[wordup] How the police force has changed

[Adam Shand]

I don't know anything about the back story of this so I can't comment  
on how fair or biased this story is (or even if it's actually based on  
a true story).  Regardless of the particular details I like this story  
and agree with the spirit of it.

As a side note I've just finished reading Cory Doctorow's "Little  
Brother" (available for free download under a Creative Commons  
license).  It's written as a book for young teenagers but is a really  
easy, fun read for adults as well.  However it's also a highly  
political and angry "what if" story about terrorism being used to  
justify the abuse of power.  Cory's love of geekery and background as  
technical advisor for the Electronic Frontier Foundation shines  
through.  While I agree with almost everything he has to say, I wonder  
if perhaps it's a little too angry for the mainstream to take is  
seriously.  If anybody reads it I'd love to hear your thoughts.

http://craphound.com/littlebrother/
http://books.google.com/books?id=x1Q9TxhYA3sC

Adam.

Via: Google News Alert for "Adam Shand"
Source: http://theincblot.blogspot.com/2009/08/adam-shand-on-brian-skull-murphy-and.html

August 19, 2009
Adam Shand on Brian 'Skull' Murphy and how the police force has changed

What a wonderful world of hindsight we live in. Today we conclude that  
police like Brian Murphy got too close to villains and were corrupted  
in the process. I would argue that police of today are too far away.  
There is an ever-expanding array of technology available to police to  
ensure they don’t get too close to their targets. In fact, with  
surveillance technology, the officer may never look an angry man in  
the face before he arrests him. The cops can eavesdrop on  
conversations of villains, track their movements with devices hidden  
in their cars, or simply follow their mobile telephone signal. Despite  
this, there are still lots of guilty men going free because the cops  
did not do their jobs properly.

In Murphy’s day, to keep tabs on a villain you had to be in his pub,  
his line of sight and often right up in his face. It took some courage  
and guile. Today the force is largely reactive. The cops will wait  
till they can lock a bloke up before they move.

In Murphy’s day, it was standard practice to let a bloke know he was  
being watched, that the cops knew what mischief was being committed.  
It was an early warning system that helped keep the peace. Today, if a  
member of VicPol were to do this, he would find himself charged with  
perverting the course of justice.

In 1978, two Perth detectives asked Murphy to set up a meeting with  
Christopher Dale Flannery in Melbourne. Flannery would later become  
famous as “Rentakill”, one of the country’s most notorious hitmen. But  
at this time, he was a minor crim just out of jail, working as a  
bouncer at a sleazy St Kilda nightclub where Murphy operated his  
informer network.

Flannery had form in the West having beaten an armed-robbery charge  
for the hold-up of a David Jones store in 1974. Murphy promised  
Flannery that the West Australian cops wouldn’t arrest him, question  
him or belt him. They just wanted to tell him something.

Flannery agreed to meet them at Marchetti’s Latin Quarter in the city  
but only after a good deal of cajoling. After a couple of drinks over  
entrées and idle chit-chat, he grew increasingly agitated.

“So what’s all this about?” he asked.

“Well,” said one of the detectives. “We know that you’re planning to  
break your mate Archie Butterly out of Fremantle Jail with a  
helicopter.”

Flannery’s face froze.

“You should be aware that you’ll be flying in Swanbourne Army Barracks  
airspace, where the SAS are based.” He paused. “If they spot you,  
they’ll shoot you out of the fucking sky. So I’d think twice about it  
if I were you.”

Flannery was thunderstruck. He jumped up as if to leave the  
restaurant, but then his face softened. He thrust out his hand and  
shook with the Perth detectives.

“Thanks very much. You’ve probably just saved my life,” he said with  
genuine gratitude. Flannery was now indebted to Murphy.

Today this kind of deal making is way out of bounds. Imagine if  
Flannery had decided to carry on with breaking Butterly out of jail in  
a spectacular hail of gunfire. Imagine if the SAS, as expected, did  
shoot the pair of them out of the sky, the flaming helicopter crashing  
down on Fremantle’s residential areas. Imagine the scandal if it came  
out that police in two states had prior knowledge of the plot. The  
headlines would be irresistible. Rather than arresting Flannery on  
conspiracy, they had tipped him off and bought him dinner to boot. It  
doesn’t bear thinking about the aftermath. But none of this happened.  
Flannery dropped his plan and was grateful to Murphy. For the next  
year or so, Flannery and his network of villains in St Kilda fizzed to  
Murphy. Murphy even had advance warning Flannery planned to kill a  
solicitor Roger Wilson before it happened. He also tipped off the  
homicide squad that Flannery had killed another man, an associate from  
the St Kilda disco where they worked. The calculated gamble of tipping  
Flannery off had paid off, even if the homicide squad did little with  
the precious information that Murphy passed on.

It’s easy to condemn the past. Murphy broke plenty of laws in the  
service of what he was as his duty. Yet it was because of men like  
Murphy that police have the equipment and powers they do today. I  
would argue they are only marginally more effective than the old  
cohort, despite their obvious advantages.