Eastern Freeway crash a tragic reminder of police sacrifice
There are more questions than answers over the appalling Eastern Freeway collision that killed four police officers — but there have been a few significant clues as the grim investigation continues, writes Andrew Rule.
Andrew Rule
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Just four months ago, a young man our family has known all his life graduated from the Police Academy at Glen Waverley with nearly 60 others, all of them looking forward to a career serving the public.
Their families were there to see the newly-minted police members. It was hard to tell who was prouder, the graduates or their parents, grandparents and partners.
That was then. On Wednesday night, one of our friend’s training mates was killed in the appalling collision in which four police died when a semi-trailer inexplicably mowed them down beside the Eastern Freeway between Kew and Bulleen.
His name was Josh Prestney and he was 28.
Josh had just begun his new role in road policing when his life was snuffed out in a moment along with the three others: Constable Glen Humphris, and senior constables Lynette Taylor and Kevin King.
It is a reminder of not only how fragile life is but of how police, especially young police, put their lives in danger each time they start a shift.
It is the most junior police who spend most of their time on the street and on the roads dealing with the public.
For the families of the dead, of course, their grief is bottomless and timeless. It will not fade, merely become more bearable as time passes.
Whether there is some innocent medical explanation, or whether there is criminal carelessness or malice aforethought is not yet known, but one thing is certain: police are working around the clock to find out.
Late yesterday there were still more questions than answers, but the scenario grew increasingly grim with each passing hour.
Why would a truck drive illegally down the emergency lane? Why would there be no obvious sign of swerving or braking? Why would it, apparently, hit two cars and a group of people at speed?
In the frantic aftermath of the collision yesterday, one version of events started to take shape.
Police told other police, who told former police and family and friends, that an apparently identical truck had been pulled over on the same freeway a little earlier that evening, further east.
Allegedly, the driver of that truck had angrily abused police when issued with two on-the-spot infringement notices for driving offences.
Allegedly, that truck driver was known to police because of an association with groups that come under police notice from time to time.
So while the initial focus was on the driver of the black Porsche pulled over for allegedly driving at excessive speeds, the main thrust of the investigation from the start was on the truck driver.
It was significant that the truck driver, Singh Bajwa, was placed under police guard in hospital.
Then there was the decision to brief the Homicide Squad, given that the Major Collision Investigation Unit is highly trained to investigate road deaths.
Suspects are from time to time placed under police guard in hospital, but they nearly always have already been charged, or are about to be charged, with serious offences.
The truck driver in this case was not injured but suffered what Chief Ashton called “a medical episode”, apparently after the collision.
While specialist investigators search for the truth, the other 18,000 members of the police family will get on with the job we pay them for: to preserve life and property.
The tragedy, rightly, has been labelled the worst in Victoria Police’s long history. Worse than the Kelly Gang outrage of 1878, when Ned Kelly and his fellow armed robbers shot dead three police at Stringybark Creek in the ranges near Mansfield.
Tragedy brings out the best and worst in human nature. While good Samaritans rushed to help dead and dying police after the truck crushed them and the sports car, the Porsche driver took photographs and then fled.
The wanted driver, mortgage broker Richard Pusey, allegedly thought it was a good idea to post the photographs online overnight before handing himself in to police yesterday.
Posting the photographs is a decision that might be linked to the fact that he allegedly tested positive to drugs at the scene.
In the clear light of day, it is a decision he might already regret.
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