Dec 2000 Volume 81 Number 12
"serving the protectors"
| Dec 2000 Volume 81 Number 12 "serving the protectors" |
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A VERY PUBLIC STANDOFF |
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| By
Brett Williams |
Just as a woman motorist and her children were about to become an armed offender’s carjacking victims, Constable Anthony Jones drew his revolver. His heart pounded as he stood in the busy suburban intersection of Flaxmill and Main South Roads, bellowing: “Stop! Get away from the car!”
Then wanted criminal, Sean Murphy, ignored Jones’ demands, and yelled: “F- - - off! Leave me alone!”
Jones, then 33, knew other police had seized a loaded sawn-off shotgun from beneath Murphy’s bed earlier that day in October last year.
And now, Murphy was keeping his hands covered with a jacket. Jones had no way of knowing what kind of weapon lay grasped in his hands.
So, with the kind of tension most only see in Hollywood action films, the two faced a life-threatening standoff. And, as that tension grew, Jones perceived time as moving in slow motion.
“There was no way I was going to let him get in that car,” says Jones. “He was about to go for the (car) door, and I thought: ?He’s armed, and you’ve got the lady in there with kids’.
“Whether he would have kicked them out or kept them, I don’t know - but I didn’t want hostages (taken).”
However, with banked-up traffic waiting at a red light in the northbound lanes of Main South Rd, how could Jones fire his revolver without some risk to the public? He understood the danger, and even considered returning his gun to its holster and simply “running at him (Murphy)”.
Jones had first heard of Murphy during a muster-room parade at the beginning of his afternoon shift that day. He saw his picture in a circular; and he learned of the many break-in and illegal use offences for which local detectives wanted him. He also heard that Murphy intended to shoot it out with police if they ever cornered him.
The detectives announced their plans for a series of raids, from which they hoped to emerge with Murphy in custody.
One raid on a Morphett Vale house proved fruitful: the arrest of a Murphy accomplice. Just before a later raid on another Morphett Vale house, however, Murphy fled.
But, at the same time, Jones - as part of a cordon - sat parked in a nearby side street with his partner, Will Truesdale. Suddenly, they saw Murphy appear from the driveway of a neighbouring house and board a taxi! It seemed he had called the cab, jumped back fences and intended to slip casually away by car.
As the cab drove away with its passenger, Jones and Truesdale began an initially calm pursuit. But they soon sped up and quickly positioned their police car next to the cab, as both travelled along Flaxmill Rd. The two officers peered into the cab, checked their photo of Murphy, and exclaimed: “That’s him!”
They signalled “pull over”, but just as the cab stopped, Murphy jumped out and again fled.
“We stopped the police car behind the taxi, both leapt out and ran after him,” says Jones. “He ran right into the middle of the intersection, stopped and then walked towards the cars at the lights.”
Only moments into the chase, however, Truesdale had fallen and dislocated his shoulder. Jones - clad in a bulletproof vest - did not realize he was about to confront Murphy without any back-up.
“I was looking around for him (Truesdale),” says Jones. “I couldn’t find him, and thought: ?Where’s Will?’ I didn’t know what happened to him.
“All I could do was get out my location over the radio. Other patrols were transmitting at the same time, so I was trying to yell over them.”
Then, the test of wills began: Jones demanded that Murphy step away from the car and lay on the ground; Murphy insisted that Jones “back off”.
But, before Jones could pass that test, a car - with no apparent connection to the standoff - screeched to a stop in the intersection. Out of this car burst its woman driver and two men.
“Leave him alone, you f- - - ing cop!” the woman instantly shouted. Jones - bewildered by her outburst - wondered “what the hell was going on”.
“I didn’t know who they were,” he says. “I thought: ?Are they friends of his or associates?’ We heard later that he had a girlfriend who was helping him, (but) I don’t know whether that was her - I never found out.”
But, before the trio approached either Jones or Murphy, police car sirens began to wail in the distance. The sound assured Jones that other police had heard his radio call. Murphy’s backers clambered into their car and sped away.
Neither their brief appearance, however, nor the wailing sirens brought any change to the standoff. Jones kept bellowing his demands, against which Murphy continued to rail.
“It was really bizarre,” says Jones. “I was just standing there looking at his hands, because he wouldn’t take them out from his jacket. I didn’t know whether to yell: ?Bring your hands out!’ I thought: ?If he brings his hands out from under the jacket and pulls a gun, well... who knows?’ ”
But a most unlikely coincidence was about to result in much-needed help for Jones. Constable Amanda Manning - off duty and driving her car north along Main South Rd - had just stopped at the traffic lights. Sitting only metres away from the standoff, she had seen Jones sprint straight through the intersection after Murphy.
Shocked, and struggling to understand what might have led to the standoff, Manning shared Jones’ concerns about a carjacking.
With only seconds to think about the prudence of getting involved, Manning, then 21, quickly weighed up her options. Of the questions she asked herself, she remembers: “I thought: ?What do I do? Do I sit here? Do I get out?’ I decided to get out.”
Wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap - and, of course, unarmed - Manning stepped out of her car. She felt “unsure” and “very nervous”, and had not considered that Jones might not recognize her.
She walked away from the lights - between stationary cars - and approached Murphy on his side. Her actions had Jones again bewildered. “I didn’t realize it was her,” he says. “I thought: ?Who’s this?’ I was going to yell out to her: ?Get away!’ “
But Manning inched her way continually closer, until she stood almost alongside Murphy. Now, positioned in a triangle with the others, she spoke her first words to him.
“Look,” she said, “you’ve got a gun pointed to your head. I’m a cop. Get to the ground. Your best idea is to get down.”
He didn’t respond - to Manning or Jones. Only his gaze switched nervously back and forth, from one officer to the other.
By now, Manning thought Murphy looked confused. “He didn’t really know what to do,” she says. “He basically had nowhere to run.” This, she thought, was the time to strike.
“I grabbed him,” she says. “I put my hand on his neck, grabbed his arm and wrenched him to the ground. It seemed as though I just pushed him and he was down. Whether that was just the adrenaline I started feeling... (I don’t know).
“As he went to the ground he dropped the jacket. The weapon he had was a screwdriver.
“After I got him to the ground, I said to Tony: ?Put your gun away and give me your handcuffs. I don’t know why I’m doing this’.”
Only when Manning spoke did Jones recognize who she was. He remembers her action as “really quick”. “She did it in one movement,” he says. “She didn’t hesitate.”
But after she handcuffed Murphy, her legs began to shake. Says Manning: “I started thinking: ?What the hell is going on here?’ ”
Then, with his revolver re-holstered, Jones moved in, grabbed Murphy and led him off the road. The two officers had arrested their suspect, brought order back to the street and emerged uninjured.
Regard for their safety had played no part in their thinking. “I was more worried about what could have happened had I sat and done nothing,” says Manning. “My own safety didn’t come into it.”
But Manning’s safety had been more significant than anyone knew. She learned three weeks later that, at the time of the incident, she was seven weeks pregnant. The thought of her involvement in a violent arrest while she was expecting sent a shiver through her.
“If he hadn’t gone down,” she says, “I don’t know what would have happened. It could have caused me to miscarry.”
SAPOL recognized both officers with commendations for their actions. Manning received her document at Christies Beach police station last month. A date for Jones’ presentation is still to come.
Although proud, both officers today remain humble about their actions and awards. Says Jones: “Any copper would have had to do the same thing. It was me who was there, that’s all.”
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