The Victoria Police squad tasked with solving the crimes victims don’t want them to solve
When these cops turn up to hospital to see a shooting victim, they are met with a wall of silence. Their job is to crack the cases that even the victims don’t want cracked.
Victoria
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They are tasked with solving the crimes that no one wants them to solve … even the victims.
Detectives in the Armed Crime Squad investigate non-fatal shootings but most of the time those who have survived the attack don’t want to talk, or worse, try and throw them off-track.
“On a lot of occasions we get called to a hospital and they give basic details but often it’s not accurate or they simply say, ‘I’m not prepared to tell you’,” Detective Inspector Adam Tilley said.
“They might give us their name and address but the location of where the crime was committed is important to us, who was involved, what vehicles and quite often the members from Armed Crime are given nothing from the victim.”
Detective Senior Sergeant Al Hanson added: “You’ve got people who are known to police who don’t want to assist and you’ve also got people who are fearful.
“Even though they are the victim of a serious crime they are fearful of helping in case something worse happens, further retribution against themselves or their families.”
But every case is thoroughly investigated, with or without the help of the victim, to protect the larger community.
“There’s a real necessity, in the absence of co-operation, to progress inquiries because in a lot of cases we have offenders running round the streets with firearms,” Detective Sergeant Paul Mullenger said.
“So a key aim for us is to try and mitigate that risk for others in the community.
“Some people will ask why we go to such lengths to help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, why we are helping a criminal who’s potentially been shot at by another criminal, why we don’t just let them shoot it out? We need to hold people to account because if we don’t, that can lead to innocent lives being lost.”
Sen Sgt Hanson added: “The people going around shooting people are not the smartest people in the state and if an innocent person gets hit, well, it’s of no consequence to them. So we need to hold people to account and let them know we know they are responsible for offending.
“It may not lead to charges on all occasions, but we cannot and will not let that stuff go because otherwise community safety is at risk.”
Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Dave Shannon said this motivated detectives to be relentless in pursuing all avenues.
“The one thing we say when we are at the hospital is you don’t need to help but we are still going to investigate and we are going to do everything we can to investigate this,” he said.
“We’ll be back tomorrow and the next day and the next. We are not going to stop until we’ve solved this.
“And we’re pretty good at solving them because we are so used to people not helping us. We work really hard to get the information that they don’t want to give us.
“So we just backtrack and backtrack and backtrack on their movements as far as we can to get all the evidence we need to identify crime scenes and motivations, where they’ve been and who they’ve been with, what their histories are and if they are feuding with anyone.”
The 45-person squad, a third of which is women, sits within the State Anti-Gangs Division of Victoria Police.
“We have a lot of buy-in with (bikie-busting) Echo Taskforce, the Illicit Firearms Squad, the Fugitive Squad and Taskforce Lunar (investigating the tobacco wars),” Sen Sgt Shannon said.
“We work a lot with those guys as we tend to see there are firearms in that world.
“A lot of the shootings that occur, we want to know what’s led to that — is it bikie related, is it tobacco related. There are a lot of overlaps with other units.”
They also investigate kidnappings, which can be extremely stressful, knowing you are in a race against time.
“It’s high pressure,” Sergeant Mullenger said.
“With kidnapping situations we’re here to investigate and prosecute offenders committing crimes but front of mind is always the hostage and ensuring they are safe.
“So that’s stressful, especially when you are dealing with situations where it’s a domestic type scenario, a female generally. There’s an immense amount of pressure. You want to be doing everything in your power to locate and liberate the hostage.
“It’s very high pressure because in the worst case scenario they can become deceased. We don’t see that a lot, thankfully, but that’s what we are doing, working to literally preserve a life. We have influence on who lives and dies.
“We treat every one at the highest level and it gets the response of all specialists of Victoria Police because we know these crimes in action are high risk.”
It’s not unusual for 30 to 40 specialists to gather in the Major Incident Room (MIR) in the Spencer Street police headquarters to investigate someone being taken against their will.
“We have negotiators, we have surveillance teams, we’ll have the special operations group, technical support, analysts — we all come together in the MIR and you have to get straight into it,” Sen Sgt Hanson said.
“A live kidnapping, you can’t put that on hold. You can’t say, we’ll get to that later. You have to drop everything. It’s a crime in action. And we respond 24/7.”
Most kidnappings are resolved within 16 hours but some last several days.
A woman was kidnapped from Seaford in December 2022, dragged into a car and driven to multiple addresses in rural Victoria where she was shot at, stabbed and assaulted over three days.
“We had no phone numbers for her or the offender so it was a matter of just trying to turn up where they were,” Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Brad Potts said.
An off-duty police officer spotted the car we were looking for and then a surveillance team tracked the vehicle.
“The Special Operations Group conducted a dynamic mobile intercept arrest in Seaford,” Acting Sen Sgt Potts said.
“She was liberated and he was arrested.”
A sawn off rifle was found in the car.
He eventually pleaded guilty in June this year and was sentenced to seven years in prison with a non-parole period of four years and nine months.
Sen Sgt Hanson said they often know the identity of who has been taken and who’s taken them and know the kidnapper has a significant propensity for violence.
“We know because they’ve said to their former domestic partner ‘next time I’m going out with a bang and I’m going to kill you and kill myself’.”
“Knowing that there’s that potential to happen we are desperate to find where the hostage is and where the offender is. It puts a lot of pressure on to recover them safely.”
The nature of the work makes planning a day somewhat difficult.
“You can have three kidnappings in one day and then you might not have one for two weeks.
“But you also might have a kidnapping one day, a non-fatal shooting at the same time and then an armed robbery comes in. You just can’t predict it,” he said.
He added: “If something happens, everything gets dropped. If it’s a shooting, you need deployment in the field straight away. If it’s a kidnapping, you need deployment straight away. If it’s an armed robbery, you need deployment straight away. It’s unpredictable, it’s busy and you never know when you are going to get that next call. You just have to be ready.”
The squad’s unsolved crimes
KELVIN THE CYCLIST
Detectives believe it was a case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’ when then 72-year-old grandfather Kelvin Tennant was shot at while riding his bike in north east Victoria in 2017.
The cyclist was on the Myrtleford-Everton Rail Trail at noon on 18 February when it is believed a man got out of a dark-coloured sedan and started firing.
“Kelvin was just an innocent grandfather going for a bike ride along the trail, minding his own business and doing what he loves,” Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Brad Potts said.
“No one would have known he was going to be there at that time. There were periods where he didn’t have anyone cycling next to him. He was wearing a helmet so you wouldn’t know who it was. Unfortunately for him, it was just wrong place, wrong time.”
Kelvin was extremely lucky to survive after being shot multiple times in the upper body, including his head.
“We are desperate to solve this one. It’s certainly a bit of a mystery,” Acting Sen Sgt Potts said.
“It was in a remote area, away from the road, away from cars that were going past.”
He added: “We are hopeful for Kelvin that we will be able to solve it. His wife had cancer at the time and unfortunately she has since passed away.
“So we are hopeful for something for him, for his family, to be able to bring this person to court.
REWARD – $500,000
ARMAGUARD
Only one person carried out an armed robbery on an Armaguard delivery at a suburban shopping centre, but police are convinced others will know who did it.
The guards were removing their holdings from the van at 8.14am on 14 February 2018 at Waverley Gardens Shopping Centre when the offender produced a long-arm firearm and demanded they “fill up the bag”.
He fled the scene on a motorbike with a large quantity of cash and was last seen heading eastbound on Brady Road in Dandenong South at 8.24am.
“The offender was fully covered up with a helmet and navy blue and black coloured jacket and black motorbike pants and gloves and white boots on,” Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Brad Potts said.
“The two guards involved, whilst not injured, were really traumatised by it as well as a number of witnesses who were at the shopping centre at the time.”
He added: “This was carried out by one person but I’m certain others will have knowledge of it. Something like this would require some amount of planning.
“I think people would be aware of the preparation or post offence, people will know who did it.
“This crime is quite rare so something as significant as this, someone will know about it, and someone will know who’s done it. It’s just getting that person to tell us,” Acting Sen Sgt Potts said.
REWARD – $350,000
DOUGLAS MIKHAEEL
A gang of masked men followed notorious underworld figure Douglas Mikhaeel from a birthday party before ambushing him at a rail crossing, shooting him in the legs several times in front of his partner and two young children.
The shocking attack happened at Deer Park train station on Mt Derrimut Road at 9pm on 20 January 2023.
Amazingly, he was still able to drive himself to Sunshine Hospital, ten minutes away.
“The hospital notified police of a man presenting with gunshot wounds and it turned out to be a high profile organised crime identity,” Detective Sergeant Paul Mullenger said.
“The boom gates had come down and while he was sitting there waiting, he was ambushed by a group who came to the driver’s side of the vehicle and discharged several shots.”
His nine and 10 year old niece and nephew were in the back seats and his partner was sitting next to him.
“It certainly was a targeted attack in that organised crime landscape but we’ve not had a great deal of success unfortunately,” Sgt Mullenger said.
“It’s been some time since the incident and if the rumour mill has been running hot, or people are talking about it, then we’d love to know.
Sgt Mullenger said the victim had been “uncooperative” but “we’re certainly still interested”.
“In the absence of co-operation we still want to catch up with those who are running around shooting people at 9pm,” he said.
Solved
CHRISTOPHER HILLMAN
Christopher Hillman shot a man dead in the head with a sawn off shotgun before going on the run and committing a week-long drug-fuelled crime spree.
Three days after the homicide in Frankston on 18 September 2021, he turned up with a gun at the home of a witness to the shooting and demanded to be driven around.
Hillman has then picked up a woman and held both against their will at a nearby property.
“They stay there for a bit and then the hostages are able to leave and that’s when it comes to us,” Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Dave Shannon said.
“So at one point it is a murder investigation and then it becomes a murder and kidnap investigation. So we worked with the homicide squad trying to track him down.”
Hillman then commits another kidnapping in Frankston – this time an elderly couple aged 65 and 76 – and forces them to drive him around the Mornington Peninsula, before directing them to a house in Cranbourne.
“It turns into a siege and that siege runs for about 12-hours,” Acting Sen Sgt Shannon said.
“He holds two people hostage for about 12-hours and then realises there is no way out for him, so he ingests some kind of poison and hides himself in the roof space.
“Special Operations Group forced entry and found him in the roof space with a gun beside him.
“We tried negotiating with him but he didn’t want to surrender so he thought the only way out was to take his own life. So that's why he ingested a mixture of a few things and then climbed into the roof space where he hoped he would die.”
Hillman was sentenced in April this year to 28 years in prison with a non-parole period of 23 years.
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