Only extraordinary luck has kept some SA police officers from their
deaths in the line of duty. Young Constable Bob Causby, under fire
from a supermarket breaker in the 1960s, took one bullet straight
through his cap badge, and a second in his arm - and survived.
Another then young constable, and now Police Association president,
Peter Alexander, was also on duty in the early hours of that morning.
He remembers that, when Constable Causby and his partner arrived
at the Norwood supermarket, they faced an offender “armed to the teeth”.
“Several shots were fired at him and his partner,” said Mr Alexander.
“How easily he could have become a statistic.
“I can always remember being back at work that night and thinking
that it could have been any one of us, of that era, taking that bullet.”
Mr Alexander’s reflections on the good fortune of the survivors came
at the Police Remembrance Day memorial service at Fort Largs on September
29, when he paid tribute to the tragically unlucky.
As he laid a wreath on behalf of the Police Association, in honour
of SA’s 55 fallen officers since 1847, he thought especially of the
10 whom offenders had murdered.
One who came to his mind was 23-year-old foot constable, John Holman,
shot dead in Grenfell St in 1929.
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Police Association president, Peter Alexander,
pays tribute to the fallen (left).
A family pays its respects at the wall of remembrance.
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Another was 38-year-old senior constable, Harold Pannell, who tried
to execute a warrant to seize property from a Bow Hill farm in 1957.
The farm owner - named in the warrant - blasted Snr Const Pannell
with a shotgun.
Mr Alexander remembered recent murders, too, such as that of 30-year-old
first class constable, Lyncon Williams, who responded to reports of
gunfire at Blair Athol in August, 1985. A 17-year-old shot him dead
in his patrol car as he arrived on the scene.
“The most recent one was (31-year-old) David Barr, and I still think
of him regularly,” said Mr Alexander. “I was doing some study with
him just before his death, so I got to know him a little bit personally.
“David (a senior constable) responded to people being accosted at
the Salisbury Interchange. The tragedy was that an offender stabbed
him through the heart. I can remember the day well, and the shock
of it all.
“There was a police officer responding to a call from the community,
and he paid the ultimate price.”
Descendants and some immediate family members of fallen officers
formed part of a congregation of about 200 who gathered for the 11am
memorial service. Held annually throughout Australasia, it commemorates
all police officers of that region killed in the line of duty.
Governor Marjorie Jackson-Nelson’s representative, Penny Stratmann,
led the wreath-laying, ahead of Deputy Premier and Police Minister
Kevin Foley, and Opposition police spokesman, Robert Brokenshire.
Senior Australian Defence Force officers also paid their respects
with wreaths, as did officials of SA’s fire and ambulance services.
Police chaplain, Reverend David Marr, read the names of Australasian
officers who had died on duty in the previous 12 months. Among them
were NSW officer, Shelley Davies, and New Zealand senior constable,
Phillip Wipatene.
Mr Alexander stressed that those lost were “not just names on plaques
or memorials”. “They were people - with loved ones and families,”
he said. “Some of them were very young, and so you wonder what their
lives would have been.
“The reality is that every tour of duty is a real threat, particularly
for first-response people, such as patrol officers and detectives
on investigations. They never know what they’re going to. It’s the
unexpected.”
