Jobs you never forget

Hundreds of members attended the asylum-seeker protest at Woomera detention centre on the Easter weekend

of 2002. One day, about 4:30pm, the protestors came in big numbers, flattening cyclone fences as they marched on the outer fence of the centre. We began to fight them off as they tried to break out the detainees. We had to watch out for detainees stabbing at us through the fence with knives attached to broom handles. Some detainees and protestors used metal fence posts to break the outer fence down. STAR members tried to grab detainees as they jumped over our heads and into the crowd. Finally, about eight police greys came thundering through, scattered the protestors and we got control again. I’d never been so happy to see police horses.

At the Royal Adelaide Show in 2014, my crews and I responded to the incident involving the death of eight-year-old Adelene Leong who was thrown from the AirMax 360 carnival ride. Police

assisted with first aid, comforted the mother, and dealt with shocked members of the public. My crews split up and immediately started moving the crowd back and canvassing witnesses. Minutes later, paramedics arrived and began working on Adelene. When they transported her, one of my members went in the ambulance with the mother to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. I too went to the hospital and found that member in a room with Adelene, who had died, and the mother. It was a confronting scene with such raw emotion. It hit home with me and I’ll never forget it.

SERGEANT STEVE WINTER

(Operational Safety Training)

In May 2017, a male Coober Pedy resident had abused and threatened an off-duty police officer outside his home with two of his children. The

man owned numerous firearms. My team and I attended his address to arrest him and seize five registered firearms. We found the front gate locked and spoke to a woman who refused to open it. My concern was that the longer she refused us entry, the higher the risk of the male occupant arming himself against police. I gave approval to force entry, members jumped the fence, forced entry to the premises, arrested the woman for hinder and located and arrested the man. We located two rifles, one shotgun, two pistols, around 7,000 rounds of ammunition, 30 knives, two swords and two axe-style weapons.

“We had to watch out for detainees stabbing at us through the fence with knives attached to broom handles.”