Friends, colleagues pay tribute to Senior Constable David Masters
The life and work of the policeman hit and killed by a car on the Bruce Highway last weekend has been remembered by his colleagues … including his time in the ‘Mounties’, the deep bond he shared with his horse, and the tragic way they were parted.
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On a dark stretch of the Bruce Highway, while people slept safely in their beds, two police officers waited next to a concrete barricade to stop the flight of an allegedly stolen car.
Senior Constable David Masters, a proud policeman, a larrikin with the hardest handshake you’ve ever felt, tossed a set of road spikes. According to police, the car swerved and hit him.
Minutes later, around 3am, Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll was roused from her bed.
“You just know,” she said to journalists later that morning, her eyes red-rimmed, “those phone calls are going to be horrific news.”
Across Brisbane, phones kept ringing. Two senior officers drove to the Masters’ house – just a short distance from the scene of the crash – and knocked on the door.
It was their job to tell Dave’s wife Sharon and their son Jack the terrible news: he wasn’t coming home. And worse – a murder investigation was now under way.
Ms Carroll arrived at Police HQ around 4am for a briefing. By the time she fronted the media at 10.30am, she’d visited the place where he’d died, driven to the Deception Bay Police Station to sit with his colleagues and then to Dave’s home to meet his family.
“When I got the call on Saturday, I just, I don’t know … I’ve been through shock, I’ve been through bucket loads of tears. He was very, very special to me,” colleague and close friend Senior Constable Natalie Lewis-Grofski said.
“He’s irreplaceable. There will never be another like him. Honestly, I’ve never met anyone like him.
“Everyone is doing it really tough. Really tough.”
Natalie met her best mate when he joined the Queensland Police Service’s mounted unit. Dave, 53, had joined the service late in life after working for some years as a diesel mechanic.
But he’d grown up on a property and been around horses for much of his life. He was an animal lover. The “Mounties” was a good fit.
“Dave loved to help people. He was just one of those types of people who loved to be around people. He loved to help, he loved to be involved,” Natalie said.
And he was funny too. Most of the time he had no idea how funny he was. When the grooms trimmed the horses’ tails, he took a swath of chestnut hair and tucked it into his cap, used another piece to fashion a fake moustache.
He had so much time for people. Police horses are an unmissable presence – a beacon that encourages interaction between police and the community.
“He would give people all the time in the world,” Natalie said.
“He was that person that would stay until they’d had enough. He didn’t go, you’ve had your pats, we’ve got work to do. He stayed until everyone was done.”
Dave, who joined the service in 2011, began working part-time at the Mounted Unit in 2014 and became full-time in 2015.
Mounted unit officer in charge, Senior Sergeant Paul Mason, said Dave was a brave rider, willing to tackle even the toughest ex-racehorse. He said as a police officer, Dave was calm, level-headed and mature – and very funny.
“You have to be a fairly unique person to be able to, I guess, put your bum on the saddle of an ex-racehorse,” he said.
“They are extremely unpredictable.
“It’s a fairly unique skill set and that was something that Dave had in spades.”
In 2015, Dave met Manny.
Originally named Ballara Armande, Manny was a big, muscular Percheron cross – a French breed known for their size and intelligence.
Prior to training as a police troop horse, he’d been owned by a woman named Julie Jennings. Julie hadn’t wanted to sell the big black horse with the distinctive white blaze. But she’d thought it would be good for him.
Dave understood what Manny meant to Julie. He kept in constant contact with her, sending her updates on the big Percheron.
“He’d always send me photos,” Julie said.
“I was only looking at those photos yesterday. They were just a team. A great team.”
People who knew Julie and Manny would spot the big horse on patrol and tell her.
“They certainly got around,” she said.
“That many people in the community I work with would say, `hey, we saw Manny on the weekend’, `we saw him at the Willowbank Raceway’, `we saw him in town at the fireworks’.
“Or he was in the main street of Ipswich doing a patrol, out at Rosewood. He was up the coast, on the beach. He and Dave were everywhere.”
In 2018, Natalie and Dave were among a contingent from the mounted unit who were deployed to work at the Gympie Muster.
“Manny got kicked in the leg by another horse and Dave and I ended up, late night, trying to find a vet,” Natalie said.
“X-rays showed he had a fracture in his leg.”
They drove the injured horse back to Brisbane to their own vet, who tied Manny up in a stable to keep him secure. They’d need to keep him still and upright for two weeks to give the fracture time to heal.
“Dave went and visited him every day, before work and after work. He brushed him, loved him. Took him treats. He was so dedicated to him,” Natalie said.
“But unfortunately the horse managed to get down on the ground one night and roll. And when he got back up, the fractured leg broke. He had to be put to sleep.”
Julie remembers it well. Dave called her as he made a frantic dash to the vet clinic to be Manny as he was euthanised. He wouldn’t make it in time.
“I didn’t want to part with him but I’m glad he went there (to the mounted unit),” she said.
“I knew Dave loved him.
“It ripped him apart not to be able to be with him in his last moments.”
Dave and Julie – at their own expense – organised to have Manny cremated. They shared the ashes.
They kept part of Manny’s mane – Dave taking a loop and attaching it to a clip that he kept in his car. He kept a piece of Manny with him until the day he died.
Natalie had Manny’s horseshoes chrome-plated, including a police badge into the design. She’d had to ask Dave to trust her with them as she secretly sent them away to New Zealand to have them memorialised. Dave and Julie got one each.
“I feel for his wife Sharon and his son Jack. And Nat and the girls at the Mounted Unit,” Julie said.
“He was just a lovely man. It’s hit everyone hard.
“I take some comfort knowing he is with Manny again, and maybe they are patrolling the heavens.”
Dave continued on with the Mounties until 2019 but the unit “lost its gloss” for him after Manny’s death.
“It was time to do something different, time to be close to his family because the mounted unit was obviously an hour plus drive for him each way and he was very much a family man,” Natalie said.
“He loved his wife and his son Jack very much and it was sort of a bit of a lifestyle decision to spend more time with his family.
“And he loved his operational police work.”
They kept in touch. Dave was her friend, her mentor. She’d call him for advice and he’d always answer, day or night.
He was a workhorse, arriving early, leaving late. He’d do paperwork in his own time so he’d have more time in the community.
“He never neglected his duty, never did his job by halves,” Natalie said.
“If he had a job to do, he did it properly and he did it over the top.
“Not only have I lost someone that I confide in, someone that I go to for operational advice, but I’ve also lost pretty much my best mate. I’ll really feel him not here.
“I wish he wasn’t there.
“But knowing Dave and his drive and determination to make sure that no-one got away, he would have been there doing everything he could.
“He would never back away from a job.
“I just don’t even know what I’ll do without him.”
A funeral for Senior Constable David Masters will be held on Friday.
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