40 minute read
President
P
PRESIDENT
Mark Carroll
Senior-sergeants’ issues on the table
The Police Association has established a senior-sergeants’ working party which held its first meeting earlier this month.
Several issues which affect senior sergeants came under discussion at that meeting. They included: • Disparity between senior sergeant wage and inspector wage. • Role of district duty inspectors/detective inspector and comparison to district senior sergeant responsibilities. • Status of senior sergeants in SAPOL. • Classification process to position of senior sergeant 1C. • Workload intensification and out-of-hours work. • Complexities of work. • Shift work. • Enterprise agreement outcomes. • Lack of access to professional development. • Ability to laterally transfer between senior sergeant roles. • Impact of flexible work options.
One of the significant recommendations members made at the meeting was that the association conduct a survey of all senior sergeants to obtain data on: • Workloads. • Out-of-hours work. • Span of control. • Other issues including changes to roles, status, and professional development.
The committee of management also discussed the survey recommendation when it met this month.
A future working party meeting will be scheduled to discuss the survey methodology and I will keep members updated on all progress.
Crime Command Branch meeting
A recent meeting of Police Association Crime Command Branch delegates led to a decision to hold a forum specifically for detectives and investigators to discuss current issues which affect the CIB.
The association will hold a meeting for members of the branch between 9:30am and 12:30pm on Wednesday, September 15, 2021, at the Police Club’s Fenwick Function Centre.
The meeting will also be live streamed. The association will provide members with the streaming link closer to the event.
Issues scheduled for discussion include: • CIB — staffing in districts and regions. • Impact of Operation Ironside. • Growth in detective positions (historical and future). • Growth in financial crime and cybercrime, including the SAPOL response. • Selection process for detective positions. • Industrial issues – on-call regional and metropolitan. • Equipment.
The seating is limited to 100. Members can book a ticket or register to receive the streaming link at www.trybooking.com/BTRCC (attendance in work time must be authorized by members’ local management).
Police Association member wellness programme
No secret among police unions is the researched fact that suicidal thoughts among cops are twice as common as those among the general population.
Similar research shows that police and other emergency-services workers are three times more likely to have some sort of suicide plan.
It’s not an easy subject to talk about, and I accept it’s a conversation topic that many of us avoid. Nonetheless, we should revisit it often.
It is certainly a conversation the Police Association takes seriously.
Over the years, we have led the development of many initiatives designed to provide affected members with practical solutions and pathways to help.
Some of these include: • The Invictus Pathways Program – access for first responders and their families. This is a partnership enabling members to access specialist well-being and PTSD-related services, including free gym access as well as psychological, physical, and highperformance programmes. • The Road Home – group emotional and relationship skills (GEARS) programme. This is designed to improve mood regulation, interpersonal communication skills and relationship skills for people with PTSD. • Family support group for partners of police – you can register your interest on the Police Association website. • A Cop in The Family – a publication designed to help police identify, understand and prevent mentalhealth pressures, as well as provide pathways to assistance. • Head Notes (pocketbook) – another publication which acts as a social and emotional guide for police officers. • Dark Blue (feature film) – true stories from behind the thin blue line, filmed and directed in SA.
It can be viewed at pfa.org.au/ member-wellbeing. • Police Health – the recommended private health insurer for police officers and their families. There are generous benefits in psychology and counselling. Members can access them via the website. • Police Credit Union – we all understand the need to recognize the link between mental ill health and financial pressure. PCU personal relationship managers can visit members at work or at home to provide free budgeting assistance.
We have been fortunate to receive guidance from some eminent psychologists and psychiatrists in producing some of these initiatives.
All the available materials are free to members and readily available under the Member Services section of the Police Association website.
The assistance we have provided in this space won’t be a miracle cure, but it will start critical conversations in policing. Police officers need – and should always have – ready access to mental-health professionals and dedicated facilities.
We all need to understand what’s going on in policing, and it starts with not a reactive but rather a proactive approach to mental health.
This is especially critical during COVID-19, which represents one of the greatest mental and physical challenges police have faced in generations.
The demands have undoubtedly affected police resources. It is an ongoing situation, and the extra tasks and burdens have come with an impact on all levels of SAPOL.
I continue to maintain talks with Commissioner Grant Stevens, with a particular emphasis on members’ protection, welfare and mental health.
PFA federal council and bravery awards
The upcoming National Police Bravery Awards ceremony was the subject of a Police Journal story in June (The award for police, by police).
The ceremony was to take place in Canberra on September 22 and encompass both the 2020 and 2021 awards, owing to the cancellation of the event last year.
Regrettably, the Police Federation of Australia has again had to cancel the event – as well as its annual federal council meeting – owing to the uncertainty surrounding COVID restrictions.
The awards will be postponed until September next year and will encompass nominees for 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Slow enough to kill By Brett Williams
Operational police are not using shock terminology like There will be blood. But they are warning that the 25km/h emergency-service speed zone will cause deaths.
It was easy to hear that dramatic sound of heavy-vehicle brakes locking up in the early-morning quiet of the South Eastern Freeway. Mount Barker sergeant Joe McDonald, in a parked patrol car, looked instantly to his rear-vision mirror. And there was the image: an out-of-control B-double truck skidding “sideways down the freeway” straight at him.
It was already too late for McDonald to jump out, and clear, of the patrol car. The truck was way too close to allow him any time to escape. All he could do, with as much force as he could muster, was brace himself in his seat for the imminent crash.
At the same time, the life of his colleague, Senior Constable Joel Reid, was under equal threat. Standing in the emergency lane between the patrol car and the verge, he too had neither time nor choices.
His one chance to save himself was to make a dash for that verge. But he would have to react instantly and move fast enough to dodge the lethal 12-tonne truck.
“I was in immediate fear for my life,” he remembers. “And Joe was as well. ”
Indeed, McDonald expected to “get cleaned up”.
“I thought he was going to hit us, and hit us hard,” he says. “He’d hit the picks, locked it up, and just went sideways. ”
But, with less than a second to spare, the truckie took his best shot at avoiding disaster. McDonald would later describe the moment in an e-mail message to the Police Association.
“Thankfully,” he wrote, “the driver had the nous to take his foot off the brake six metres from our location, and to steer the truck and trailers around us.
“It missed us by a (hair’s breadth). I’m not sure on the exact distance. I think I closed my eyes. ”
Of course, the 2015 incident had endangered the truckie too, as well as a motorist whom the two officers had pulled over for speeding on the freeway.
McDonald had been running checks on his driver’s licence in the patrol car when he first heard that ominous sound of locked-up truck brakes.
The truckie, after he had avoided disaster, approached the two cops and apologized to them. But McDonald and Reid knew exactly where to apportion blame for the incident.
Dealing, as they were, with a motorist on the freeway, they had had to activate their red and blue patrol-car lights. That created an emergency-service speed zone of 25km/h under section 83 of the Road Traffic Act.
And that zone compelled freeway motorists, travelling as fast as 110km/h, to cut their speed to 25km/h before, and to drive by, the scene of the traffic stop.
As the truckie explained to McDonald and Reid, a car in front of him had rapidly reduced its speed to “nearly a standstill”. In his desperate effort to avoid crashing into the car, his brakes locked up and his truck wound up out of control.
One lucky break for everyone involved was that the truck was unladen. The truckie himself conceded that, had it been otherwise, he would certainly have crashed.
Operational cops have, for several years, stood in total opposition to the emergency-service speed zone, which the SA parliament voted into law in 2014.
“It wasn’t thought out properly,” McDonald says. “You stop people for speeding or whatever (other offence), you activate the emergency lights, and this (speed zone) kicks in.
“But 25, especially in places like the South Eastern Freeway or other rural highways, is just straight-out dangerous. It’s probably okay in metro areas but, in country areas, it creates more danger than it’s trying to solve.
“That (near miss) with us could’ve been fatal, easily.
“The problem isn’t the first one who drops to 25, it’s the one behind who doesn’t realize what’s happening ahead and is sitting on 110 on the freeway. You don’t expect people to be doing 25 there. ”
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Countless other experienced, operational cops agree with McDonald and share his concern about the high risk of fatalities.
“Slowing to 25 in a 110km zone on the freeway is just a huge speed variance,” Reid says. “Some people take a common-sense approach and think: ‘No way I’m going to slow to 25 because that’s just dangerous. ’
“Others abide by the law no matter what. But then some, like trucks, don’t have time to slow down because they’re just too heavy. They can’t slow to 25 like a small car can in seconds.
“And they (small car drivers) might not know about the truck behind them, and then you can have a serious incident. ”
Highway Patrols sergeant Eamon Bull knows well the peril of standing to the side of the freeway with a 25km speed zone in play. He regards it as the place where police face the greatest chance of “getting cleaned up”.
“There’s nothing worse than when you hear the screeching of tyres or see a car barrelling down the road sideways at you, at 80 or 100,” he says.
“We’ve ended up with cars doing a slalom through slower moving vehicles, losing control, and spinning out into median strips.
1-2. A car loses control in a 25km/h speed zone. 3. The red car brakes to avoid a rear-end crash with the vehicle in front of it. 4-7. A car bakes to avoid a rear-end crash and swerves around the car in front of it and into the dirt verge. 8-9. Police attend a crash on the freeway and set a speed zone in play. 10. Slow-moving traffic banks up on the freeway. 11-13. A truck crosses double lines to avoid the slow-moving car in front of it. 14. A truck crosses double lines as it passes a 25km/h speed zone. 15-17. A car swerves to avoid a rear-end crash with a slower-moving car, loses control and ends up in the dirt verge.
“It’s going to lead to a serious injury or a fatality. Whether it’s a member of the public or a police officer who knows, but that’s the way it’s going. ”
Mount Barker sergeant Kym Webb considers the 25km speed zone appropriate for firefighters and ambos who deal with emergencies on the roadway.
“But we’re dealing with people on the edge of the road in the emergency lane,” he explains. “We’re reasonably safe there if people drive sensibly.
“The trouble is, some slow and some don’t. That’s what causes the problem and makes it extremely dangerous for us and whoever we’ve stopped.
“At some point, someone will lose their life. There’s nothing surer. It may not be the copper but (rather) the family parked in front of the police car or in the emergency lane.
“It’ll be the person going past who’s actually doing the right thing at 25. Or it’ll be the one who’s not doing 25, loses control, and goes into a tree or across the other side and smacks into someone coming the other way. ”
Highway Patrols senior constable Brenton Lind also insists that “someone will get killed” unless change comes to the 25km speed-zone law. He speaks of scenarios like 67-tonne B-double trucks rounding corners as they travel at 100km/h on high-speed roads.
“And all of a sudden,” he says, “the cars in front of them slam on the brakes to 25 and the trucks have got nowhere to go.
“It’s too slow. You’re asking people to slow down far too quickly. And that’s where it becomes dangerous, not only for members of the public but for us as well.
“People aren’t expecting traffic to be slowing down that much. Even though they see the (police car’s) red and blues, a lot of people just whiz past at 110. Some slow down, some don’t. ”
In 2019, the lives of two motorcycle cops came under threat in a 25km speed zone on the Princes Highway near Meningie. State Traffic Enforcement Unit senior constables Corey Sweet and Shane D’Arcy had stopped to help a motorist whose caravan had lost its wheels.
They had activated their emergency lights and therefore created the speed zone, in which motorists were supposed to pass by them at 25km/h. D’Arcy, however, was not concerned when he noticed many vehicles passing at around 100km/h.
“It wasn’t an issue,” he says, “because we weren’t blocking the road and we weren’t doing traffic control. ”
A northbound car approached the scene at what D’Arcy thought to be around 30km/h and veered toward the centre of the road and over the barrier lines.
In another car, a southbound driver failed to slow to 25km/h, which the speedzone law demands of motorists on both sides of a road without a median strip.
The result, as D’Arcy describes it, was an “almighty” head-on crash.
“One of the cars spun around right in front of me and off the road,” he says. “It hit one of our bikes, knocked it over, and both cars then caught fire.
“Both drivers were trapped too, so it was just lucky that we were able to put the fires out and rip the drivers out of the cars. ”
In 2016, Kym Webb and his colleagues had to restrain, and detain under the Mental Health Act, a suicidal young woman on the South Eastern Freeway. She had threatened to run onto the road into the path of fast-moving traffic.
With the emergency lights of three police cars activated, and therefore a speed zone in play, the officers had to wait for an ambulance.
“Most of the (passing) vehicles slowed,” Webb says. “But one woman didn’t slow, and, when she realized she was going to crash into the arse of the car in front, slammed on the brakes.
“She slid off into the centre of the freeway, went down the slope (into the culvert) and onto the opposite carriageway before she crashed her car.
“You could’ve been looking at fatalities there: a vehicle travelling at 110 on the wrong side of the road, out of control. That woman wouldn’t have been able to avoid any other vehicle. It’s just really, really lucky (she didn’t hit one). ”
In 2020, Heavy Vehicle Enforcement Section sergeant Nick Williams and senior constable Sam Petts struck trouble in a speed zone on the Eyre Highway.
They had pulled over a B-triple on a straight stretch of the highway where visibility for motorists was clear for a couple of kilometres.
The right-hand side of the 36-metre truck wound up right on the fog line with the officers’ unmarked police Kluger parked behind it. Petts activated the red and blue emergency lights as well as the hazard lights. That, of course, created a speed zone.
The two officers had a plan. Williams would approach the truckie, collect his work diary and return with it to the police car. He and Petts would then follow the truckie to a parking bay in Port Augusta and, on the way, Williams would check out his diary.
So, as Petts remained seated in the Kluger, Williams walked the length of the truck up to the cabin where the truckie handed over his diary.
Petts could see that not every car passing through the speed zone was slowing down as he watched Williams walk briskly back toward the Kluger.
“Then,” Petts says, “he’s just stopped dead with this pale look on his face. At that second, I looked in the patrol-car mirror and saw a road train completely on the gravel verge and its trailers all skew-whiff and sliding sideways.
“It was coming straight for the back of the patrol car, and, in a split second, Nick started to run to the scrub. I then floored the car and shot forward as far as I could, just as the road train in front moved a little bit.
“I shot forward probably 10 metres and was almost hard up against the back of that road train. Then this (out-of-control) truck pulls up just behind us. If I didn’t shoot forward, it would’ve nailed me straight in the back.
“Its weight was probably around 100 tonnes. Big huge bull bar. If it had hit us, it would’ve been a fatality. We could have had another incident like (the one that killed four police officers in) Melbourne, quite easily. ”
Petts found that, before the road train went into its slide, two cars travelling in front of it had slowed down for the 25km speed zone.
Highway Patrols sergeant Troy Kaesler remembers the close call one of his members had on Port Wakefield Road at Waterloo Corner in 2014.
The member had dismounted his motorcycle on the side of the road and initiated a 25km speed zone. Just as he was heading toward a vehicle he had stopped, he heard the booming sound of a crash. He turned and saw an out-ofcontrol ute heading straight for him.
The driver of the ute just managed to veer into the right lane and miss the officer by the narrowest margin. But then came a Kenworth prime mover towing a trailer. It, too, was heading straight for the motorcycle officer.
“It had to veer sharply into the right lane, locking its brakes,” Kaesler explains. “And both vehicles only managed to stop a good 200 metres further up the road.
“The truck had run into the rear of the ute which had come to a rapid halt. And, at the time, the truck driver was convinced that the ute had hit and killed that (motorcycle) member. ”
Kaesler makes a cogent argument against the 25km speed-zone law with figures.
“Each member,” he says, “depending on volumes of traffic and duties at the time, may be pulling over between 10 to 20 vehicles per shift, minimum.
“And for us in the Barossa, we have a significant number of main arterial roads and highways leading to and from the metro area.
“I’m amazed that a fatality hasn’t occurred up to this point. I think it’s a matter of time. ” In the last several years, cops have done more than just voice their strong opposition to the 25km speed zone. They have brought not only their expert opinions to the table but also credible solutions.
Brenton Lind is one of many advocating a simple half-speed policy for motorists passing through emergency-service speed zones.
“If you’re in a 50 zone,” he says, “you slow to 25. If you’re in a 60 zone, you slow to 30. And, if you’re in a 110 zone, you slow to 55. It’s safe for all environments and all weather conditions.
“Imagine you’re working on the freeway and it’s a wet road or perhaps there’s fog or an accident and you’ve got trucks travelling at 100km/h.
“It’s not hard to imagine how, if someone brakes suddenly to 25, it could all turn pear-shaped really quickly.
“If people are only slowing to 55 on
18. Heavy Vehicle Enforcement Unit members on a wet road at night in a 25km/h speed zone. 19. A patrol car on an open road with emergency lights setting a speed zone in play – AAP image/Reuters/ Tracey Nearmy. 20. An emergencyservice speed zone causes traffic to bank up on the freeway.
the freeway, the traffic obviously doesn’t have to slow down as much, and it goes a long way to alleviating the dangers. ”
Yorke Mid North LSA senior sergeant first class Steve Griggs has had numerous near misses in 25km speed zones. He sees the half-speed concept as “much more realistic and achievable” and, ultimately, a better option.
“It’s more dangerous to have some people slowing down to 25 while others are not even aware,” he says. “On multiple occasions I’ve seen the first vehicle slowing down and the vehicle (driver) behind unaware and creating that serious risk of a collision. ”
Shane D’Arcy would also apply the half-speed concept to emergencyservice speed zones.
“If a vehicle did 50 or 55 in a 110 zone, that would be a lot safer,” he says. “The traffic’s still moving and motorists who aren’t switched on have that buffer. ”
20 The question is: who, besides the Police Association, is listening to and acting on these officers’ expert advice?
It appeared the New South Wales government listened and responded when its police expressed the same concerns their SA counterparts had voiced. And the speed they found dangerous, during a 12-month trial, was not 25km/h but rather 40km/h.
An amendment, which came into play in 2019, required NSW motorists simply to reduce their speed to a level “reasonable for the circumstances”.
Knowing the extent to which the 25km speed zone threatens the safety of its members, the Police Association has repeatedly urged the government to implement change.
It first took up the issue with then-police minister Tony Piccolo (Labor) five-and-a-half years ago. Piccolo, however, resigned his police and other portfolios just days later.
The association then lobbied his replacement, current Opposition leader Peter Malinauskas (Labor).
And, after the 2018 election and change of government, the association pursued the speed-zone issue with two more police ministers. First was Corey Wingard (Liberal) and then current police minister Vincent Tarzia (Liberal).
But nowhere in their responses has there ever been a commitment to bring change, recommended by operational police, to the speed-zone law.
Police Association president Mark Carroll speaks of how fortunate successive governments have been to receive the “invaluable advice” of seasoned police officers. He also describes as “appalling” the choice of those governments not to act on it.
“I’ve always said that the person who knows best about a job is the person who performs that job,” he says. “That means operational police know best about operational police work.
“Our members, working on the freeway and on highways, are the ultimate sources of information. If they, as experts, insist there’s going to be a fatality, what kind of government would fail to enact change?”
Police Association secretary Bernadette Zimmermann speaks of the ongoing fight to eliminate what she calls a “needless risk to police lives”.
“Those in power ought to think about the blood they’d have on their hands if the worst happened after their failure to act,” she says. “They’d never be able to say they weren’t told. And, be assured, we’d hold them to account. ”
SERGEANT EAMON BULL: “It’s ridiculous. It’s causing issues for officers’ safety on the side of the road and contributing to stats for injury crashes. It’s not efficient at all for the safe flow of traffic anywhere and causes massive traffic jams, which result in crashes further down the road.
“At times you’re just standing on the side of the road and hear lock-ups and then hear a crash. Every time you go to a crash on the freeway, you’re pretty much guaranteed you’re going to end up with another crash there. ” SENIOR CONSTABLE SHANE D’ARCY: “It’s not efficient. It doesn’t work. I don’t believe it’s an effective safety measure, especially because of the diverse roads we work on. There’s anywhere from 25k zones to 110 zones. You just can’t have one rule for all these speed zones.
“We (operational police) don’t agree with it. Everyone I’ve spoken to always says the same thing, that the speed shouldn’t be 25. If it’s a 100k zone, it should be 50. No one agrees it should be 25k on the freeway or in a 90k zone. ” SENIOR SERGEANT FIRST CLASS STEVE GRIGGS: “Going from 110 to 25 is a big ask. You can’t always choose where the incident is going to be. If it’s a crash or an emergency situation, it might not be in an ideal location where you’ve got hundreds of metres of forward vision.
“I think we’re past that frustrated (stage). I think we’re now numb to it. Not that we accept it, but I bet there’s less and less HIRs being put in. We hoped it would make some type of immediate difference but here we are seven or eight years later still talking about it. ” SERGEANT TROY KAESLER: “On an open road, 25km is a significant decrease in speed from say, 100 or a 110k. Unless everyone is completely alert at the time, we’ll continue to see drivers quickly reacting to their obligations to slow down and vehicles travelling behind them also having to react as a result.
“I’ve got no doubt there’s frustration amongst the members I supervise but also across the board within other highway patrols and areas within Traffic Services Branch. The fact that this has been discussed for so long without an appropriate outcome is concerning but not surprising. ”
THE EXPERTS’ FINAL SAY ON THE EMERGENCYSERVICE SPEED ZONE
SENIOR CONSTABLE BRENTON LIND: “(Whoever) put this legislation together obviously didn’t realize what the ramifications would be for high-speed country roads.
“One of the biggest frustrations is dealing with a crash or something on the freeway and we’ve got fire trucks and ambulances there and people slowing down to 25.
“In the morning peak hour, it basically creates extreme build-ups of traffic which will run for kilometres.
“Then we’ll get traffic that’s doing 110, or heavy vehicles doing 100, approaching a stationary line of cars, basically, and we get rear-end crashes. ” SERGEANT JOE MCDONALD: “We didn’t have this problem when it was 40ks because no one did the 40k on the freeway anyhow. They were doing 60 or 80 and there were no problems with it.
“But then when they brought in the 25k rule and did a big ad campaign on it, people were slowing down to the (legislated) speed, and that’s what caused problems.
“The only solution is to change the legislation, and until the legislation is changed, well, we’ve got the same issue. ” SENIOR CONSTABLE SAM PETTS: “If you’re setting up a site and managing the scene and you’ve got cones and everything out, no problem. But expecting someone to go from 110 to 25 in a heartbeat, with little to no warning, is bloody dangerous.
“The difference between 25 and 100 is too great. It needs to be graduated or we need to adopt a higher speed. It used to be 40 years ago. No one ever did 40 but we used to just accept it if they backed off and gave us a bit of room, which truck drivers generally do if they can. ” SENIOR CONSTABLE JOEL REID: “It is frustrating. No one who’s working in highway situations is going to be in favour of it (the 25km speed zone). I don’t know why they (the government) haven’t acted. It’s not a hard thing to change, or it shouldn’t be a hard thing to change.
“You’re never going to get everyone to be able to slow to 25 on the freeway. (The solution) is for people to slow down to a safe speed. But I wouldn’t want it to slow to less than 60km an hour on the freeway. Anything less than that is unsafe. ”
SERGEANT KYM WEBB: “For SAAS and firies it’s good because they’re actually on the roadway when it comes to an incident or a crash. In that case, people do need to go to 25. I’m sure the 25k was designed for them because they have personnel on the road.
“But we’re stopping or dealing with people off the road. We’re not in trucks like the CFS or big rigs like ambulances. So, for us, (a policy of) slow down and move over would be good rather than do 25km/h. ” PJ
POLICE CLUB MASTERING THE ART OF SURVIVAL
By Nicholas Damiani
Police Club manager Bronwyn Hunter Head Chef Gary Petrus
SA GOVERNMENT RESTRICTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH COVID-19 have imposed the most extensive challenges on the Police Club since its inception 60 years ago.
Back in March 2020, the club was facing one of the greatest-ever threats to its survival.
The situation called for an intelligent strategy, and one quickly emerged.
A meeting with Police Association president Mark Carroll, hotelier David Basheer (the Basheer Group) and club staff brought about a takeaway operation.
It was to involve a small, highquality menu of takeaway options as well as pre-prepared Friday roasts and meals.
For hungry cops and others, the procedure was as simple as placing an order by phone or in person at the Precinct Café window.
For club staff, it was not easy, but it kept patrons happy and the club viable. And, after 18 months, the club is not only still alive but prospering.
Full-scale lockdowns have not been the only challenge. A host of other capacity restrictions, in place since the beginning of the pandemic, left some of the other club functions in jeopardy but ultimately surviving.
“But the way our staff have responded reflects their expertise and that of our club manager, Bronwyn Hunter. Along with Head Chef Gary Petrus, all have worked tirelessly to keep the club up and running. ”
Ms Hunter said maintaining the club’s viability would not have been possible without the loyal support of regular patrons – and some new ones.
“We’ve loved seeing so many familiar faces, especially after the most recent lockdown (in July),” she said.
“We’ve actually enjoyed getting creative with how to keep providing services through the pandemic.
“Chef Gary has thrown himself into preparing delicious pre-prepared meals that can be taken home and, at only $10 each, they’re great value for both families and single people. ”
Mr Carroll also spoke of the relaunch of events such as the Police Wine Club evenings and graduate dinners, which became some of the first casualties of the restrictions.
“Through most of the pandemic, we weren’t able to stage those events,” he said.
“The graduation dinners are now back on, with a flexible approach by staff to accommodate the required format changes.
“And the Police Wine Club has been kept alive by staff working closely with sponsors and guests to provide tastings under revised formats (to cater for the restrictions).
“We froze Wine Club membership fees during the pandemic, so our members haven’t lost out financially.
“And without letting any time go to waste, we secured some new sponsors for the events like Wine Showcase Magazine and Wines of Adelaide. ” PJ
Mark Carroll attributes that survival to the ongoing adaptability and commitment of the club and café staff.
“Their work performance during this period has been fantastic,” he said.
“I assured them back in early 2020, when the pandemic first hit, that the association would help them alter their operations and provide a flexible service to keep the club focussed on members and other patrons.
“It would have been easy to simply close the club for the entirety of the pandemic but that would have risked its future and none of us was prepared to do that.
“We rate the 60-year history of the club, its staff and its loyal patrons too highly to risk losing them. ”
Club management and staff have had to think on their feet and provide novel ideas to cope with the uncertainty, which has impacted on every facet of their normal business model.
“Events have had to be reworked or postponed, often with just hours’ notice,” Mr Carroll said.
“The bar, dining room and event spaces have to be constantly reconfigured to accommodate the ever-changing social-distancing requirements.
“The club has continued to develop and market new takeaway options, which allows us to keep providing a service to members and patrons even when inside dining isn’t an option. ”
Mr Carroll said that, despite setbacks, the club and café staff had fought through and risen to every challenge.
“The impact on the broader hospitality sector has been huge, especially small to medium-size operations,” he said.
The Police Club and Precinct Café are open for coffees, takeaways, pre-prepared meals, in-house meetings, lunches, functions, drinks, dinners and Friday night happy-hour drinks. Go to policeclub.com.au for opening hours, menus and coming events. Revised 2021 membership forms for the Police Wine Club are also available to download.
FORCED FORCED
TO SHOOT! TO SHOOT!
A gunman had fired a bullet at one detective and aimed his rifle at another. Both officers had to respond, but they and a third colleague would spend years reliving the drama.
By Brett Williams
FEBRUARY 2013 POLICE JOURNAL 10
FEBRUARY 2013 POLICE JOURNAL 11
Police Journal an international winner again
By Nicholas Damiani
The dream run of international honours for the Police Journal has continued with design and journalism awards in Germany and the United States.
A Best of Decade award for design was the prize in Germany. It was a big call, made by a jury of six publishing industry experts from Austria, Germany, Denmark and Luxembourg for the International Creative Media Awards (ICMA).
The jury considered works submitted to ICMA between 2010 and 2020. It judged the concept and design of cover story Forced to Shoot (February 2013) to be the best in the Cover and Cover Story category.
The Police Journal had originally received the ICMA Award of Excellence for the design in 2013. Bestowing the honour in that case was a panel of eight judges from Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Magazine and book designers who participate in the annual ICMA come from countries across five continents.
News of the Best of Decade award came from Germany just after 2am (SA time) on June 30.
The ICMA judges had concluded a review in which they selected the best custom works of the decade in a range of categories. Each winner received the title Best of Decade.
Photographer Steve McCawley and graphic designer Sam Kleidon, both long-time members of the Police Journal team, jointly produced the award-winning artwork.
McCawley shot separate studio images of detectives Alex Grimaldi and Rob Lengyel for both the cover and opening spread of Forced to Shoot.
He also shot separate background images of character buildings from street perspectives.
“My task was to produce strong, impactful images that reflected the seriousness and dire circumstances of the story,” he says.
“Receiving an award for my part in that is both humbling and affirming. ”
Forced to shoot!
best of decade
International Creative Media Award
www.icma-award.com Since 2010, we invite creatives from all over the world to have their work judged by an international jury. Since its inception, more than 3,300 works have been submitted to ICMA.
The competition is an international success, with participants coming from countries such as: South Korea, Japan, China, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Canada, United States and Brazil. In a review, we selected the best custom media works from 2010 to 2020 and awarded them the title “best of decade”.
The Jury Meike Quentin
CEO, Das Amt Kiel
Oliver Hofen
Creative Director NOW-Medien, Bielefeld
Claudia Eustergerling
Eustergerling Design Luxembourg
Prof. Eberhard Wolf
Luxemburger Wort Luxembourg
Katharina Reitan
Media Training Vienna
Christian Baun
logodesign.dk, Copenhagen for Police Journal
This award honours exceptional design and concept in the decade 2010 to 2020 in the category
Cover and Coverstory
Germany, June 2021
Torn almost limb from limb
“I remember him just flinging the screen door open and just holding it for that dog to run out.”
POLICE ASSOCIATION OFSOUTH AUSTRALIA
Sam Kleidon conceived and developed the layout of both the cover and eight-page cover story of 4,000 words.
“My thought process was to make the most of Steve’s great images for this story,” she says, “especially the opening spread. The headline needed to be powerful but not overpower the image.
“It was really about trying to use the images to best support the copy and heighten the reader’s sense of the whole event.
“So, it’s a nice nod when something is deemed worthy of such an award. ”
Just weeks after the win in Germany, the Police Journal won the Gold Award in the Feature Article category at the Tabbie Awards in the US.
Judges for Trade, Association and Business Publications International (TABPI) gave the cover story Torn almost limb from limb (February 2020) a glowing endorsement.
“An immersive article that brings the reader to the scene of the depicted event,” one judge wrote. “This writer is an excellent storyteller, sharing details with an authentic yet compassionate voice.
“The design stayed true to the storyline, not shying away from sharing somewhat graphic images of an injury (which may not be for the faint of heart). Grateful this person made a full recovery!”
Police Journal editor Brett Williams wrote the story, which told of a vicious dog attack on AFP constable Carla Duncan in Canberra in 2018.
Williams based the feature on an interview with Duncan after he had met her in Canberra in 2019 and raised the idea of the story with her.
“Carla was immediately agreeable and willing to be totally open, not just about the physical but also the mental trauma she had suffered,” Williams recalls.
“She was so generous in that regard, and generous with her time. On a couple of her days off in late 2019, she flew into Adelaide from Brisbane just for the interview and photoshoot.
“As soon as we got word of the Tabbie award out of Ohio, I rang Carla to let her know. She was delighted to think that her story had earned a place on the world publishing stage.
“I was delighted too, to win the award, but I regard it as recognition of Carla and her bravery in horrific circumstances. ”
Williams has now won the Gold Tabbie for Feature Article two years in a row. He won the award last year for the cover story Post-crash indecision (August 2019).
The US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand participated in the 2021 Tabbies, which attracted its highest number of entries since 2017.
Other recognition the Police Journal received at the Tabbies were honourable mentions in two categories. One was for Best Single Issue (April 2020) and the other for COVID-19 coverage (Stopping COVID at the border, August 2020).
The Police Journal has now won a total of 12 international awards since 2014. Making up the Tabbies are four gold, two silver and three bronze. On the ICMA list is one gold, one silver and now one Best of Decade award.
Police Association president Mark Carroll spoke of his gratitude to the team he assembled more than a decade ago.
“Brett, Steve and Sam are great professionals who, as a team, produce the most extraordinary work,” he says.
“They’re just so knowledgeable and competent in their respective fields, and that’s how they’ve made our Police Journal a worldwide success.
“But our members deserve equal recognition for sharing both their professional and deeply personal stories with us. ” PJ
L
LETTERS
Letters to the editor can be sent by: Regular mail Police Journal, PO Box 6032, Halifax St, Adelaide SA 5000 Email editor@pasa.asn.au Fax (08) 8212 2002 Internal dispatch Police Journal 168
Concern over COVID letter
I am responding to a letter (Real crime-fighting the role for police, Police Journal, June 2021) from Woman’s Christian Temperance Union SA president Karen Edwards.
The author says that she is speaking for her organization in wholeheartedly supporting the Police Association president’s comments praising the members of SAPOL. I am thankful for her praise of our members when doing their normal roles.
I do not agree with, and am quite concerned in regard to, the rest of her letter. I am not sure if the rest of her letter would be supported by her whole organization.
The author downplays the roles that those same police officers have played since COVID-19 hit our shores and even tries to use statistics to support her statement that we do not have a pandemic.
The author further makes an outlandish statement: “The public is tired of the propaganda and the fear that is pushing people toward QR code compliance which is the conditioning for the nationwide passport. ”
When she speaks of “troubling times” what is she referring to? It appears she is referring to vaccination passports.
Vaccination is the only way Australia, and the world, can end the lockdowns, illnesses and deaths caused by this pandemic, and an insinuation that vaccination is being used as a control method by our government is the backbone of COVID deniers and antivaxxers, which has directly impacted police around the country and their ability to do their jobs safely, as well as the safety of the entire community.
As well as being a police officer I am a member of the public that she refers to and I take insult to her comments. If it was not for the fine effort our police officers have performed during this pandemic South Australia would not be in the comfortable position it is today.
Some of our Police Association members are working in roles they have never worked in before. They have put themselves at risk in unknown circumstances. They have had to forgo their leave and work longer hours than they have before, including being separated from their families, not only during their duties, but being put into hotel/self-quarantine due to exposures, causing great mental distress to those officers and their family members.
This pandemic has affected every police officer. It has affected every member of our Police Association. Every day they return home from borders, airport or medi-hotels, not knowing if they are exposing their loved ones to a deadly disease.
Our commissioner speaks most days to the media and within his comments he encourages and almost pleads that the South Australian public uses the QR code system to keep South Australia safe. To enable those who rely on the QR code system to do their jobs when this system is critical.
This system allows contact tracers to quickly and effectively identify those who have been exposed to a positive case so that we can make these people safe and limit the amount of time we are subject to lockdowns, thus decreasing any effect on our economy and the lives of South Australians.
For the author of this letter to suggest that this is propaganda and that there are other reasons for the QR code is insulting and dangerous to all.
Julian Snowden
Julian Snowden is a Police Association committee member but is not, in this letter, representing the association.
POLICE ASSOCIATION OFSOUTH AUSTRALIA
Got something to say?
Got a comment about a story you’ve read? Do you have strong views on a police issue?
Is there someone you want to acknowledge? Know of an upcoming social or sports event? Whatever the subject, put it in a letter to the editor. Regular mail Police Journal, PO Box 6032, Halifax St, Adelaide SA 5000 Email editor@pasa.asn.au Fax (08) 8212 2002 Internal dispatch Police Journal 168
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