Andrew Rule: Public go private to tackle car thugs
A spate of daring car thefts in exclusive suburbs has wealthy residents recruiting private security teams. Hardly an endorsement for local policing, writes Andrew Rule.
Andrew Rule
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Robbie Day isn’t his real name. But the home invasion he and his wife suffered on January 6 was real, all right. So real that his wife has insisted on moving from their Hawthorn house to a secure fourth-floor apartment many suburbs away.
It happened like this. The couple had been looking after a friend’s dog. They had to let it in and out the back door to do what dogs do and left the door unlocked while having dinner.
Robbie had earlier parked his high-performance car in the drive to unload documents and shopping near the front door. But before he went out later to move the car into the garage he heard the front door open and the car start. The thieves had sneaked in the back door and grabbed the keys while the couple were in another part of the house.
Robbie rushed outside. He saw at least two young men in his car, reversing into the street to make their escape. In his haste, Robbie knocked down a heavy mirror near the front door, which crashed to the floor with a noise his wife thought was a gunshot. He ran after the car. He saw a black 4WD also speed away.
Until he came back inside, his wife feared he had been shot or run over, a thought that still troubles her.
The stolen vehicle was never found. Few are. Some are stashed to use as getaway cars in other crimes (such as the freeway shooting of Paul Virgona) and then torched. Others simply vanish and this seems to be one of those.
Robbie is in the corporate bookmaking business. His clients include street-smart people who know police and underworld identities. He was told that a particular outlaw motorcycle boss recruits under-age, over-size thieves to steal high-end cars.
Each stolen car represents instant cash for “kids” who can’t see, or don’t care, that they are expendable pawns for organised crime.
The motorcycle gang leader is a modern-day Fagan manipulating with many artful dodgers. He is already a notorious figure. Let’s call him Tony Tattslotto, because he has so far been luckier than a lottery winner and has a lot of tatts.
Robbie often sees Tony’s over-inked torso in a city gymnasium. But there is no way he will be confronting him about his stolen car. The reason is that Tony Tattslotto always has a big minder with a small bag. In it, no doubt, is one of the handguns that senior police have conceded are a growing threat in a city where there are shootings every other week.
Robbie Day is young, fit, confident and well-off. He should be on top of the world. But he and his wife have joined the long list of victims intimidated by the threat of violence. Crooks 1, citizens 0.
No wonder, then, that those who can afford it are pooling their resources to do the job that used to be left to the police. As certain suburbs are targeted by potentially-violent crooks out to steal high-end cars, more people are considering private security guards.
One group of Toorak residents is currently auditioning their own security staff to patrol their once-peaceful streets. The idea is that the suburban soldiers go around certain blocks and watch who comes and goes in select streets.
Jewellery and art collections and the off-chance of cash has always attracted crooks to the best postcodes, which is why the average Toorak mansion now has as many security cameras as the White House.
But there is a difference between old-style cat burglars and modern car thieves. Cat burglars are athletic types who scale tall walls and second-storey balconies to steal valuables and cash. They were unwelcome, apart from when performing the occasional “inside” insurance job, but rarely confrontational. They are sneak thieves who like houses where no-one is home.
But times change and so does crime. Hi-tech security has made old-school burglary tougher, but it doesn’t deter the new breed of car thieves who take the view that while cameras can record crime, they don’t prevent it. Cameras now tell the tale of Toorak after dark. Between midnight and dawn, swears one well-known resident, some apparently quiet residential streets are “like the Boxing Day sales”, with strangers snooping around looking at cars, tapping notes into mobile phones.
These midnight ramblers, the theory goes, are spotters for car-thieving crews willing to break into garages or houses to get the keys to expensive imported vehicles. When the cars are home so are their owners. That’s the bit that worries people, and no wonder.
No surprise, then, that a like-minded group of residents pooling their resources to protect their families and their property from the sort of crimes we used to associate with South Africa or South America.
There have always been cashed-up citizens willing to hire brawn and brains to protect themselves and their families. One example of several is former Lord Mayor Irvin Rockman, who surrounded himself with armed off-duty police for years, splashing cash to make himself feel safe from the bash or the slash.
Rockman had become fearful after being accused of a cocaine-importing conspiracy that fell apart when a key witness, Cassandra Ogdon, apparently took her own life in 1987 before a scheduled trial. Rockman was never charged but he didn’t drop his guard.
Even when he wasn’t surrounded by human watchdogs, he had a highly-trained rottweiler attack dog. Everywhere that Rocky went, the rotty was sure to go. The dog stayed around longer than most of Rockman’s wives, and was well-looked after when his master passed on.
The advantage of the rottweiler, he once confided, was that it responded only to commands from him. Unlike a human bodyguard, the big dog wouldn’t be deterred by someone with a knife or gun, which made it formidable.
Some preferred their watchdogs to have influence and access to law enforcement and the legal system. Such as the captain of industry who has employed former police for decades, buying not only their experience and expertise but contacts on both sides of the law.
The same man has recruited not just highly-regarded detectives but former Special Operations Group marksmen to keep a buffer between his family and the world. On occasion, he retained boxers such as one-time Australian heavyweight champ Jimmy Thunder to accompany him in tricky industrial negotiations.
Like the Boy Scouts, the businessman believes in being prepared. Interestingly, he and most of his family live in the heart of Toorak, where the private security patrols are going to start. Or have already started.
It could make life interesting for young car thieves who find out the hard way that their bikie paymasters aren’t the only heavy hitters around.
It means the state’s already troubled police leaders have another headache. They can choose between criticising “private police forces” and doing something about it. Such as putting their best detectives on the mystery of what happens to all the German-made cars that disappear as completely as if someone was shipping them to faraway places.
Meanwhile, of course, when the crooks are scared out of silvertail suburbs, they will strike elsewhere. So no one is necessarily safe. It’s the law of the jungle.