of the New South
[29:22] Speaker 1: Wales dogs not being as tough as the Queensland dogs,
[29:26] Speaker 1: but I know when I've had dog squad people out,
[29:29] Speaker 1: sometimes they say if the weather's too hot, they're not
[29:31] Speaker 1: going to work. We're not going to get much from
[29:33] Speaker 1: the dog. How does that play out in Cairns?
[29:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think these dogs get climatised and... and that's
[29:40] Speaker 2: quite a possibility. But look, I've done a few courses
[29:44] Speaker 2: with a few American dog trainers recently. And it's changed
[29:49] Speaker 2: my whole perspective on dog training. And now I've got,
[29:51] Speaker 2: I train dogs for other government organizations now. And I've
[29:56] Speaker 2: got these dogs tracking in 30 degree heat at 2 p.m.
[29:59] Speaker 2: in the afternoon. And I'm just surprised at how they go.
[30:01] Speaker 2: I would never have done that when I was in
[30:02] Speaker 2: the coppers because it was just, it was a bit
[30:05] Speaker 2: of a myth to say that they're not tracking. As
[30:08] Speaker 2: I say, I've changed my whole attitude on that because
[30:10] Speaker 2: now I know that they can do. And if I
[30:11] Speaker 2: had have taken that advice on board earlier in my career,
[30:15] Speaker 2: I would have tripled the amount of people I got,
[30:18] Speaker 2: I'm sure.
[30:18] Speaker 1: Okay. Because that was something you were concerned about with
[30:21] Speaker 1: the heat and the overworking.
[30:23] Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. And it's something. And you've also got
[30:26] Speaker 2: to watch the dog because the dog will track itself
[30:30] Speaker 2: till it dies. Yeah. So you've got to really be
[30:32] Speaker 2: careful that it doesn't. Because you've got the thrill of
[30:35] Speaker 2: the chase as well. So you're just going to push
[30:36] Speaker 2: that dog as far as you can. And so you've
[30:38] Speaker 2: got to really watch the dog.
[30:39] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[30:41] Speaker 2: I think it's not so much that they won't track
[30:42] Speaker 2: in the heat, it's just that we want to make
[30:44] Speaker 2: sure that their welfare is the most important thing.
[30:47] Speaker 1: And the harness that the dogs would wear when they're
[30:50] Speaker 1: on the lead, is there anything about the harness that's
[30:53] Speaker 1: a little bit different?
[30:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, so the dog has certain triggers. If it's, you know,
[30:58] Speaker 2: it may be the word, the command to bite or
[31:01] Speaker 2: it may be, but when you're doing a track, I
[31:06] Speaker 2: think it's the same all the way around, but this
[31:07] Speaker 2: is the way I teach tracking anyway. As soon as
[31:10] Speaker 2: that dog's at the tracking area or close to it,
[31:12] Speaker 2: the harness goes on and the command seek as well
[31:15] Speaker 2: as that click of the harness are triggers for that
[31:18] Speaker 2: dog to start, put his nose down and start following.
[31:20] Speaker 2: So that's pretty important. Once the track's done, that harness
[31:23] Speaker 2: comes off again and doesn't go on until there's another track.
[31:26] Speaker 2: So the dog understands, associates tracking with the harness.
[31:30] Speaker 1: Okay. So that's sort of a switch on and switch
[31:33] Speaker 1: off scenario. Like we want to take the kid off,
[31:36] Speaker 1: they relax, kick goes on. ready to go.
[31:39] Speaker 2: They're ready to go again. Yeah.
[31:40] Speaker 1: That's interesting. There's another one where, again, you and vehicles,
[31:47] Speaker 1: you're on a vehicle that's moving, you're punching the driver
[31:50] Speaker 1: through the window. And I think it ended in a
[31:53] Speaker 1: side roundhouse kick and the dog biting him or something.
[31:56] Speaker 1: What was that one about?
[32:00] Speaker 2: There was another bloke who'd been wanted for, you know,
[32:03] Speaker 2: and this, again, I think the pursuit probably comes in here.
[32:07] Speaker 2: Like back in the day, these offenders would have been
[32:09] Speaker 2: rounded up very quickly, but they know that they can
[32:11] Speaker 2: get away with it. So often they go and they
[32:13] Speaker 2: hop in cars. So this bloke has won 135 offences.
[32:15] Speaker 2: So he was pretty well wanted for unlawful use of
[32:18] Speaker 2: motor vehicle, armed robbery, break and enters, just a whole
[32:23] Speaker 2: lot of offences. And I was actually at an OSC's
[32:27] Speaker 2: conference yesterday. at that stage, which is boring, sitting in
[32:31] Speaker 2: an office listening to, you know.
[32:32] Speaker 1: Lucky you got the call.
[32:34] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Where are we going to, where our new
[32:38] Speaker 2: APIs are and all that type of bullshit that goes on. So,
[32:42] Speaker 2: and the inspector came in and he said, mate, this
[32:45] Speaker 2: bloke's been seen down at, again, Innisfail, and he's just
[32:49] Speaker 2: tried to run over a policewoman. I said, no worries,
[32:52] Speaker 2: I'll get down there. As I'm driving down there, There's
[32:56] Speaker 2: a call to say that old mate has been seen.
[32:59] Speaker 2: He just stolen a RAV4 from the golf course, the
[33:03] Speaker 2: local golf course. I said, no worries at all. And
[33:05] Speaker 2: I was driving past the street. So I dipped down
[33:07] Speaker 2: that street. And as I'm going forward towards the golf course,
[33:11] Speaker 2: I see this RAV4 coming straight for me. And he's
[33:13] Speaker 2: going to hit me. And I'm not that brave. So
[33:15] Speaker 2: I pulled to the side of the road. I didn't
[33:17] Speaker 2: even go past. But behind that was another police car following.
[33:21] Speaker 2: lights and sirens on. So I quickly did a U-turn
[33:23] Speaker 2: and got in the little trio. Again, too dangerous to
[33:26] Speaker 2: call it off, so we let it go. But then
[33:30] Speaker 2: after you stop a chase, you can then start patrolling
[33:34] Speaker 2: for the vehicle in case he's dumped it, which is
[33:36] Speaker 2: what your hope is. If you see it again, you
[33:38] Speaker 2: can reinitiate the pursuit. So we started, all of a sudden,
[33:44] Speaker 2: within 10 minutes, we get calls on the Palmerston Highway,
[33:46] Speaker 2: which is about 10 minutes out of town, to say
[33:48] Speaker 2: this car had been seen driving erratically. So we all
[33:52] Speaker 2: headed that way and I'm driving up and down these
[33:54] Speaker 2: little farms and the Palmerston Highway off to the side,
[33:57] Speaker 2: little banana farms everywhere and dirt roads. So I was
[34:03] Speaker 2: patrolling in this dirt road. All of a sudden, the
[34:05] Speaker 2: radio comes. We found him. He's on foot. He's in
[34:07] Speaker 2: a banana farm. I went, oh, okay. And they said
[34:10] Speaker 2: Johnson Road or whatever. And I've gone and tried to
[34:13] Speaker 2: get on the radio, but the radio is really crowded
[34:15] Speaker 2: with people talking. I'm saying, where's Johnson Road? Where's Johnson Road?
[34:17] Speaker 2: Got the dog, got the dog. Tell me where it
[34:19] Speaker 2: is and I'll get a track. But I couldn't get
[34:21] Speaker 2: on properly. And so I pulled to the side of
[34:24] Speaker 2: the road to key in the coordinates in the bloody sat-nav.
[34:30] Speaker 2: And all of a sudden out of this banana farm
[34:34] Speaker 2: runs old mate. And I went, how lucky am I?
[34:36] Speaker 2: So I quickly run out. Vader at this time has
[34:38] Speaker 2: spied him and seen him. So I've run around the
[34:41] Speaker 2: back and I haven't given no lead or anything. I've
[34:44] Speaker 2: just gone, nobody else is around. So I've gone, Vader.
[34:47] Speaker 2: rouse you know off you go chase him down and
[34:49] Speaker 2: tackle him so off vader goes starts running and me
[34:52] Speaker 2: behind you know distance back and i see in the
[34:57] Speaker 2: distance a red four-wheel drive the farmer's car on the
[35:00] Speaker 2: road and i thought he's going to get shelter in
[35:02] Speaker 2: there so of course he runs over there and i
[35:05] Speaker 2: thought it's going to be close the dogs are going
[35:06] Speaker 2: to get him you know you wouldn't you wouldn't 50
[35:09] Speaker 2: 50 percent each way and but the offender managed to
[35:12] Speaker 2: get in the car and slam the door And the
[35:14] Speaker 2: dog has smashed his head on the side of the
[35:16] Speaker 2: car trying to get at him. And the dog didn't
[35:19] Speaker 2: get injured. He just got angry. And he started running
[35:21] Speaker 2: around this car. So I come 30 seconds later and
[35:25] Speaker 2: I've jumped on the side of this car. And the farmer,
[35:28] Speaker 2: of course, being down there, wouldn't think somebody's going to
[35:30] Speaker 2: steal it. So the keys are in it. So he
[35:32] Speaker 2: reaches down. The offender reaches down and starts the car.
[35:37] Speaker 2: As luck would have it, it's a manual. So the
[35:40] Speaker 2: first time he's forgot to put the clutch in. And
[35:42] Speaker 2: the dog's running around as well. So I thought, well,
[35:45] Speaker 2: if he starts driving off, I'm buggered here. So I
[35:48] Speaker 2: reached in. I've just given him a good punch straight
[35:50] Speaker 2: to the side of the head and knocked him to
[35:51] Speaker 2: the other side of the car. And I've reached in
[35:53] Speaker 2: and he's turned the car off. He's come back. This
[35:55] Speaker 2: time he's put the clutch in. And he started the
[35:57] Speaker 2: car and started driving off. And I've, once again, hit
[36:02] Speaker 2: him as hard as I could and knocked him to
[36:04] Speaker 2: the other side of the car. But I'm holding on
[36:06] Speaker 2: to the side of the car with one hand because
[36:07] Speaker 2: I'm on the step on the side there. Meanwhile, Dave
[36:10] Speaker 2: is running around trying to find an entry point and
[36:13] Speaker 2: bark and bark, bark, bark, bark. So we're probably only
[36:16] Speaker 2: going 10, 15 Ks an hour, but I can tell 10,
[36:19] Speaker 2: 15 Ks, you don't want to fall off.
[36:22] Speaker 1: No.
[36:22] Speaker 2: He's come back again and he's reached in, started, because
[36:26] Speaker 2: when I've knocked him to the side, it made me
[36:28] Speaker 2: turn the car off again, but I couldn't get the
[36:29] Speaker 2: keys out because of the lock and all this going on.
[36:31] Speaker 2: It's a dynamic situation. Everything's going on. Your brain's, it's
[36:34] Speaker 2: a sensory overload. So this time he's come back again,
[36:39] Speaker 2: but this time he looked at me and I thought,
[36:40] Speaker 2: I've got him. I could see in his eyes. He'd
[36:42] Speaker 2: been around for three or four months, but this time,
[36:44] Speaker 2: Take your time, three or four days without sleep, everything
[36:46] Speaker 2: like that. And I knew I had him, so I've
[36:48] Speaker 2: unloaded on him as hard as I could this time,
[36:50] Speaker 2: and I've knocked him. And I've managed to reach and
[36:52] Speaker 2: turn the car off. And at the same time, I've
[36:54] Speaker 2: jumped off the car. Keep in mind that we were going,
[36:57] Speaker 2: you know, we'd slowed down a little bit by this time,
[37:00] Speaker 2: but the car was still moving. I've managed to jump off,
[37:02] Speaker 2: and I've reached in. I've ripped open the door, and
[37:04] Speaker 2: the dog's gone in this time and reached over and
[37:07] Speaker 2: grabbed him by the thigh. And we're trained for this.
[37:10] Speaker 2: We're trained for car extractions. So, but whether you get
[37:13] Speaker 2: to ever use it in your career, probably not. But
[37:16] Speaker 2: this was one where the dogs reached in and just
[37:18] Speaker 2: grabbed him and just dragged him out. And it was
[37:20] Speaker 2: just the best feeling in the world. The car wandered
[37:22] Speaker 2: on its merry way for another, for another, uh, you know,
[37:25] Speaker 2: 50 meters. And I've been used to jump on top
[37:28] Speaker 2: of this bloke and, uh, break him into custody. It
[37:30] Speaker 2: was just such a good feeling.
[37:31] Speaker 1: Did, uh, your family know about all your adventures like this? Well,
[37:35] Speaker 1: they would have known 45 times in a hospital getting,
[37:38] Speaker 1: getting treatment.
[37:39] Speaker 2: But, uh, Absolutely. The poor wife, she put up with
[37:42] Speaker 2: so much over the years and, you know, I can't
[37:45] Speaker 2: thank her enough. And not just like, I would often,
[37:49] Speaker 2: I would make a point that if I was conscious
[37:51] Speaker 2: and I was in the back of an ambulance, I'd
[37:53] Speaker 2: ring her and the amount of calls she's got to say, hey,
[37:55] Speaker 2: and she goes, what have you done? And I say,
[37:57] Speaker 2: I'm in the back of an ambulance and I'm all right,
[37:59] Speaker 2: you know, I'm all right. That'd be my first thing.
[38:00] Speaker 2: I'm all right, but I'm going up to the ambulance,
[38:02] Speaker 2: you know, I'm going up because I've been injured. I've
[38:04] Speaker 2: been fractured. I've still got no feeling in the side
[38:08] Speaker 2: of my hip where I fell once, you know, and
[38:10] Speaker 2: things like that. So she put up with a lot
[38:12] Speaker 2: and often went up to the hospital and, you know,
[38:15] Speaker 2: patched me up and sent me back out there, you know,
[38:17] Speaker 2: still need to eat, still need money, let's get back
[38:19] Speaker 2: onto it, you know. So, I mean, I had a
[38:21] Speaker 2: bloke rip open my finger one day, bit my finger
[38:24] Speaker 2: and ripped it open and broke it, you know, from biting.
[38:28] Speaker 2: And then I got a chunk out of my calf
[38:31] Speaker 2: where old mate's taken a bite out of it, you know,
[38:33] Speaker 2: and just animals, you know, really animals.
[38:37] Speaker 1: Well, that's– and you're arresting them at that really sharp
[38:41] Speaker 1: end of it where they're on the run, they know
[38:43] Speaker 1: they're on the run, the adrenaline spike, they're not laying
[38:46] Speaker 1: there asleep, you're not catching them off guard. They're pumped
[38:51] Speaker 1: and ready to go. So that's why I would say
[38:54] Speaker 1: that you've been in so many violent conflicts because that's
[38:58] Speaker 1: the time you're trying to bring them down.
[38:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, and haven't won everyone. I had one bloke where he–
[39:05] Speaker 2: um i did a bit of a chase and he
[39:07] Speaker 2: was waiting for me uh i've come around the corner
[39:09] Speaker 2: of a a house and he was waiting there for
[39:12] Speaker 2: me he's belted me and split me i i get
[39:14] Speaker 2: stitches in the eye from it knocked me to the
[39:16] Speaker 2: ground we got a bit of a wrestle and he
[39:17] Speaker 2: was on top of me he had me there's no
[39:19] Speaker 2: doubt about it big big strong young fella six foot
[39:21] Speaker 2: eight muscly that's my excuse anyway.
[39:23] Speaker 1: He must have been huge yeah um dogs injuries any
[39:29] Speaker 1: any significant injuries with the dogs in the work that
[39:32] Speaker 1: they do they.
[39:34] Speaker 2: Do get injured occasionally uh just mostly sprains and strains
[39:37] Speaker 2: we've never lost a dog on duty up here as
[39:41] Speaker 2: such surprise more more good luck the good management i
[39:45] Speaker 2: think um I had my dog, Vader, one day jump
[39:50] Speaker 2: the fence and broke his little dewclaw, took it in
[39:54] Speaker 2: the vet the next day and the vet said he
[39:55] Speaker 2: doesn't need it anyway and just dropped it off basically
[39:59] Speaker 2: and give me a couple of days off, mate, he's
[40:00] Speaker 2: back out there, you know, and things like that that happened.
[40:03] Speaker 2: But generally speaking, a lot of strains. But a good
[40:07] Speaker 2: thing about it is we're not paying for the vet bills.
[40:09] Speaker 2: So if that dog does have a cough or something's
[40:12] Speaker 2: a little bit different, Straight on to the vet, and
[40:14] Speaker 2: the vet was really good here.
[40:15] Speaker 1: What's the relationship with the family and friends when they
[40:18] Speaker 1: come round? Can they switch off? Are they allowed to
[40:21] Speaker 1: have them near children or that?
[40:24] Speaker 2: Again, depending on the dog. Now knowing dogs the way
[40:28] Speaker 2: I do, because I've learned a lot since I've left
[40:30] Speaker 2: the police just through my studies, I probably wouldn't put
[40:34] Speaker 2: a police dog around any child. Definitely not unsupervised. Um,
[40:41] Speaker 2: but just in the way that dogs, you know, that
[40:44] Speaker 2: they are, they are animals and, um, I wouldn't worry
[40:47] Speaker 2: about it, but my dogs were running around with, um,
[40:50] Speaker 2: with my kids all the time. You know, we've got
[40:52] Speaker 2: videos of stuff like that. Um, more, more of the
[40:56] Speaker 2: Z type dog. The buddy was pretty good. Um, but
[41:00] Speaker 2: when they're at work mode, they're at work mode and
[41:02] Speaker 2: that's when they, when they're, they're particularly vicious.
[41:06] Speaker 1: Now, sadly, yours and Vader's excellent adventure came to a
[41:11] Speaker 1: sad end. What happened there?
[41:13] Speaker 2: Well, just one night, I just put him away as usual.
[41:20] Speaker 2: He was off his food, which was unusual for him.
[41:22] Speaker 2: Went back to bed. I thought if he's crook in
[41:24] Speaker 2: the morning, I'll just take him to the vet. Woke
[41:26] Speaker 2: up and, yeah, I found him in the kennel dead.
[41:30] Speaker 2: And we think it was a snake bite.
[41:32] Speaker 1: Right, yeah.
[41:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not quite sure. Um, it took him to obviously, uh, I,
[41:39] Speaker 2: the vet, I wanted the vet to do a autopsy
[41:42] Speaker 2: on him, but they couldn't find anything that specifically that
[41:47] Speaker 2: had gone wrong with him, but they, they suspected it
[41:49] Speaker 2: was a snake bite.
[41:50] Speaker 1: Oh, that's sad. How, how does that affect you?
[41:53] Speaker 2: Oh, obviously very, very difficult, but I don't think it
[41:56] Speaker 2: affects us any more than your normal family pet. You know,
[41:59] Speaker 2: we've got a, we've got a family pet here now
[42:01] Speaker 2: and he's the most beautiful dog in the world. And
[42:03] Speaker 2: when he goes, I'll feel exactly the same thing. But
[42:05] Speaker 2: that's probably why I won't have any more dogs after
[42:07] Speaker 2: this one's gone, that they're just too hard to say
[42:09] Speaker 2: goodbye to. You know, they really are difficult to go
[42:11] Speaker 2: to goodbye to. So you are working with this dog constantly, continuously,
[42:16] Speaker 2: but is it any better than, you know, your normal
[42:19] Speaker 2: family pet? Everybody feels the same way about their dogs,
[42:23] Speaker 2: you know. So, yeah. But the good thing about the police, though, is,
[42:26] Speaker 2: as I say, is if the dog dies one day
[42:29] Speaker 2: and Within a few days, you're down getting another one
[42:32] Speaker 2: because they're a resource. You've got to get back out there,
[42:35] Speaker 2: get back on the horse. So you don't have time
[42:36] Speaker 2: to grieve. You don't have time. When I lost Axel here,
[42:40] Speaker 2: the Lions Club in the community put up a statue
[42:44] Speaker 2: of his exploits. I've got another book coming out, which
[42:46] Speaker 2: is entitled Axel, about his exploits. And he was such
[42:51] Speaker 2: a legend around in the community here that they actually
[42:54] Speaker 2: put a statue up here. So he sits proudly at
[42:56] Speaker 2: one of the local dog parks, the Malmacastra Dog Park,
[42:58] Speaker 2: which you've got in Cairns here. Yeah, great thing.
[43:02] Speaker 1: That's a nice tribute to him. But with Axel and I,
[43:06] Speaker 1: when we were chatting the other day, I was having
[43:08] Speaker 1: a laugh because, you know, when you're in the cops
[43:11] Speaker 1: long enough and you're partners and, you know, I was
[43:14] Speaker 1: the annoying young detective working with the grisly old detective
[43:18] Speaker 1: sergeant that I wanted to just get out and arrest
[43:21] Speaker 1: the bad guys. Can we do this? Can we do this? Annoying.
[43:24] Speaker 1: As I worked my way through the career, I had
[43:26] Speaker 1: young people that I worked with or more junior that
[43:30] Speaker 1: were overzealous and you had to rein them in a
[43:32] Speaker 1: little bit. And then you're talking about Axel and you've
[43:36] Speaker 1: been doing this for a long time and you've got
[43:38] Speaker 1: this young dog that just wanted to get out there
[43:40] Speaker 1: and get amongst it all the time. And I had
[43:42] Speaker 1: to laugh because it's similar to a partner that you
[43:45] Speaker 1: get in work where you're not quite matched in terms
[43:48] Speaker 1: of what you want to do. Tell us about your
[43:50] Speaker 1: experiences with Axel.
[43:51] Speaker 2: Well, exactly, yeah. He was a... Pretty full-on dog, as
[43:56] Speaker 2: was my last one, Jed, as well. And when you
[43:58] Speaker 2: get to a certain age, you really don't. It's like
[44:01] Speaker 2: I can't imagine why at 60 or 65 you're going
[44:05] Speaker 2: to have no kids. Yeah, yeah. You know, like having
[44:07] Speaker 2: a little kid that you've got to run around with.
[44:09] Speaker 2: It's the same with the police dog. You know, the
[44:10] Speaker 2: dog was so energetic and ready to go. And I
[44:13] Speaker 2: remember my first job I ever had with Axel. was
[44:17] Speaker 2: 2 o'clock in the morning, phone rings, of course, I
[44:19] Speaker 2: get up there and Axel's just so keen to get
[44:24] Speaker 2: out there and I open up the gate and he's
[44:25] Speaker 2: jumped on me and I've been covered in mud from
[44:28] Speaker 2: his uniform, all my uniform from this dog just so
[44:31] Speaker 2: keen to get out there and jump around. I really
[44:33] Speaker 2: struggled with it for a long time with his enthusiasm
[44:36] Speaker 2: and stuff like that because I'd get my dog out
[44:38] Speaker 2: and I'd just sit on the track and do whatever
[44:40] Speaker 2: he had to do. But this one just wanted to
[44:42] Speaker 2: get out there really quickly and go, go, go, go.
[44:44] Speaker 2: I think there's a story called the old bull, young
[44:46] Speaker 2: bull story. I think that's what it is.
[44:48] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
[44:49] Speaker 2: You know, the old bull and the young bull, they
[44:51] Speaker 2: just wanted to get out there and get a, you'll
[44:52] Speaker 2: get yourself hurt, mate.
[44:53] Speaker 1: How did they react when you got called out? Was
[44:56] Speaker 1: excitement like the two o'clock morning call out and all
[44:59] Speaker 1: of a sudden it's on? Was that sort of?
[45:01] Speaker 2: On one part it was, on one part it was,
[45:03] Speaker 2: and you would, you would go get ready, you'd have
[45:09] Speaker 2: your uniform ready to go, but you'd quickly get up
[45:12] Speaker 2: and usually stunk because you'd been working for the night before.
[45:15] Speaker 2: Uniform would stink, so you'd grab on the deodorant. As
[45:17] Speaker 2: soon as you just spray the deodorant on, the dog
[45:19] Speaker 2: up the kennel, which would be, in my place, it's
[45:21] Speaker 2: probably 20, 30 metres away, the dog would smell the
[45:24] Speaker 2: deodorant and start crying in the kennel.
[45:26] Speaker 1: Oh, they knew it was on.
[45:27] Speaker 2: They knew it was on. They knew a job was going. Well,
[45:29] Speaker 2: they'd hear the phone or something like that at all
[45:31] Speaker 2: hours of the morning.
[45:31] Speaker 1: The ears prick up.
[45:32] Speaker 2: You'd hear them crying. Yep, yep. So you'd have to
[45:34] Speaker 2: go and put him in the car and then come
[45:35] Speaker 2: and get yourself organised. I did one job once where...
[45:40] Speaker 2: I put on deodorant, and I went, oh, bloody hell,
[45:42] Speaker 2: the dog started crying. So I went out. I said,
[45:46] Speaker 2: just be quiet, you know, and I raced back in.
[45:50] Speaker 2: And at that time, I ran out, but I didn't
[45:53] Speaker 2: put him in the back of the car because I
[45:54] Speaker 2: felt my glasses. I raced back and got my glasses
[45:57] Speaker 2: and then raced off to the job. And I got
[45:59] Speaker 2: to this job where there was a young kid who
[46:01] Speaker 2: had slept well, and off he goes. And the inspector's gone, Dave,
[46:05] Speaker 2: this is what's happened, blah, blah, blah. I said, yeah, no.
[46:07] Speaker 2: So I went back, opened up the back of the car,
[46:09] Speaker 2: And the dog's not in there. I'd forgotten him. So
[46:11] Speaker 2: I'd gone 40 minutes, lights and sirens to this job,
[46:14] Speaker 2: and had no dog in there. I went, what am
[46:16] Speaker 2: I going to do? You know, embarrassing. Because I'd walked out, gone, yeah,
[46:21] Speaker 2: I'll get the dog, get my glasses, come back out,
[46:23] Speaker 2: just hopped into the car, half asleep and off I'd gone. Anyway,
[46:26] Speaker 2: so I went, I've got to fess up. So I
[46:28] Speaker 2: just hopped out of the car, walked over to the inspector, said, inspector,
[46:30] Speaker 2: can I see you for a second? He says, yeah, no,
[46:32] Speaker 2: won't be a second. And at that second, behind me,
[46:35] Speaker 2: I hear this sound from one of these uniformed coppers go,
[46:38] Speaker 2: found him. And I went, oh. I went, what? I said,
[46:41] Speaker 2: they found him. I said, oh, okay, boss, don't worry
[46:43] Speaker 2: about it. I'll just take my dog over. He said, yeah, mate,
[46:44] Speaker 2: no worries, I'll take you home. So I'm going to
[46:46] Speaker 2: just get rid of that one.
[46:47] Speaker 1: Dodge the embarrassment.
[46:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, yeah.
[46:52] Speaker 1: What was the work you did over in Cambodia with
[46:55] Speaker 1: drug detection dogs? What was that all about?
[46:57] Speaker 2: Yeah, a mate of mine, he rang me and basically said,
[47:01] Speaker 2: what are you doing after you retire? And I said,
[47:03] Speaker 2: I've got no idea. And he said, well, why don't
[47:04] Speaker 2: you do consultancy work? And I went, well, where do
[47:08] Speaker 2: I start? He said, why don't you come with Cambodia
[47:10] Speaker 2: for starters? And Cambodia, I never thought anything about Cambodia
[47:17] Speaker 2: or any consultancy work. So I went over there and
[47:19] Speaker 2: he introduced me to a whole range of other duties
[47:23] Speaker 2: that dog handlers can do and one was um uh
[47:27] Speaker 2: landmine detection dogs which he was training over there i
[47:31] Speaker 2: went over there originally to help with that type of
[47:33] Speaker 2: stuff but once they saw my background they involved me
[47:36] Speaker 2: into their military and policing side of stuff for the
[47:39] Speaker 2: tactical dogs which was great teaching tracking and things like
[47:42] Speaker 2: that and um uh and i a big ignorant of
[47:46] Speaker 2: the fact of cambodia because of what went on there
[47:49] Speaker 2: in the 80s which is when i was at school
[47:52] Speaker 2: It's a bit embarrassing to realize I didn't know the
[47:54] Speaker 2: history of that, but the loveliest people in the world.
[47:56] Speaker 2: And one thing that really sticks with me is those
[47:59] Speaker 2: people have got nothing over there. They get paid hardly anything.
[48:03] Speaker 2: They've got nice hospitals and nice city and stuff like that,
[48:05] Speaker 2: but they've got nothing. But their suicide rate is half
[48:08] Speaker 2: hours or even a third of hours. We've got everything
[48:12] Speaker 2: here and yet we're unhappy. I just don't really understand.
[48:15] Speaker 2: That's one thing that stands out with with a place
[48:17] Speaker 2: like Cambodia.
[48:18] Speaker 1: It's interesting, isn't it? The places I've travelled, the poorer countries,
[48:22] Speaker 1: everyone's happy. And they could be sitting down an alleyway,
[48:26] Speaker 1: the whole family cooking dinner, but happy. And it does
[48:32] Speaker 1: say a lot about the way our society's gone and
[48:35] Speaker 1: the direction we're heading in. We've lost that sense of
[48:39] Speaker 1: community and the communication. Look at our iPads and whatnot. Yeah, yeah. Look,
[48:45] Speaker 1: the career you've had, I think is absolutely extraordinary. Like
[48:50] Speaker 1: as in when you sign up to join the cops,
[48:53] Speaker 1: you want the adventure, you want the excitement, you want
[48:55] Speaker 1: the thrill of the chase. And you managed to stay
[48:58] Speaker 1: in that spot for 26 years. I'm sure you forewent
[49:02] Speaker 1: promotions or opportunities in different things. Looking back, do you
[49:06] Speaker 1: have any regrets whatsoever? No.
[49:09] Speaker 2: Uh, funny, not, not on my own career. I, I did,
[49:12] Speaker 2: I must admit there were a couple of things that
[49:13] Speaker 2: I wanted to do before I leave the police. And
[49:15] Speaker 2: one of my whole ambitions was to help, a female.
[49:19] Speaker 2: We've got no female GP handlers here in the whole
[49:22] Speaker 2: of Queensland. And I just find that a little disappointing
[49:25] Speaker 2: and I'm probably going to get, get shouted down for that,
[49:29] Speaker 2: but I don't really care because, you know, and we
[49:31] Speaker 2: do get institutionalized. We do get institutionalized and we care
[49:34] Speaker 2: for what we say, but I realize now I can
[49:36] Speaker 2: say anything I want because the QPS has been fantastic
[49:38] Speaker 2: to me and the best career I've But it's one
[49:40] Speaker 2: thing I wanted to do is get a female into
[49:42] Speaker 2: the thing. And I think it's just a real macho
[49:46] Speaker 2: attitude in that it's such an adrenaline rush job that
[49:50] Speaker 2: a female couldn't do it. And I think that's far
[49:52] Speaker 2: from the thing. America, they're getting shot at and they've
[49:54] Speaker 2: got so many female dog handlers over there. And I
[49:57] Speaker 2: think that's one thing that I really tried to push
[49:59] Speaker 2: before I left. And I mentored two or three young
[50:03] Speaker 2: women who would have been fantastic dog handlers and You know,
[50:07] Speaker 2: those three are still waiting for jobs and it's a
[50:10] Speaker 2: real shame and couldn't do anything from inside. Maybe I
[50:12] Speaker 2: can help from the outside and just say it's time,
[50:15] Speaker 2: you know, Queensland, get yourself sorted.
[50:17] Speaker 1: I think just talking about it is a good thing
[50:19] Speaker 1: and it can become a cultural thing that, yeah, we
[50:24] Speaker 1: can't have a woman here. We've never had a woman
[50:26] Speaker 1: or that. It should judge on its merits and, yeah,
[50:30] Speaker 1: with your experience in martial arts, you know, there's plenty
[50:32] Speaker 1: of women out there that could do the type of
[50:35] Speaker 1: work that– needs to be done as a dog handler.
[50:37] Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah.
[50:38] Speaker 1: And probably bring another skill set too that, you know,
[50:41] Speaker 1: looking at it from a different perspective from a male
[50:43] Speaker 1: as well.
[50:44] Speaker 2: So, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. And these girls
[50:48] Speaker 2: I've been mentoring have been very capable, very capable, you know.
[50:52] Speaker 2: So that's one of my regrets when I leave. You know,
[50:56] Speaker 2: I tried that a couple of years beforehand. The other
[50:59] Speaker 2: one I think my regrets I had is I started
[51:03] Speaker 2: a little program which was recognising, because I don't think
[51:06] Speaker 2: the police get recognised for what they do. It's like,
[51:10] Speaker 2: and no disrespect to the bosses of that type of stuff,
[51:13] Speaker 2: they've got so much, they've got the rosters, they've got PPAs,
[51:16] Speaker 2: they've got all these, performance management, they've got all these
[51:19] Speaker 2: other things that they've got to worry about. The last
[51:20] Speaker 2: thing they want to do is recognise their staff for
[51:23] Speaker 2: great work. Whereas I took that and I started a
[51:26] Speaker 2: little project called the Recognise Project, which the QPS has
[51:28] Speaker 2: taken on from what I can gather now, that we
[51:31] Speaker 2: really need to recognise these people. You know, there were
[51:33] Speaker 2: people chasing people with guns and And it's just like, oh, yeah, whatever.
[51:37] Speaker 2: And one of my regrets was not getting that properly
[51:41] Speaker 2: set up before I left. And a bit of a
[51:44] Speaker 2: pushback because you'd also get some people who are sitting
[51:47] Speaker 2: in those offices, again, no disrespect, but they'd be going,
[51:50] Speaker 2: I've done that a million times, you know, like in
[51:52] Speaker 2: my career, and I never got rewarded. Well, I think
[51:55] Speaker 2: it doesn't hurt to pat somebody on the back. And
[51:57] Speaker 2: we're in a society, we're in an age now where
[52:00] Speaker 2: people do need that pat on the back. You know,
[52:02] Speaker 2: everybody gets a medal. Everybody gets an award. Is that right?
[52:07] Speaker 2: I don't care. If that's what they want, then let's
[52:09] Speaker 2: just reward them because I can tell you what, that
[52:11] Speaker 2: really really boosts morale when people are rewarded for what
[52:14] Speaker 2: they've done.
[52:15] Speaker 1: And morale's crucial in policing. And I'll just check you
[52:18] Speaker 1: on one thing. We can disrespect bosses now. They can't
[52:21] Speaker 1: get out of the stable. We can say what we want.
[52:23] Speaker 1: They can't put us on a shit roster or transfer us. Yeah,
[52:28] Speaker 1: you talk about KPIs and all that, where they start running.
[52:31] Speaker 1: And policing is policing. And what reflects a good police force,
[52:36] Speaker 1: I think, is it serving the community it's meant to
[52:39] Speaker 1: serve us. What saddens me most in the police is
[52:42] Speaker 1: that people's promotional opportunities are lost because they're hardworking cops,
[52:48] Speaker 1: whether it's a uniformed cop or working in the dog squad, detectives,
[52:52] Speaker 1: any area. Quite often the hard workers are overlooked because
[52:55] Speaker 1: they haven't got time to play the game that the
[52:58] Speaker 1: ones that are aspiring for promotion play. I really had
[53:01] Speaker 1: a problem with that throughout my career watching that. I
[53:04] Speaker 1: know I had a team of really good workers on Homicide.
[53:08] Speaker 1: And we hadn't been promoted for years. We were doing
[53:11] Speaker 1: some tough jobs and we're watching everyone else in the
[53:14] Speaker 1: office get promoted around us. I was a sergeant at
[53:18] Speaker 1: that time. I said, let's just stop investigating murders for
[53:20] Speaker 1: a bit and work out what this promotional game is
[53:23] Speaker 1: all about. Literally, we had no idea. We were just
[53:26] Speaker 1: out locking up the bad guys, investigating things. And we
[53:29] Speaker 1: stopped work for about a week and gone, it's not
[53:31] Speaker 1: that hard. You've just got to say these words in
[53:33] Speaker 1: the application. You've got to say this at the interview
[53:35] Speaker 1: and that. Within six months of that, we'd all been
[53:38] Speaker 1: promoted up the next level because we worked out how
[53:41] Speaker 1: to play the game. And to me, that typifies where
[53:44] Speaker 1: we get it wrong in policing, that we don't recognise
[53:48] Speaker 1: the hard work that people are doing in all facets
[53:50] Speaker 1: of policing. And they haven't been able to step off
[53:53] Speaker 1: the spinning wheel that is a busy police career to
[53:56] Speaker 1: play the promotion game.
[53:58] Speaker 2: Exactly. And that's exactly it. I had some of the
[54:04] Speaker 2: best bosses in the world. I was very, very lucky.
[54:08] Speaker 2: There's a few I didn't get along with, but most
[54:09] Speaker 2: of them I'm pretty well with. But I do see
[54:12] Speaker 2: some of the people I go, oh, my God, if
[54:15] Speaker 2: that person got promoted, what's going on? But a good
[54:19] Speaker 2: thing about Queensland, I think, and it might be the
[54:22] Speaker 2: same around, that if those bosses who had very little
[54:25] Speaker 2: operational experience would go to somewhere where they had to
[54:28] Speaker 2: use that, they would use people like myself or the DDOs,
[54:31] Speaker 2: the people who had all the experience, and ask them.
[54:33] Speaker 2: And we're more than happy to be involved in that
[54:35] Speaker 2: thing because it is a big team. And that goes
[54:38] Speaker 2: back to one of my previous comments that, you know,
[54:40] Speaker 2: you can be sitting beside a person who you absolutely hate,
[54:43] Speaker 2: but I can guarantee if the chips are down, you're hurt,
[54:46] Speaker 2: they'll come and back you up 100% of the time.
[54:48] Speaker 2: That's what policing is. That's what type of team we are. So, yeah.
[54:52] Speaker 1: It saddens me. I see they're struggling across the country
[54:56] Speaker 1: to get police. What would you say if someone came
[55:00] Speaker 1: up and asked you, should I join the police?
[55:02] Speaker 2: I often... I often push people towards the police. I
[55:07] Speaker 2: think it's a great career. It's not the same as
[55:08] Speaker 2: what we joined. The new coppers don't know any different,
[55:12] Speaker 2: so I don't be for that. But I've never seen
[55:14] Speaker 2: a job more accountable than anything. Even from other government organisations,
[55:19] Speaker 2: it always lands with the police, whether it's child welfare,
[55:22] Speaker 2: whether it's mental health, whether it's domestic violence. Other people
[55:27] Speaker 2: have got to take responsibility for that rather than just
[55:30] Speaker 2: dumping it in the police and the poor police getting
[55:32] Speaker 2: it and get crucified. not only by the public, not
[55:36] Speaker 2: only by the bosses, but by the media. And it's
[55:39] Speaker 2: such a hard, such a difficult job to do. Um,
[55:41] Speaker 2: and very rarely do they report on all the good
[55:43] Speaker 2: stuff that the coppers do that goes on, uh, you know,
[55:46] Speaker 2: 10 times more than the bad stuff.
[55:49] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[55:49] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[55:50] Speaker 1: Uh, look, a tough job, but rewards, rewards are endless and,
[55:53] Speaker 1: and the type of, uh, yeah, exciting. You, you get
[55:57] Speaker 1: so much from, from policing, but, uh, Yeah, I hope
[56:00] Speaker 1: people listening to you describe your career go, wow, that's
[56:03] Speaker 1: what can be done. Yeah, policing's changed, but you can
[56:07] Speaker 1: still carve out a really nice career for yourself in
[56:10] Speaker 1: so many different areas. You're not limited to being a
[56:14] Speaker 1: detective or a dog handler. You could be a tactical
[56:16] Speaker 1: police officer. There's so many things that you could do.
[56:19] Speaker 2: You could be a coffee copper too, right? Write tickets.
[56:23] Speaker 1: Let's not go that far.
[56:27] Speaker 2: A lot of good mates are trotting. They'll be bagging me.
[56:31] Speaker 1: Let's all say we're only joking because they might see
[56:33] Speaker 1: us when we walk out of the studio. Of course,
[56:36] Speaker 1: it is very, very important. No, it's good to take
[56:40] Speaker 1: the piss out of each other sometimes too.
[56:43] Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah.
[56:44] Speaker 1: And I know you respect detectives, even though you haven't
[56:47] Speaker 1: said it the whole podcast. And yeah, I've chosen not
[56:51] Speaker 1: to say the only reason you work with a dog
[56:54] Speaker 1: was because no one else would work with you, but
[56:56] Speaker 1: we'll let that go.
[56:59] Speaker 2: Gary, I only had to know five words, and that
[57:00] Speaker 2: was sit, stand, stay, bite, and there was one other.
[57:03] Speaker 2: I can't remember what it is, but that's all I
[57:04] Speaker 2: had to remember. I'd have to do statements. I always
[57:07] Speaker 2: put it down to If the detectives didn't ask at
[57:10] Speaker 2: least five times for a statement, they didn't get it.
[57:13] Speaker 1: Okay, that was the rules. Because that was in keeping
[57:16] Speaker 1: with the five words that you learnt to be a
[57:18] Speaker 1: dog handler. Exactly. Okay. Exactly, yeah. That makes sense now. Look,
[57:22] Speaker 1: we'll wrap it up. Obviously, loved the chat, enjoyed the chat.
[57:27] Speaker 1: And congratulations on your career. We've had a bit of
[57:30] Speaker 1: a laugh, but I know that you were at the
[57:32] Speaker 1: sharp end for a very long time. And, yeah, you've
[57:35] Speaker 1: come through with a smile on your face. You've come
[57:37] Speaker 1: through in one piece and enjoying life. So thanks for
[57:41] Speaker 1: coming on the podcast.
[57:43] Speaker 2: As I say, it's a team effort and it's... The
[57:45] Speaker 2: whole family's come through unscathed to a certain degree, which
[57:49] Speaker 2: is probably one of my most important things, so that's great.
[57:52] Speaker 2: And thanks, Gary. Cheers.

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