The agency helping wounded cops and their families deal with trauma and tragedy
Forty years ago, a lone gunman shot two policemen during a routine car check and two more during the manhunt that followed. All four were seriously injured and left to cope with the psychological and physical effects of their wounds.
Andrew Rule
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Forty years ago this week a lone gunman shot two policemen during a routine car check and two more during the manhunt that followed. All four were seriously wounded, one left paraplegic. A fifth was hit, but saved by his ballistic vest.
The shooter was Pavel Marinoff, alias Max Clark, a former Bulgarian army deserter dubbed “Mad Max” for the eight months he stayed on the loose.
For the rest of 1986, he became Australia’s most wanted man, taking over from master prison escaper Russell “Mad Dog” Cox, who had been on the run since 1977.
Marinoff’s assault on the force was probably the most savage since the Kelly Gang shot three police dead at Stringybark Creek in 1878.
Because he was a previously unknown offender with no close associates or criminal history, police could not lean on the underworld for information.
Police command turned to one of its own, European-born Det. Sgt John Kapetanovski, a tough Major Crime squad veteran who could speak two Slavic languages and had contacts in the Yugoslav community.
“Kappa,” as he was called in the force, was known for his imposing physical presence and for his habit of carrying a spare snub-nose pistol in an ankle holster. He was no boy scout but he believed in being prepared — and was exactly the type needed to flush out Mad Max Marinoff before he murdered someone.
In early February 1987 Kappa got a tip from a Yugoslav source that the wanted man was hiding with a young family in semi-suburban Wallan, just north of Craigieburn.
Det. Sgt Kapetanovski was paired with a senior detective, the quietly spoken Rod MacDonald. On the morning of February 25, a man roughly resembling Marinoff left the Wallan house, driving two children to school in a white Ford panel van.
The detectives suspected it was Marinoff but could not be sure, as photographs of him were scarce and of poor quality.
The frightening thing about Marinoff was that, unlike most offenders, he was a pistol expert who had honed his skills well above the level of police.
If the man in the panel van was Marinoff, it was vital they apprehend him away from members of the public. So when the vehicle turned south from Wallan on the Hume Highway towards Melbourne, the detectives faced a snap decision to stop him before he reached the suburbs only a few minutes drive away.
They pulled the van over on the highway near Beveridge, coincidentally a few hundred metres from the house where Ned Kelly was born in 1855. The driver’s hair seemed longer and a lighter colour than Marinoff’s and he had a beard. They couldn’t be certain it was him and so kept their guns down.
Det. Sgt Kapetanovski ordered the driver to place his hands outside the door so they could see them. He seemed calm and compliant but in a split second he twisted and fired twice with a hidden handgun, hitting Kapetanovski in the shoulder and hand before pivoting left and shooting MacDonald in the chest.
Marinoff was shooting to kill but Kappa’s reflexive reaction of throwing his hand up after being hit in the shoulder probably saved him. The second bullet took the top off one finger but was deflected so it grazed Kappa’s forehead near his eyebrow. The shooter’s third shot hit MacDonald in the chest, wounding him badly.
It was devastatingly accurate shooting and Marinoff would have got away again if it weren’t for the heavy buckshot they had selected for their pump action shotguns.
MacDonald fired twice at the van as it sped away. The heavy slugs, nine in each cartridge, blasted through the side and rear panels and hit Clark’s stomach and arm. The van ran off the road not far away, went through six wire fences and stopped in a thistle-strewn paddock about 150m from the highway and a kilometre from the crime scene.
Meanwhile, the wounded pair desperately needed help. They flagged down a passing driver to ask him to stop a truck with a CB radio to call an ambulance. But they needed medical help fast, so they staggered to their Commodore. Kappa drove with one hand towards Melbourne.
After eight kilometres they stopped at a house at Craigieburn North and asked to use the phone. Both were bleeding badly. As Kapetanovski ended his call to police headquarters, he slumped to the floor. Rod MacDonald was slumped in the passenger seat of the car, bleeding.
Meanwhile, a police helicopter circled the panel van looking for signs of life. It looked as if a man was crouched in the driver’s seat so the special operations group was brought in to rush the car. The driver was dead. It wasn’t until they removed a wig that they were sure it was Marinoff, alias Max Clark.
The two injured officers were flown by helicopter to Fawkner Park and transferred to hospital where they had lifesaving surgery.
Assistant Commissioner Kelvin Glare said the pair had taken a courageous decision to intercept the offender when they did for the right reasons.
“The person was heading towards a populated area,” Glare said.
“They saw an opportunity to intercept him before he got into a crowded situation where even surveillance would have been difficult and even fraught with danger for others. They acted with great courage.”
The heroes had to cope with the psychic and physical effects of their wounds for the rest of their lives, as did the four other policemen injured by Marinoff. There’s little doubt it shortened Kappa’s life. He died at 60 in 2012.
This week, his widow and their daughter are speaking out for the first time about the invaluable support from Victoria Police Legacy that helped their family after his death.
That support will be recognised and celebrated on the inaugural National Police Legacy Day on Tuesday. Victoria Police Legacy has helped police and their families since 1980.
Kappa’s widow is a retired inspector, Margie Lewis APM, mother of Alexandra, youngest of John’s four children. She says Victoria Police Legacy was a “saviour” for her and Alexandra after his death.
Since then, Alexandra has joined the force and is now a detective senior constable.
She’s bred for the job.
A hero to Victoria, but to Alexandra he was just dad
– Olivia Jenkins
Blood bleeds blue in the Kapetanovski-Lewis household, it always has.
Years after surviving two bullets to his hand and face from the gun of a notorious gunman who shot four police officers and left one paralysed, Detective Sergeant John Kapetanovski knew his the youngest of his four children, Alexandra, would follow in his footsteps.
So did her mum, retired Inspector Margie Lewis APM.
Born after the incident, Alexandra grew up unbeknown to the fact her father was a police hero. To her he was just “dad”.
“(All I knew) was that dad would catch bad guys. I’d wake up a few times when I was younger and see dad on the TV,” she said.
The pair let Alexandra carve her own path, enrolling in law at university and jetsetting around the world before it dawned on her that her calling had been clear all along.
Tragedy would strike before John could see his daughter graduate from the Police Academy and go on to become a Detective Senior Constable.
She was just 19 years old when her dad, who had risen through the ranks to Detective Inspector, died in 2012.
Margie’s policing duties had taken a back seat to caring for John full-time in the months leading up to his death.
“I nursed him for (the last) six months because he wanted to die at home, not in the
hospital. So my whole life was looking after him. It was a heart wrenching experience
watching your husband die,” Margie said.
It seemed wrong that the veteran cop who survived being shot twice by one of the state’s most dangerous criminals would die 26 years later from lung cancer, aged 60.
Three years before he met Margie and six years before his daughter was born, wanted gunman Pavel Marinof, known as “Mad Max” pumped two shots into the decorated officer and wounded his partner Senior Detective Ron MacDonald in Wallan in 1986.
The bullets struck John’s finger and grazed his forehead.
John quickly moved his hand to cover his head, his quick reflexes from years of playing squash thought to be what saved his life.
It was all part of what his widow describes as “an interesting life” which he dedicated to his job.
John returned to duty after the shooting, but he was never the same man.
Margie believes her late husband suffered from undiagnosed PTSD.
Ahead of the inaugural National Police Legacy Day on Tuesday, the pair have paid tribute to the invaluable support offered by police legacy in the wake of John’s death.
Margie said she was suffered from so much grief that Victoria Police Legacy offered her daughter the support she couldn’t, describing it as a “saviour”.
Alexandra received emotional support and opportunities to participate in Victoria Police legacy camps, where she made good friends.
She was also gifted a generous financial gift for her 21st birthday, which made her overseas travel possible.
“Police Legacy was a big support. As a 19-year-old, my friends didn’t understand (what it
was like to lose a parent). Police Legacy did give me some sort of purpose and to know
that there are other kids in the same situation and brings us together to provide support,” she said.
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