Policing The Australian Bush – Mark Tregellas

this is things police see firstand accounts with your host Steve gold welcome to the podcast that interviews active and retired police officers about their most intense bizar and sometimes humorous moments on the job welcome welcome I am am in fact old Ginger face Steve G thank you for being here guys thank you for everybody who’s found the show who’s ripping through the uh back content I took a couple weeks off and uh still um getting tons of download today I so appreciate that I’m so glad that people are finding value and listening to the the great men and women of law enforcement and uh just listening to their stories totally unedited uh hearing exactly what they have to deal with on the job uh and gaining a better appre appreciation for what that is with the you the climate last few years um it’s really it’s really good to get a reality check and listen to Just the the craziness that goes on behind closed doors even in the smallest communities other countries um things like that so thank you thank you the rating reviewing is appreciated if you want to keep doing that um Apple uh uh Apple podcast is great Spotify wherever you listen um that would be wonderful if you can’t actually if you can’t become a patreon member that’s where you get um a rank you can choose a rank and get direct access to me and I’ll I’ll mail you a a sticker hold on come on there it is one of these bad boys a 3X3 nylon sticker I will send you and uh if you choose a the sergeant ranking I will shout you out uh during the episode uh thanking you that way if you can’t afford it or it’s not in the cards right now I totally understand don’t worry about it the show will remain free as always and um just do the rating and reviewing that would be fantastic as well we’re over a thousand on Apple which is what is what I always wanted so I’m not going to harp on it too much but um more is always appreciated uh side note somebody wrote something on review for the podcast um claiming that I was uh like a homophobe and I was racist these things that just weren’t true and they were saying I they they were saying that I said things during the podcast that proved that so obviously not true if you listen to the show you know that’s not true never never uh talk hatefully about people at all so I actually wrote to Apple and everybody told me like other people had podcasts were like they’re not going to do anything about it they never ever take down a rating CU this was a onear rating and it was right at the top calling me like a homophobe and a bigot and I was like this I this has to go away this is not true this was also the same time when I was um kind of interviewing with the Discovery Channel to do that show that I did uh expose naked crimes which you can check out on HBO Max or Discovery um investigation so uh I was kind of freaked out I was like oh my gosh someone’s like sabotaging me so I wrote them the letter they actually took it down which is I heard this never ever happens they took down the negative review which is phenomenal so um I thought like when you write a letter to Apple it like goes into a black hole and you you never think they’re even going to read but evidently they did they must have listened and found out it wasn’t true and they took it down so thank you Apple I appreciate that um I never thought you would you would even do that especially for a genre like this that’s not super popular with um with everybody so I thought that was kind of interesting but guys today today finally finally have an Australian copper on the show um and he’s got fantastic stories in a in just a fantastic career um I’m so excited I’ve told you before I’ve tried to have Australian police officers on and it’s very difficult for them especially if they’re active um I got as far one at one point where I was talking with a gentleman really nice guy and he was like you know my Command Staff wants you to write a formal letter and like layout X Y and Z and I was like oh man I can’t I can’t do that it’s too much I I mean I think you guys know I say it all the time but I work uh usually 70 hours a week and um I just don’t want to get wrapped up with promising somebody’s Command Staff uh it’s going to go a certain way and then have them get pissed off and discipline somebody so uh it never happened it just never happened but uh gentlemen reach out to me he has 31 years on the Victoria Police in Australia 26 of those years he spent remote in the bush ladies and gentlemen way out there and I talk about how I do I’m a rural cop now like I I am in western Mass I do policing for a couple small communities and like where there’s little U Foothills and there’s um you know um lots of forest and not a ton of people but I can drive five or 10 minutes to a a city of 880,000 people like it’s that that’s remote for for where I’m at this guy and he’ll let you know about it is remote remote like no back up whatsoever he retired what they call a a lead senior constable and he’s written a book about his adventures called backup is three hours away without further Ado let me bring on the great Mark tralis Mark Stephen great to be here great to be on the show I’m so happy to have you brother and um scheduling this was bizarre cuz it’s you know 16-hour difference so it’s it’s actually right now it’s Tuesday in the morning right and uh yeah so uh I just had breakfast not that long ago and I’m um thinking about what to do with the rest of my day after uh I finished chatting to you and is it summer down there summer down there right it is indeed and the town where I live there’s only a thousand people in it normally but over summer it grows to about 10,000 so at the moment uh uh everybody hates going in to get a pint of milk at the supermarket because normally you just leave the money on the front counter and yell at someone and walk out and now you got a queue up for about 10 minutes so right most people prefer it when uh there aren’t so many tourists here right the humanity 10-minute wait who could stand it I love it I love it man um so you were Australian police officer for that long and there’s in Australia there’s um like you know in the states there’s like a lot of there’s a lot of layers there’s um on the most on the most minute way it can be in a state you could have village town or Municipal you could have City you could have um state county and then at the top level we don’t have a uniform Police Department we have like the FBI or the Secret Service are uniformed in in DC but for Australia it’s a little bit simpler right is it more like um Canada or Ireland where there’s like a National Police so there are really only two police forces there are State Police uh and there is the federal police but they’re very much delineated so in the States state law rules and if there is a homicide uh within the state of Victoria the Victorian homicide Squad will investigate if a person who commits that murder goes across the border into the next state of New South Wales and commits a murder then that State’s homicide Squad will investigate the Australian federal police operate very very differently to the FBI they only they operate on overseas embassies uh they do overseas deployments uh when when they’re asked to and they will also do Commonwealth areas which are airports and Family Law Courts uh so you have a lot of other enforcement agencies but it’s only the police forces that are armed so Fisheries national parks uh border security at the airports they aren’t armed uh but Australian federal police are also station there and they are so it’s a very different setup yeah little little different do you guys have Aboriginal police uh so in in areas where there is a quite a high area of Aboriginal there are officers that will work with uh Northern Territory or uh Western Australian police forces and that will come in and they will be uh they will come into town so they will assist police officers but normally uh they are only there to to translate language if there’s a problem and also to look at at cultural uh issues that come into it so but when if they need to be charged with anything it’ll be the police force that will do it okay I have so many questions for you Mark um so when you Australian policeman you want to become a police officer on Australia um you choose to go state which would be like the normal like police officer right that would be like the standard what what you would consider like the police there is like the state police um do um what’s the background application process like what’s the academy like so in and I can only really talk about Victoria although they’re very similar across the states so I do know that the federal police although it’s it’s not mandatory they do like you having uh a diploma or degree at University before you apply for them in the State Police in the State Police in Victoria you have to be uh minimum of uh 18 years of age uh you need a driver’s license have to be an Australian Citizen and you go through a selection process where there are physical requirements there is uh written uh requirements where they’ll get you to to to write out a statement you’ll then have to go through a personal interview and you’ll then go to a dedicated Police Academy that is four months I believe although it was very different because my experience was uh over 30 years ago now right and is it sleepover Academy yes uh when I was in uh now I think people who uh come in from the country can can stay at the Academy but if you live local uh you can go home and then come back the next day so the Victoria Police Academy is extremely good there’s uh Fitness areas there are um you’ll have mockups of Courts uh within the premises you’ll have uh shooting um uh galleries there where they’re able to do it and and also uh School uh lecturing uh room setups that are there at the end of that you were then sent out and for the next two years you undergo not an apprenticeship but a uh you were sent around to different areas that has changed massively in the 31 years when I was in I believe it was probably a better way to go and what happened was we became a probationary Constable extended training scheme and you spent a little bit of time in every single Department within the police force so I would spend uh about a month in fingerprints with detectives with Highway Patrol with the community policing squads that uh look at uh children and um uh domestic offenses uh you would also look at going to d24 where you would have you would be on the radios giving out dispatchers and then you would be working in the fingerprint and the uh criminal history area so by the end of your two years you had a pretty good understanding of how everything worked yeah within the fort and an idea of where you wanted to to go within it the only thing you didn’t get to do are some of the specialist jobs such as the dog Squad search and rescue and the Special Operations group okay and was your Police Academy um was it high stress mil paramilitary like shouting and uh punitive exercise and all that stuff not uh nowhere near probably what was in there I don’t think I ever had anyone shouting at me uh there was uh marching uh there was a lot of physical requirements one of the one of the issues they said when you went into it and I should State I came out of the Australian milit into the police force and I was probably at the fittest I’d ever been prior to to going in and everybody in the academy was complaining about the food but compared to military food it was outstanding and I and I started to lose physical condition because I was eating so much when I went in and the guys said listen you you meant to get fitter when you’re here not get less fit so can you maybe not try as hard at the start and then by the end of it you’ll make us look good and we went to sure no worries that’s uh we need to show a progression upward here yes yeah I get you yeah my dad was the same way when he my dad was in the Navy um in the Vietnam era and uh he said everybody at U boot camp um complained about the food he loved it you know they called it um [ __ ] on a shingle he he go for seconds he’s like oh I loved it I don’t know what it was but he’s just a big eater but um that’s funny so you go through the academy you take a tour of the Departments this the different branches of what everything does which is very cool if if an agency has the ability to do that that’s really cool um and then you you get your you get your designation like do you do you get to put in like um uh a numbered list like I’d like to be here like where you’d like to be or do they just tell you this is where we need Toppers this is where you’re going uh so that’s uh that has changed over the years but it is it is quite interesting it’s very hard to find police that are willing to go remote country the reason for that is that it’s very hard to get promotion when you go remote country if you if you want a career with promotion you really have to stay uh in the city in in the capital city of Melbourne if you’re looking for life style which was more than what I was after then you can go country so when a person now graduates from the police academy uh they can apply to go to a certain area uh they might have you know first second and third choice as to what they they want to do but if they don’t get that there is the possibility of being sent to a the country station you can also elect to go to stations that are very hard to find police for and if you do that uh for a uh two-year period Then when a vacancy comes up at a station you want to go to you go to the top of the list so there is also a possibility of if you wish to transfer to somewhere and there is an outstanding reason for example you have elderly parents that are ill and you would like to move to that area in order to uh help them then then that can be uh arranged as well okay very cool so you it sounds like you went in you knew what you wanted to do you wanted to be remote like how how remote are we talking like were you are you like an adventurous type of guy that wanted to live off grid with his and rais a family out there or are we talking like Villages that had like just like bare bones accommodations so it was it was really interesting in in the old days the state government used to provide uh houses and flats for remote area police officers but unfortunately they were sold and now you have to try and find your own accommodation which makes it really hard in areas that are uh popular uh like Seaside town s where uh rent is is really difficult to come by so they come into there and you’re trying to a lot of places can’t find police to come to them because they can’t find accommodation so when I first moved to the country I was it was fairly easy for me to be able to find accommodation there wasn’t a real problem with that and I I I there wasn’t a a problem with me moving there I I had spent a lot of time prior to the military I’d spent four years overseas and i’ I’d traveled I’d spent four years traveling through 56 countries and I spent a lot of time in very remote areas I loved it I had no problems I should just say to anyone listening that I’m I’m also 6’8 and uh 250b so damn the beauty of that is not many people want to fight you right which I’m more than happy to uh to to accommodate and uh but I’m not silly enough to think that uh I’m able to take on um uh more than one uh offender at the time so you you do also learn to talk to people you’re try get them to comply with yes that uh it it has certainly helped although I have had um previous jobs where I seriously thought my ass was going to get kicked and uh fortunately I was able to um whizzle my way out of it so it was good my roommate in college um was 68 like 250 big dude and when you’re that big it’s cool I mean it’s cool because anytime we went to a party or we walked in a room room as our little crew of like five or six guys when he walked into the room everybody in the room is kind of like that’s a big dude like it’s just it’s like instant recognition of your size you know what I mean and like you said it can work against you if you get a real Scrappy guy who would like nothing better than to take down the big guy then it can screw you but nine times out of 10 it just stops problems before they happen just sheer size oh look all I would walk into a pub that’s you been called to because there’s a fight going on or something and you’d walk in and the person causing the trouble would turn around and he’d look at my chest and then he’ just look up and with a very drunken voice go you’re the biggest cop I’ve ever seen in my life and I was able to just go shut up and get in the back of the van and he go okay and just go don’t Club me it was it was perfect perfect so uh to give you an idea uh we would carry uh an as baten handcuffs uh capsican spray uh we’ just have a small capsican spray but in in the car we would have uh the party packs uh which were the the big canisters yeah like the bear canisters I started off I started off with um uh swi M model 10 revolvers with 38 Special but in the later part of my career we moved over to Smith and Western uh M&P uh in in uh tenal so oh 10 MIM but we yeah 10 mil so yeah that makes sense we have no definitely we uh did not have any access to uh High powerered rifles although only just now is Victoria Police uh starting to look at m4s really out in the bush you didn’t have a high caliber caliber rifle that seems nuts I mean long distances got plenty yeah I got plenty in the safe at home right that that doesn’t matter um and and here’s the thing although I never ever had to bring it out and use it so long as you could justify using it there’s nothing to say that you couldn’t use it so if a long arm was necessary and a lot of the guys that I work with in the bush were were Hunters they would have high powerered rifles so that was it but there’s only a couple of times that I can ever think and only one station I was ever stationed at where we had access to uh it was Ruger mini1 14s at the time actually that’s a nice rifle and I’d never seen them ever used before and the reason why this station had them no other station in the in the Hall of Victoria did was because uh there was a factory on the outskirts of town that produced uh Australia’s morphine um for the whole of Australia so that was the only reason they had them but that gun probably looked like a toothpick in your hand oh look it was uh it was great I can look in 31 years I think I only had to draw my firearm probably a handful of times and I I never had to use it so that’s great that just goes to show that the difference in um in in what you would face on the job right so Mark you are stationed remotely so how how remote is this like describe the area where you were like the majority of your career okay okay so to to to give your listeners a bit of a of an iigo and I I I had a little bit of a look on on Google uh so uh Connecticut has has 94 Municipal police departments and there’s 6 and a half thousand police officers uh stationed in in the state I would cover that by myself so it would take me up to 3 hours to to go to an area uh my my nearest backup on a good day was an hour away on a bad day it was 3 hours away my nearest 24-hour police station is 3 hours away my the nearest hospital is an hour and a half the nearest McDonald’s is an hour and a half the the the remoteness that is involved there but we are talking about Australia and Victoria is one of the more popular eastern states when you look at South Australia and Western Australia some of the police there just have insane areas to cover and the the single police officer who operates out of birdsville which is literally in the middle of a desert he covers an area the size of Oregon 84,000 square miles by himself so does he get flown like say there’s something something that needs to be responded would you get flown helicopter plane four-wheel drive four-wheel drive he’s just got a Toyota Land Cruiser that’s that’s outfitted and he will uh he’ll just jump in that some of the guys in in the northern in the northwest of Western Australia when they do a patrol their patrol can last two weeks so they head out in a uh Lan C with the camping gear and the and the food and they literally go around to some of the remote original areas uh sorting out issues as they go and then at the end of two weeks they would come back again we wow would also we would also do that um so our police cars we had either Toyota Land Cruisers or niss Patrol four-wheel drives uh in our area we had seven radios so we would have a a UHF radio a VHF radio a CB radio a marine radio a HF radio and the HF radio meant that we could talk to virtually anyone in Australia and there were multiple areas where we were just without communication and multiple times where I would have to tell uh uh radio communications that I’m literally going to be gone the the car the the car radios could double as repeaters so if we had to go down a valley we could station the car at the top and then turn on the repeater and then I would take a portable radio and go down and still be able to get connection out but in some areas it was just that there was nothing there was no mobile phone uh a lot of us carried uh GPS beacons so that if we were in remote area we could press a button and that would allow everyone to give our location to be able to know where we were but it could it would take multiple hours to to get somebody into that area wow that’s crazy I I mean I worked um part-time for a very rural town and I I mean the numbers you’re talking makes it sound silly but it was like the town’s 55 square miles and one cop was on at a time and we had repeaters in our Cruisers we just didn’t have reception the repeater always worked and it would link to your portable just like you’re saying it would be like beep beep and then you knew it was connected to the car and you could get out um but there were those are incredibly expensive I mean this little town purchased one for one Cruiser it was $10,000 for the repeater which for a little town is insane money it’s only it’s only been in the last 5 years that Victoria Police has gone to a digital encrypted radio prior to that anyone with a scanner could listen in so if I took an hour to get to a job and this this happened to me several times then radio communications would uh give me a call and say I for an example I was going to a job where there was a firearm involved and we didn’t know where the location of that firearm was or what type it was and then we’d get a we’d get a radio message come in and say oh listen someone was listening on a scanner that knew the guy so he phoned him and they put the gun away so there’s no problems you can you you can go there solved itself and it it sort of solved itself for one job I remember going to with a with a potential firearm involved uh I looked in the rearview mirror as I was driving up to it and there were five cars following me and there were locals and relatives who’ heard the job on the radio and were coming along to yeah coming along to have a bit of a look and and see what it was like try to mitigate he’s a good guy he’s a good boy he’s a good guy it was uh what a nightmare yeah it was it was interesting we just had to tell look everyone just stay in the car right until we work out if it’s okay Mark can you take us way back when you were young officer to the first call you got that you considered a hot call first call that got your blood pumping okay extremely memorable uh as a very young uh probationary conable I was in possibly the area of Melbourne which had the highest number of drug addicts and prostitutes and we got a phone call to an armed robbery at the California club which was one of the biggest high-end brothels in Melbourne apply named now we were just around the corner from it but I think in the 30 seconds it took us to get there there would have been every police car within a 10m radius that were on their way to it so when we got there uh the offenders had already left uh but we had to stay of course and uh talk to all the girls that uh were working there and uh take statements off them and it was extremely we got all the other cars to look for the offenders vehicle that was leaving and and we stayed at the brothel purely for professional reasons of course but at the at the end of the day we asked if we could have a tour and the girls showed us all around and I got to admit for a for a uh for a young probationary Constable it was certainly eye openening I bet so broos are legal there yes they are and uh there’s still a there is also a fair bit of prostitution Street prostitution uh Works uh that works in the area but that is now changing and uh they’re looking at uh uh so brothels are legal which meant that a lot of the girls that operated on the streets would have a bit of protection um they didn’t they weren’t access to or they they didn’t get someone who was going to beat them up or um C uh want to do something that they didn’t want to do so it uh it it it wasn’t too bad they get a they can make a fairly good money out of it wow so you thought going to that call you were going to something big and you just end up toring the wh house yes and then opened up the door and here’s all like about 15 women wearing underwear and uh you know it was it was you’re trying to look for someone with a gun yeah yeah trying to take you yeah trying to take your eyes off what was in front of you at the time which was um uh took a fair bit of effort yeah that’s funny um can you tell us about a strange or bizarre thing you dealt with on the job oh I have I could probably sit here for the next 10 hours and tell you about this but I think to give you a bit of an idea I I might tell you a a uh a story about um one of the first country towns I went to uh there was a young eight-year-old boy who on his way home from school was stealing lollies and there’s you can do with an 8-year-old yeah yeah just going into a a store and and stealing a bag of lollies there’s nothing you can do with an 8-year-old they’re too young to uh to charge with anything right all you can do is yell yell at them but and we’ll we’ll we’ll say they’re the Smith family for um for reference sure so little Billy Little Billy Smith is uh we’ve got him by the ear and we’re taking him home and i’ I’ve done this several times before and we we pull up at his house it’s about 6:30 at night dinner time and you could just imagine it it’s the dilapidated Farmhouse there’s three foot high grass in the front yard with the Rusty car bodies in the front door hanging off the hinges and I I drag him out of the car I got him by the air I walk in don’t bother knocking and I could hear voices coming from the kitchen so I stuck my head around the corner and there was um the Jones family sitting at the dinner table M Jones in the middle of them and I’ve gone I got AAR uh and she looks up and goes what do you lot want and I go well it’s it’s Billy ma we caught him stealing again I’m looking at this table there’s six adults sitting at it everyone has food on their plate one old bloke down the end is eating nobody else is touching their food there’s something I can’t put my finger on it but Billy sticks his head around the corner Mar squeals at him you get the B idea with you later the poor kid scampers off and and we kind of finish up and we go well look we’re going to go but if it happens again straight to prison you’re not going to send an 8-year-old to prison but you try and get creative sure as I turn to leave the lady sitting next to the oldo who’s eating elbows him and says hurry up I’m getting hungry the old BL goes over for crying out loud opens his mouth takes out his teeth passes them to her she puts them in that’s when it dawns on us they’re all waiting for the teeth oh my gosh I’ve never heard of anything like that true story wow true story so they got food on the table but are impoverished enough where they can’t have their own teeth yep man talk about something you take for granted the Modern Dentistry you know so um so that’s one and another another quick one because it’s uh it’s hilarious was my first ever remote country station I got asked if I could find a place to rent uh for a few months and there was this I got told there’s this 100y old farmhouse out out of a beach way out the back and it was $75 a week rent and I’ve just gone $75 I’m I’m there I move out to this place now this house was so old when the wind blew the wallpaper used to come out about two feet it had an outdoor toilet and it had a semi detached shower that was part of a walled in section of The Veranda so on my first morning I got to walk naked out the front door because I could and I would walk into the Walling section of the veranda and into the bathroom now the the the the shower was one of those uh enameled cast iron Tubs on four legs with the wrap around curtain sure there was no extract no extractor fan but it was pushed against the far wall where there was this 4ot wide lap sash window that you could drop down and the steam would go out so I I worked that out and I’m in the shower shampooing my hair what I didn’t know was that there was a horse in the padic next to the shower that heard the water and walked over and then it looked through the window and it went water I think I’ll have a drink so it sticks its head through the window and proceeds to drink out of the shower now this is 10 inches in front of my face I’m completely oblivious to it never feel more vulnerable than when you’re washing your hair pooing so then then the horse turns around looks at me and and obviously thinks to itself gee I I wonder what that white stuff tastes like let me tell you getting licked in the face by a horse whilst sned in a shower is exciting jump 10 feet in fact it’s so exciting it Bears detail the lick goes in and with the tongue pretty much still attached your eyes open and in Split Second before the suds hit them the only thing you focus on is this massive set of teeth 6 in in front of your face and a horse is not the first thing that comes to mind seeing as you’re naked in the shower the first thing that does come to mind is the monster from the movie Aliens you exit the shower taking the rod and the curtain with you I exited so fast I hit the far wall how I never killed themselves Beyond me but after that I got used to the horse’s face occasionally I’d shampoo the horse’s face as well so the only problem with living out there was the rent so I got young John to move in with me it was another young Constable from the station he just moved to town so on John’s first morning he’s sitting in the kitchen having a a cup of uh coffee when he looks up and sees me walk naked past him at the front door so his head comes around the corner and he goes trig where are he going and I went shower and then he looks at me and he says why do you have a large carrot in your [Laughter] hand and uh and I I thought that was a fair question so I said I I often shower with a carrot and then he starts to look worried and he goes and and what do you do with a carrot in the shower I’ve got you’ll find out soon enough so couple couple of hours couple of hours later he has a shower meets the horse and in a couple of weeks we’re both sharing with carrots so that was my first introduction to remote country placing oh my gosh so are you you’re doing this remote country policing as a single guy you’re how old are you at this point so at the moment I’m 63 years of age so when I first moved I was uh I was single and um then at my second station I uh met a a really nice uh young lass who uh I’d known through a mutual friend and we wound up getting married and uh I now have uh three daughters uh they’re they’re 21 uh 2017 so fantastic three girls and all of them now are are in in Melbourne though at school or university so um hear that bush cops you can meet you can meet a nice lady and have a family and still work in the bush very very much so it’s uh what’s interesting though is that when you become a policeman so does your wife uh and she would get asked all the time for All the gossip about what happened and and no one would ever believe her would ever believe her when uh she said look uh I don’t get told a lot about uh what happened because um uh you you have to be uh uh when you’re a remote Country police officer you know everybody’s dirty little secrets yeah but you you can’t tell anyone about that because it’s fly around the village yeah yes yeah you’re you’re probably a bit of a you’re a bit of a local celebrity I mean you’re you know what I mean like everybody knows who you are they know that you’re dealing with everybody’s stuff so you got to be a little bit careful so it’s uh it’s it’s interesting and it was a little bit interesting when I was I was writing my Memoir because even though I haven’t put any names dates locations or times in if anyone were to read any of the stories that I uh that happened to me and they were they they would know who it was yeah so it’s it’s interesting but the the you can only really get uh in trouble um uh for defamation and if what you’re writing about is is true then uh there’s not much anyone can do about it yeah yeah pretty much the same here in the states same idea that’s crazy so did she um like if you’re at home and you’re like a bush cop and you’re off duty you know you’re not on shift I mean you can get called out at any time right you’re the only guy around so they would they just call your house so normally you would work on a uh you would you would work on availability so availability was it wasn’t a lot it was only a few dollars an hour but it meant that you wouldn’t be having anything to drink and that you would stay by a phone and that if something serious happened you would uh just you would uh and this only happened in uh when if you’re in the city when you knock off for the shift you hand your firearm back uh you leave your equipment belt and your vest uh in your locker oh it’s like Canada they did the same thing yeah in in uh in the country though if you’re on a availability you would take everything home uh so I’ve got a I’ve got a safe at home that I would just stick everything in and then if I got a phone call and I was called out I could just jump up throw it on you would take the police car home with you and then you would just jump in the car and you would head off so that was that was pretty easy I don’t uh I don’t understand the police officers leaving their guns at home what what is the what is the thought process behind that I mean leaving their guns at the station because I’m I’m guessing statistically if you looked at it police officers don’t commit gun violence off duty with their guns very minuscule percentage so what is the benefit to anyone for a police officer not to bring their gun home um the the the benefit I think is uh from for from a department Viewpoint is is security and and control uh we don’t want um you know everyone would have to go do would the department have to provide you with a safe to keep it in or should that be your own uh responsibility uh if you can get permission to take your firearm home if you’re not on call but only uh that’s Chief commissioner writes that so say you’re getting death threats from a biky gang or something then yes you can take your firearm home so it’s not generally considered uh necessary but what happens is situations can occur and I had one where it was uh very touch and go where uh I had to attend a job um and uh I basically went to a dressed in my pajamas and I was asleep uh at night and I got a phone call from the local Publican and he said can I please come up to the pub there’s three guys and they’re beating a woman to death is a Publican a a bar owner a bar owner yes so the Publican is the uh is the bar owner and he said can you please come up to the local pub which was only about 500 M away from where I was living at the time he said there’s three guys and they’re beating a woman up out the front and I said look I’m not on call have you phoned triple o which is is 911 uh in Australia and they said yes but it’s uh it’s Mick’s coming from can River uh which is 45 minutes away if you’re going as fast as you can oh boy and and I and he said look I think they’re going to killer and why do you say that well she’s lying on the ground and all three are stomping on her so I said okay I’ll come up I phoned um the board which is Communications to say is is Nick going to this job and they said yes he is uh and I said well do you want me to go and they said well look we can’t call you out because you’re not on call and I said but it sounds serious I tell you what I’ll go up and I’ll have a look and I’ll give you a call and and let you know if it’s as serious as what I’ve been told so uh I jump in the Magna uh in in my pajamas and uh tottle up to the pub and as I Come Around the Corner into the main driveway just outside the uh the bar here’s three huge guys and lying at their feet was this woman covered in blood and and as I my headlights illuminate her her she reaches out towards me and and and cries help and then just collapses and I’m like oh uh so I get out of the car and these three guys start walking over towards me now one’s about 6’2 he’s got a a Baldhead bare chested Nazi swas sticker on his left breast uh another another guy is my size I’d never seen these guys before in my life outweighed Me by 20 kilo and then the third guy was over six foot as well and I’m sitting here thinking hm three guys I I think I’m about to get my ass kicked yeah but I couldn’t I couldn’t really leave the girl but but back in those days I was still teaching martial arts and on the back seat of the Magna was my martial arts training bag and sitting on the top was a wooden samurai sword so I grabbed that and wandered over and said good day guys what’s going on and they asked who I was and I said I’m the local policeman now I told them that because I I hoped that by telling them I was a local police that would mitigate their response it it had the opposite effect and uh they all started um sort of getting a bit closer and I said so what’s with a girl and they said we’re trying to help her I felt like asking into what hospital and whilst I’m talking to them uh the girl’s crawled over to me and she’s she’s latched on him a leg and she was just she had blood mixed in with a mascara and uh she was cut and scratched and bruised and crying and and she said they they choked me they kicked me they punched me and then uh the guy with an Artis SW sticker moves in so I I pushed her over uh pulled out the sword and said you just sit over there by the cab uh by the curb and we’ll wait for the other police officer to get here and he keeps coming and I went okay let me put it another way take another step and I’m going to start using this and he puts his hand up and backs off and I’ve gone great 20 minutes before before Mick gets here and uh then the big guy moved in and he kept coming and I said look mate I’m not joking I will use this if you come any closer and by that stage all three had started to sort of come around the sides and by this stage my adrenaline was just skyrocketing I think my heart rate would have been up around 2 200 and I I knew this was not going to end well and he said you’re not good enough took a swing and I ducked under the swing and then just dropped with full body weight into a cut and hit him halfway along his thigh a his uh outer thigh and I just heard this massive snap and he hit the ground screaming and I I thought that i’ broke his femur and he’s on the ground screaming um uh he’s going he broke him my leg I’m gonna Sue shut up the other two the other two guys went to water 12 guys pulled out of the pub after it was over uh none of them what does what does w went to water mean Mark uh uh uh they just I said sit over there and they went yeah sure okay they just collapsed and went over there that generally happens when you’ve got a group of people and you pick the biggest meanest looking guy there if you can knock him down with one hit generally everybody else just goes to water and um that’s crazy yeah they uh they just go uh oh yeah maybe we won’t attack um so that happened and uh the funny part was the the ambulance officer when he arrived who was a good friend of mine at the time and he said uh he he’s he’s just got this this image of of pulling up with this guy lying on the ground screaming and me standing there wearing pajamas with a samurai sword out the front of me and um he walks up and points to the guy who’s screaming and goes what happened to him and I and I go I hit him with this and he goes is he all right I go I don’t know he hasn’t moved since I hit him so um but he he got up and hobbled off afterwards so I knew that I hadn’t um uh fractured his Fe but I looked at the uh it’s called a bachan and the wooden samurai sword is made out of white oak it’s a very hard wood and I’d split it I hit him that hard so it turns out there were three neo-nazis just out of prison from uh the neighboring state they’d come down to uh Victoria to celebrate and the girl who was with them uh was getting a bit worried about how they were acting and she wanted to drive off in the car wouldn’t let them in so they had uh one had um held her down stood on a throat and the other kicked her between the legs I think she ruptured a spleen but she lived and came back a couple of weeks later uh to be able to uh thank me which was really good wow that’s intense and this did you say this was in the city or was this in the in the bush oh no This was um it took another half hour for the next available policeman to actually was this was the bush yeah yeah so this was this was absolutely remote country area so so why you didn’t bring your gun because you weren’t sent to that is that why no I didn’t have a gun with me I wasn’t on call so I didn’t come back I had nothing all I had was my pajamas oh so when you’re not on call in the bush you have to turn your gun in you don’t get anything no yeah yeah you got to leave your firearm at the station see you could have got all three of them if you had the gun you know just B back back look that um wow and and I didn’t know how bad it was until I actually got there and by the time I got there I realized I just couldn’t leave the girl yeah you had to do something you you see it’s weird when you when you take an oath as a policeman um that oath binds you to act when when when you’re called upon or when circumstances demand such action absolutely uh the decision to act the decision to act is easy and the question you ask yourself is how would I react if it were my loved ones involved how would I I want others to act yeah so so that’s what happened but um God bless you mark you got brass coonies my friend that you that you said your heart rate was 200 you must have been freaking out especially for you because you’re used to be the biggest dude all of a sudden it’s like that’s out the window too it’s like now I don’t even that on my side and I I just had we had um look there were 26 years I got to admit there were were multiple situations that I went to that were uh dangerous uh most of the time I was able to uh there were very few there were couple that I went to that were actually worse than that uh the one that gave me post trauma was I got a phone call to 150 kilo uh person who had a psychotic breakdown and he’d gone off his meds and was attempting suicide he’ covered him and me in petrol he had me in one arm and a 20 lit Jerry can in the other and we were a meter away from a campfire and he was trying to drag me into it and that was fight for my life that was that was um I might as actually I might as well tell you the humorous police version of that I get called to a man acting strangely and uh in the in my hometown uh that happened a fair bit so I pull up at an address that I hadn’t been to before and there was a boat on a trailer there was a lit campfire there was two sheds uh knocked together and and as I get out of the car and close the door I could hear howling but it wasn’t a dog so I thought well rather than just go through I might just skirt around the outsides and just see what I’m getting myself in for uh so I I look around the corner and here’s this 150 kilo guy uh with his Panner around his ankles standing on the roof of his Mercedes uh howling but he doesn’t have any weapons he’s just howling so I I Wander over and and and lean on to the Bonnet of the car and I look up and I go good day mate um and he looks at me and his his eyes are just spinning in circles and I go uh how’s about your slide off and and put the kettle on I I love what you’ve done to the property and he looks at me and and he goes all right uh so he pulls up his pants he slides off he goes in he makes me a cup of tea I am styling so I’m sitting there and I got my cup of tea and I go so what’s on the agenda for for today and he goes I’m going to kill myself and I went okay and then he looks at me and he says are you watching and I went do I have to and he leans over took a dog collar off the side of the wall wrapped it around his throat and commenced to strangle himself in front of me so I’m sitting on the other side of the table with my cup of tea and he’s turning purple his spittles coming out his his eyes he’s um his eyes spinning round so I took a sip and uh at him and said have you got any sugar he stopped found me the Sugar Bowl slid it over to me and then went back to strangling himself so I said okay love your enthusiasm it’s not going to work don’t go away we really do need to go down and have a little chat to the doctor because when someone’s like this you can arrest them uh and take them to a doctor uh because obviously he’s uh he’s not he’s not himself we call a section 12 in Massachusetts yes so I went up to the back of the police car opened up the rear and in the back we have a prisoner pod but one of the guys had left the chainsaw in it and I thought maybe that’s not the best idea to leave that there put in so I I put that in the back of uh the car and turned around he’d followed me out he’d gone to the back of the um boat where there was a 20 lit Jerry can of petrol and he was he lifted it up was pouring it onto him then he was walking towards the campfire carrying the Jerry can and I went oh okay um and I’m sprinting towards him to get to him before he got to the fire uh but it was close and when I grabbed him I grabbed his shirt and pulled and the buttons popped off and it flicked petrol back on my glasses down the front of my uniform and we were only a pace away from the fire and I I grabbed his wrist and said what are you doing as if it wasn’t obvious um he starts pulling me towards the fire I start pulling him away from the fire and this is when I found out he was stronger than me um so we start tussling and he dropped the Jerry can and the whole world went into slow motion uh the Jerry can was dropping uh literally like in slow motion and it hit the ground and stayed upright and I just just thought that is just so lucky and as I’m looking at it he reaches over with other hand and um grabs me and and now he’s he’s pulling me and now all professionalism is gone he’s screaming I’m screaming I’ve got images of my 5-year-old going through my head at the time uh and at the last second when I I I didn’t know what I was or how I was going to get out of this because if I let him go and he fell against the Jerry can into the fire and 20 lers of petrol went up I wouldn’t be able to dive out the way in time uh so uh he slipped went down a one knee one hand came off and I managed to to to to throw him uh with his wrist and uh I got him airborne and rolled him over handcuffed him and it was over probably only lasted 15 20 seconds to you know in in in actuality but it it felt like forever and um um I I had to get two neighbors to help me uh dragg him and lift him into the back of the car and uh a couple of um uh about 3 days later he got taken to uh psyart and three days later I phoned up to find out how he was and and they said oh yeah he’s good he’s gone and I went you let him out oh jeez and they went yes and I’ve gone tell me’s he’s not coming back to my town and they go no no no gone to Melbourne to recuperate I went oh great recuperate from all the drugs you gave him right they surgery see you later yeah and uh and they said uh no from the surgery and and I took a bit of a pause and I went surgery what surgery and they said um oh we found his arm broken in three places and I went left arm or right arm and they went left arm and I went uh oh whoops does he happen to remember how that happened and they go no psychotic breakdown you can’t remember a thing and I’m like oh well so sad too bad bye and H up my number and uh about uh four weeks later um sitting in the police station and I look up and he walks in with his whole family in tow and and says look um uh I want to thank you for what you did um I I can’t remember a thing can you fill in the blanks to which point I think I replied some of them and um uh but he was happy that was good but uh I got to admit that that’s that 20 second 15c 20 second struggle of me thinking I’m going to get pulled into a a fire with a 20 lit Jerry can and and lit up was just that was absolutely terrifying yeah absolutely damn and then you don’t have like a you don’t have like a fire department around the corner either you would it’d be on you to oh no no smear your faceart no fire department is um uh volunteer only so you have to dealer the siren has to go off and then you got to wait for someone to arrive at the station that can take good 10 15 minutes before they they’re ready to go anywhere so yeah him and him and I would have been dead by then for sure but uh it was just um it’s really good uh I still see him occasionally he’s uh he’s not a bad bloke actually he just uh he just had a psychotic breakdown with Elie’s mids and yeah had a bad one damn yeah I just I just interviewed a guy who um he was uh showed up to a call and he was taking fire from a a guy who was in Vietnam he was a sniper in Vietnam the guy lit up his Cruiser shot all around him he’s lying on the ground the neighbors are calling in h there’s a cop dead then another cop showed up he took cover there’s two cops dead the guy had a psychotic break he wasn’t trying to kill him he just felt like going out with his AR-15 and and shooting he goes if I wanted to kill you you’d be dead he was just he shot up their cars he shot all around him never hit one of them and same thing he goes um guy had a psychotic break gets taken away on you know a mental health order he goes two weeks later yeah I’m in the local convenience store buying a snack and the guy walks in he goes hey he’s already out go Hey listen I’m really sorry about the whole thing but if you want to C over my house for a beer I’d love to love to give you one and he’s like I’m I’m good I’m all set damn Mark that is crazy so can you tell us about your most intense call that you dealt with for Victoria Police uh look that would probably that would probably be uh one of that would that would probably be the most intense I think the one that I’ve just given you but to give you an idea of how different types of things uh range this was a uh and this is when you’re when you’re working on the coast you you get to work with uh both Fisheries officers uh and you also get to do a bit of work uh in the ocean so and this was a um a a job that just goes to show you how versatile you have to be so we got a phone call uh of a a crayfish um or a lobster fisherman I think would be best to to say that and uh there had been a captain on a small uh boat and the guy who throws the lobster pots overboard but he hadn’t looked down and his foot was caught in a loop of rope and it just pulled him straight overboard straight down 80 fathoms and by the time the captain came back to drag him up he wasn’t breathing so we got the phone call to the job but the captain was so upset we didn’t know if the guy was still alive or not now uh not every police station that operates on the coast has access to a boat so we would just go down and we asked one of the local fishermen if he could take us out so me and my partner at the time jumped in the boat we went out but when we got outside the Seas were huge um there was a massive swell running and we we didn’t we couldn’t get close enough to the boat to be able to uh determine if the guy was still alive or not and the the captain was just crying his eyes out and and we couldn’t make sense on the radio as to what we’re doing so we carried a a a bag of uh where I kept a wet suit in it so I jumped out of my uniform jumped in the wet suit and came up with the idea that I would dive overboard and swim to the other boat and get on board oh my gosh so it was only after I it was only after I dived over on the water that the thought of sharks entered my mind so I had about a yeah Australia great whs everywhere to get to the boat and whilst at the bottom of the boat I’m looking at it going well this is really good how am I going to get up uh but there’s a thing called a pot thrower that sits on the outside of the um of the gunel and uh it was coming down almost to sea level because the swell was so huge so I said well what I’ll do is I will I’ll grab that and then uh I can ride up the boat when it when it goes up and then I’ll throw a leg over you’re crazy and then ride it down and and and get myself on board so that was the plan and everyone knows that plans start off really good so I I grab hold of this pot and I get launched into the air but suddenly it just pitched down so my legs then went up and I’m now doing a handstand on the top of the pot thrower and the boat goes down and I’m now falling head first onto the deck and sitting sitting in the deck at the time was the bucket of bait that was full of rotting Barracuda heads and my entire head disappeared into the Bait Bucket oh I then fell I fell off onto the body and I was just spitting and snorting bits of rotten fish out of my um out of my mouth and wiping my mouth and so I’m trying to check this guy and he’s not breathing so I said well I I better start um doing CPR on him so trying to do CPR just after your head has been submerged in a bucket of rotting fish on a on a boat that’s that’s going over 16 foot swirls um with your head down um trying to stop yourself from vomiting is virtually impossible so I’m trying to time my vomit and subsequent dry reaching with not into the mouth of the guy whose life I’m trying to save but it was just it took us half an hour to get back to Port by that stage I was green and i’ I’d spewed I’d spewed up like about 15 times by then and uh trying to and and all the all all my vomit was on the deck that made the deck slippery so I’m trying to hold this and then the ambos came on board and we got him off and they spent another three4 of an hour trying to get his heart going again but they couldn’t do it and um damn the only sympathy I got from my partner was when I got out and I was literally in a wet suit covered with rotting fish and vomit was he just looked at me and and screwed up his nose and goes you stink you’re not riding home with me no I I got told to get in the back of the van oh my gosh what did the guy was it a uh an overdose or heart attack or what do you ever find out no no so so the um oh he went under he went under so he got pulled over and got dragged down 80 ft um right by the Rope because the the lobster pots weigh about uh 200 lb so they they’re very heavy and he could stop himself from being pulled over but by the time the boat did a did a u-turn came back through the grappling hook to the float got it onto the winch and pulled him up he’ he’d stopped breathing so I’d forgotten about that part with all the imagery of the vomit and The Bait Bucket and the and the Bait Bucket yes so um yeah that just goes to show you a uh uh one of the jobs that just did not turn out out to be a day shift that I thought would turn out like yeah well I mean you’re in a position in an area like that where like you said you take an oath to help and to do good and to you know try to save people and you you literally are in a lot of situations the only guy wearing that hat you don’t have other services that step in and go no this is my specialty I’m a firefighter I’m EMS this is my I took my you’re the guy so and I mean you’re putting a weet suit on you’re swimming out to a fishing boat you’re doing melt to melt on this guy I mean it’s crazy yeah it’s uh it’s it’s it’s something that I I don’t think people think of you just as police of say booking cars for speeding or something like that when when it’s when it’s not it’s uh searching for for hikers that go lost in in a National Park area and and you’ll always guarantee that when someone phones you to say can you come and get me they will have 1% on their mobile phone always and not and not know where they are uh so you’re trying to say well can you see a lighthouse from where you are can you see a a Hilltop from where you are and you’re you’re trying to triangulate on a map uh to work out exactly what happened or where they are to be able to send someone to be able to go in and to do that but the beauty of is is that when you go into an area in in remote country uh because there’s not a lot of work every day you can spend the time to explore your entire area so every four-wheel drivetrack every every remote Farm you’ll go up introduce yourself to the owner um and uh that way they know you you know them and it’s uh it’s you know know it it it makes for an easy uh for an easy transition if you’re heading up to an area where you know somebody is you can phone then they you ask if you can see them yes and so if you ever get your your police car bogged and you can’t winch your way out um you can always phone up the local farmer to come get you in his tractor yeah yeah absolutely I’ve had that where I work I’ve had a farmer come out and clear a state road of a Fallen Tree because the power company was going to be an hour and a half and he said hey want me to do with my tractor and I said I’d love that if you did it with your tractor and he just came out and took care of it um well that’s great Mark I mean in the truest sense of the word you you’re Community caretaker in every single aspect of it when you’re out there you’re you’re the guy that’s very cool it’s uh there’s you you’re not so much police officer but more um uh social worker as well especially when you you go to a domestic situation where they could be recidivist where you know them you know their problems uh you know the issues that come into it so that that that’s really good because it it it it allows you to if someone’s you know if the husband’s left and he’s mad or something you’ll have his mobile number uh you’ll be able to give him a call and just get his side of the story find out what’s happened arrange for him to spend a night at a mate’s place or something like that so you don’t have to um uh a lot of it it it it’s interesting when we did training uh for defensive tactics or something like that uh it was often interesting because you would have the instructors saying well um you know you have uh somebody here who say they barricaded themselves into this house with a firearm and where would you put your uh units to Cordon and contain them and you would just look at them and go what units and they’d say well how would you handle it and I said well I’d probably know him so I just give him a call and tell him to put down the gun and come into the police station I’ll put the kettle on and we’ll discuss it and uh work out his problem for him so I love it yeah yeah you don’t you don’t have to uh you don’t have to worry about yeah you know spend all the time searching for people getting the dog out there all that yeah yeah no don’t need that at all yeah it’s a whole different style very cool Mark can can you tell us about a um a heartwarming call or or uh job as you as you say from your career a heartwarming job that would be um what would be what would be a really really good heartwarming again I can probably it’s it’s not so much picking one out of one I can pick out of of several dozen but um um pick you have to pick the best one we okay then this is one that is really uh and would probably make a lot of uh police in America scratching their head so uh the the coastal country areas of Victoria during Christmas periods are just have no accommodation whatsoever they are just booked out solid months in advance so one night I was working uh and knocking off at midnight and as I’ve walked out of the station to take the police car home because I was on call that night this car load of elderly uh Greek tourists rolls up and they’re in their 70s and they’ve got out of the car and wandered over and they said listen um we have we we’re trying to find accommodation can you know of anywhere we can we can rent accommodation for tonight and I uh said no there is nothing there is no accommodation whatsoever uh it’s it was all booked out months in advance there’s there’s nothing we can do about it um uh you know you you you know by the end of August uh accommodation is booked out in in the town that I was in for Christmas and uh they were looking a little bit disconcerted and it was I said well what are you going to do and uh they said well we’re just going to have to stay in the car because there’s nothing here but my wife and I operated a Airbnb and at the time and uh downstairs we had a couple of sofa beds so I couldn’t really let them um uh you know just sleep in the car in their 70s it was crazy and I said oh well listen you can come home with me um so follow me and on the way I’ve I’ve given I’ve called my wife who was kind of used to this actually and uh said listen can you make up the sofa beds downstairs because we got two elderly Greek tourists who can’t find accommodation coming back to spend the night and so anyway they uh they thought this was just fantastic locop takes them home they just yeah so they had a uh a thing and then the next morning they got up and came up and and we had breakfast with them and they were were talking about how they they’d come over from uh from Athens and were visiting relatives and thought they’d take a drive down and didn’t think there’d be a problem and um then as I’m as I’m leaving they said I we we we went out to their car to wish them uh you know all the best and suddenly the the the old guy walks over to the car and he he lifts up the boot at the back and inside was just full of uh Salamis and doares and Greek um uh churri with uh all sorts of uh olives and um food and bottles of red Cena and he just starts pulling it out of the car and handing it to me and like my wife’s just got a you know like got half a dozen salamis in her in her hand and and he’s just pulling them out and he’s going this is for you you good boy and so that was uh that I got to admit that was a really uh nice feel-good thing that you could do to somebody and completely and utterly uh Outsider of I guess what um uh could I ask if you ever done the same uh I’ve not you know it when you were telling that story I I have come close one time and it didn’t ending up have having to happen cuz I am um I’m a Christian guy and Christian family and what you’re talking about there really hits home to me where you know helping people who need help helping people who need not necessarily an emergency but like you’re supposed to help you know love your neighbor so I I did have a situation once where um a young mom and her um child didn’t have a place to go wasn’t the best circumstance St and she wasn’t in the best um the problem with the whole thing was she wasn’t in the best head space if you know what I mean she was y but sitting with her in the office for hours finding nowhere and it’s you know 25 degrees says well we’ll have to stay in the car and I’m like well you have a three-year-old so you can’t do that and if you did do that then we would have to get Social Services involved because you can’t stay in a car with the three-year-old you know what I mean so I did that’s the closest I came and I told my wife later I said you almost got a call for me to say get the Cs out CUA I can’t do it she’s got she’s got to have somewhere to go with this baby she’s got have somewhere to go yeah so we did end up getting her uh a room to stay in and everything was fine so that was the closest I came to it but um I I I love the story I and I think it’s great I think that’s like um that’s like uh that to me that’s like Americana rural policing that’s like what cops would do you know what I mean that’s very cool I love it very very good heart story it’s great I got to admit I I did for some unknown reason have my fair share of completely and utterly bizarre jobs that I that uh most people would just just shook their heads over and just said that it was just like you know like like jobs that other police I’ve spoken to had never had jobs along those lines before um and I don’t know what it was uh I just had this innate ability to find myself in situations that were just as bizarre and uh like the family that shared their teeth great example um you it’s just not something that um uh you just got every day nor would you want to it was it so cool the best part was actually going back and telling the guys of the session oh yeah I’m sure Mark you had a hell of a career man I I loved your stories brother um really important question for the show for a lot of people that listen and all over the world actually that listen um is advice what advice would you give to the young um you know Australian person thinking about being a getting the police service or or anywhere really what advice would you give to a young um Prospect getting into policing it’s a lot of a lot of police are resilient uh police and military are resilient to post trauma uh they wouldn’t be in that type of job unless they were so attending accidents uh where they’re uh dead bodies or body parts y if you believe that that is going to uh affect you then a career in policing is probably not for you the other thing that I would that I highly recommend is that the uh defensive tactics and uh Firearms uh practice that you get is really quite minimal it’s the minimum that a department want so for your own safety I would say uh learn a martial art uh outside of work and uh uh do I would say practical pistol shooting because that will go such uh a huge way to to helping you and to also not uh if if you are confident in your own unarmed and and armed abilities then that makes a a huge difference when you’re working on the job so what you would do uh and if you are wondering which type of mar art uh I’ve done several throughout the years I’ve uh I’ve I’ve trained and and taught in the Philippines in Japan in Australia in Brazil but uh Brazilian jiujitsu is probably the most effective martial art I’ve ever done and the reason is is because I’ve yet to handcuff someone that didn’t want to be handcuffed and I haven’t wound up on the ground with him so learning to fight on the ground is absolutely um mandatory in in my opinion so yeah I would say those uh I would say those two things words of wisdom good stuff thank you Mark and um backup is three hours away your book where can people get that so it’s uh Big Sky publishing uh going to be doing it and it’ll be coming out in uh June this year I’m still at the moment uh selecting um uh like a a front cover for it and uh working I’m still getting people to review it uh so a lot of the stories that I’ve told you today are in it uh it’s 60 by siiz chapters and it’s everything from strange things that happened to me when I uh wasn’t so it’s a true crime Memoir uh about living in remote country Australia and uh the types of jobs that I had and what was it like uh raising family when I was there plus uh all the absolutely weird and wonderful things that uh happened to me including um postt trauma I was uh injured quite badly uh throughout my career I I broke my back my knee my shoulder my elbow two BS of post trauma and I got shot uh fortunately I come out of it um you got shot how did we not hear about that Mark oh I know sorry it’s just another one um okay so so quickly I would like to say that it was an incredible shootout but no um uh the good news was that it was another policeman that accidentally shot me uh the bad news was that he the bad news was that he shot me in the face which I wasn’t too happy about wasn’t a 10 millimeter was it so no it was a 38 special and it was a Ricochet at the training range oh wow so a sergeant was five meters to my right we five meters from uh the target he fired missed the target the bullet impacted a one-in steel plate ricocheted clean back still had 124 grains in the in the lead and it it went in here just uh a ridge an inch down from the ridg line of my nose traveled up of cavity impacted the cartilage between my eyes and stopped oh my gosh um the surgeon said an inch in any other direction and uh yeah I would have been um I wouldn’t have uh made it pass there but um I’ve good thing you got that big 6’8 Cranium well as my uh colleagues were want to uh point out had I been normal height the bullet would have gone clean over my head this is kind of your fault really yes so that was it but I’ve had I’ve had three operations on that and I possibly need a fourth as well but um damn uh it was uh look I I went down like a sack it was as if someone had uh hit me in the face with a baseball bat and uh blood just went and everywhere and um they they didn’t know what had happened and it wasn’t until they took a c scan of uh of me that they realized that the bullet was lodged between my eyes basically so my wife uh was offered uh a helicopter ride up to see me but I managed to talk to her before I went into surgery so um wow she was able to uh to do that um so yeah that’s crazy uh there’s a couple of other things but when the book comes out I’ll I’ll let you know oh Mark so what we’ll do is is um I’ll go back and I will add the link to the book to this episode when when it comes out cuz this will be in the the lineup forever so it’s Evergreen people love hearing these stories it’ll be listening to you for years to come I will add the link when it comes out um and let me know when it comes out and I I can do a post on the Facebook page or whatever and kind of announce it and also um could have you back tell some more Bush stories you know from the book and um you know down the road that’d be great if you’re if you’re willing not a not a problem at all with love to I’ve really enjoyed talking to you and uh I’ll also send you up a a link to a YouTube video on a news article that uh that uh came out uh which I’m sure you will find uh interesting so yeah please do I I’ll do that and I’ll run that through as well so uh it’s been an absolute pleasure it’s been great talking to you and uh I I feel honored being your inaugural uh Australian yes it was an honor to have you sir and am I saying your last name correctly tralis tralis yep that’s that’s it’s it’s it’s uh it’s a hard one it’s uh everybody thinks uh Greek but it’s uh Cornish from Cornwall in England so oh interesting okay that was my uh that was my history yeah well brother honor to have you like I said can you I’m gonna do the outro can you hang on just like three minutes I get back with you can do not a problem all right the great Mark drales um fascinating I was everything I thought it would be so fun to hear about what Australian police are doing especially out in the bush uh the guy was responsible for everything he’s got multiple hats he had to wear um so cool so thank you Mark for coming on thank you everybody for listening I really really appreciate you and uh most of all I really appreciate the patreon sergeants who I’m talking about is Sheriff Ron oifer Andy Adam McMahon the Great Clark lockoff the great Nancy Hammond Zack Haney everybody Brad Thompson Kyle Roberts the great Jace Crow everyone Christian the great Elliot syes Dave Elman everybody Richard tolls keep on trucking brother be safe out there Doug and Kelly Newman love you guys C at church the Great Dan Carlson from Bley boards check him out amazing woodwork Scott young Wayne M Mill retired TF and author the great Thomas Connell Dennis keriso everyone George Tessier see at church brother Iceman from mocop Chronicles check out his podcast Greg Gad boy the great Ben Peter Scott minkler Tammy Walsh hold it down to dispatch Shan Clifford Sasha McNab the great Mike win everyone Jason laau Lauren Simpson Jake pinino John shoem maker James Rose the great Seth that’s right the one and only Tony py William James long that’s Deputy William James long to you the great and gigantic Andy bigs Chris June the great Adam mihal Gary Steiner my man and the handsome Lane Campbell woo guys thank you so much for supporting the show keeping the lights on paying for all the bills I TR truly truly appreciate it and I will see everybody next week