Chopper Unchopped (54 page)

Any toe rag can jump you from behind when your back is turned. But while many will say these tactics are terrible, I am here to tell you they are all legal. Page 267 subsection 7B of the streetfighting section in the robbers’ rule book clearly states that any and all means are legal. In streetfighting there are only winners and losers. There are no rules.

In the midst of all this chaos how can you tell the top of the range fighter from the mug? That is easy. The freak streetfighter wins nearly all his fights without throwing a punch.

Death never brawls in the street. Death never has to throw a punch. Death only smiles, puts his hand inside his coat and says in a quiet voice: ‘Excuse me mate, I didn’t quite hear that. Were you talking to me?’

Men found blown away in car parks have generally been stupid enough to invite death outside for a fist fight.

Death never has to raise his voice or his fist in anger. The most polite and well mannered gent you will ever meet in the world is the hangman.

In the world of the streetfighter, the smiling death adder beats the roaring lion every time. As for karate and martial arts experts, a different form of logic is needed to combat them, and this is called Belfast logic. When faced with an enemy waving his black belt in your face, I just like to remind them that I am the holder of the black belt in Irish karate, skilled in the ancient Irish art of letting go with the sawn-off double barrelled shotgun through the dunny door, then running like hell.

In the end, the secret to everything is to think like a rattlesnake and smile like a used car salesman. And for goodness sake, don’t get that piece of advice the wrong way around. Be polite, be friendly, be non-aggressive, see trouble and avoid it, but if trouble forces itself upon you, strike first and strike hard, just like a rattlesnake.

On most occasions, even the dim-witted know when they are in the presence of death. Dave the Jew was on his way to commit a cold-blooded murder, wearing a false beard and a wig. He was dressed like a Rabbi, walking through a street in East St Kilda, carrying a bag which contained a machine pistol, loaded with a 15 shot clip, which fired .22 calibre magnum bullets.

A car load of drunken louts pulled up alongside him and drove along the side of the footpath at the same pace as the Jew was walking. They were yelling abuse and teasing this ‘Rabbi.’ It was about 8pm and one of the louts opened the back door of the car and was about to get out.

The Jew stopped walking, put his hand into the carry bag and without producing the weapon, took hold of it and aimed the end of the bag toward the car.

No-one would have noticed what the Jew had done. Then he just stood and smiled at the car full of hoods. They looked back. It may have been those big, blue, crazy eyes. It must have been something. The driver of the car said: ‘Leave him, let’s go’. The Jew was all set to pull the trigger. There was about five louts in the car and for 20 to 30 seconds they were standing on the edge of their graves, and they never even knew it. Or did they? Maybe the driver sensed something.

The man who is the most dangerous is the stone killer, or the snap killer, as the Jew calls them. He is the man prepared to kill at the first sign of danger.

A stone killer gives off a vibe most people can feel. The fool is the man who cannot feel it. The graveyards are full with the rotting bodies of fools who have not picked up the feelings.

But the wise man can pick up the feelings from the stone killer. Maybe the driver of that car was a wise man. There is no doubt his decision to move at that second saved him and his four mates.

In the movies you may see the big guy with all the muscles stand over the smaller one. In real life it is strength of mind rather than size of biceps which decides the pecking order.

The art of the streetfighter is to get in and get out with great haste and no fuss. The best ones never even get a drop of blood on their clothing.

It comes down to attitude and thinking ability. If a man with a weak mind tried to confront a man with a strong mind, the fight would not even start. The weak mind would sense the stronger one and surrender without a fight. The weak minded individual would behave like a small child in the presence of God.

There are men who are great fighters who will lay down to a stone killer. The fighter may be stronger, better, faster but he lacks the guts and the cold-blooded mentality to confront death. He knows that even if he wins the fight, he will lose in the end if he is not prepared to kill.

The psychology of fear is deeper than many people think.

I HAVE outlined the theory before that lust attacks the groin first, the brain second and then the heart. Love attacks the heart first, the brain second and then the groin. Fear attacks only the brain, then cripples every other part of the body.

Many people can control lust and to some degree control love, but few can control fear once it takes hold. Few men have learnt to control fear as few men have to confront real fear in their whole lives. I am not talking about going to the dentist or facing an angry wife with a frying pan. I am talking about facing the circumstances where your life may be on the line, and you know it. How you react and what you do may be the difference between life and death.

Love, lust and hate are the basic emotions and feelings that the average person deals with. Fear is not something the average person has to confront or even wishes to confront in an average lifetime. So using fear and controlling it is not something that the average person has to do.

The basic fear that sits in all men’s hearts is that each man knows himself. Despite the opinions of others, every man is aware that deep down he is not as good as others think, and that one day, that may be exposed.

It may be a moral or a physical thing. The man may be not as moral or as true as others believe and he fears that one day he will be exposed as a pretender. It is the same on the physical side: we know the truth about ourselves and in that knowledge is the seed of fear.

One man threatens to attack another. Abuse from both sides is tossed about freely. Then fear sets in. The man who made the threat fears the other may stand his ground, forcing him to carry out his threat, thus bringing untold trouble down on his head. If the man making the threats is confronted and does not have the courage to kill, then he will look a fool.

The man who has been threatened believes or fears that if he doesn’t stand his ground he will be made to look weak in the eyes of others.

Sometimes pride outweighs the desire for self-preservation. In the eyes of many, what other people think of you is more important than anything else. The fear of looking weak and foolish in the eyes of others overshadows the fear of death itself. But the fear of death is still real. So you see, in this sort of confrontation, we have two men very frightened for their own reasons.

But if one man uses fear as an ally, rather than an enemy, he will be the one to come out on top. Fear can be used as a weapon against one’s enemies, or you can turn it on yourself. Either way it can decide the battle.

Playing games with the mind of the other, with no real intention of acting in a physical manner, one can control fear. I will give you a basic schoolyard example. When one school kid threatens to tell the mother of another about little Billy’s wrong doing, little Billy can be controlled by his own fear of being exposed.

Kill one, scare a thousand, because the next person has to believe that you will kill him. Through that belief you control his actions. Many frightened men protect their inner selves with a loud voice, tough talk and a threatening manner, so as to frighten the world away in a lifelong effort not to be exposed.

A truly violent man may adopt a smiling, kindly warmhearted manner to put others at ease. Courage has nothing to do with it. Frightened men are dangerous men. Confront a rat in a corner and the rat wants to run away and hide — but when he cannot escape, it is fear, not courage, which drives him to attack. So to put fear in the hearts of others for no logical reason is counterproductive.

This is why the loud-mouthed bully boy is nothing to fear. In fact, all men should try to come to grips with fear. When faced with danger remember that fear is a natural emotion; it is there for a reason. You are not a coward because you feel fear. It is there to stop us tongue-kissing tiger snakes. It has its natural place, but it must never be allowed to cloud the mind. I have seen people crippled with fear for no logical reason. And the person who does not understand his own fear, cannot use fear against others.

Fear is a phantom, a puff of smoke that can be blown into the eyes to cloud the mind and thoughts. It can destroy logic and reason if you do not understand it. How true is the saying, ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself’.

Men also use fear as a weapon against women. Fear of rejection, of being left alone, of what others will think, of hurting another, of being found out — the list is endless. The female should understand that some men use fear to keep her in her place — to control her in the hope that mind and heart control will lead to pants control.

Women understand sex, but they do not understand the psychology of fear. For women the answer is simple. Understand what is happening to you and if you don’t like it, smile, play along nicely and stab the bastard in the back at the first opportunity. Ha, ha.

IT SEEMS to me that men, in or out of prison, are all very impressed with the martial arts, and eager to tell my good self, and anyone else who will listen, that they have a black belt in this and a black belt in that.

It is my view that the mystic oriental fighting arts are over-rated to the extreme. I think that the film makers of Hollywood and Hong Kong have a lot to answer for. People think if they can learn to spin about like a can can dancer throwing high kicks and squealing in high-pitched voices then they must be fighting machines.

Personally, I think the most lethal thing to come out of Asia is bad dim sims. If all the martial arts were the winning weapons their fans claim, why don’t we see those well-known pacifists, the IRA, running around the streets of Belfast kicking British soldiers under their double chins?

While I have met some worthwhile fellows who can fight like thrashing machines and are karate experts, it is interesting to note that they could all fight well long before they ever took up martial arts.

It is pretty simple really. If you can’t hold your hands up, can’t fight or haven’t got the stomach for real blood and guts combat, then a black, purple or pink belt is not going to help you much. Good fighters love the battle. A million karate lessons, or boxing lessons, for that matter, will not make a coward a brave man.

Some people who learn karate do it because, deep down, they are the worst combination, cowards with a violent streak. No matter how good they get, they will always back down against a man they fear may be their equal. They just use their fistic skills to frighten and beat up people physically inferior to themselves.

Funny, isn’t it, but I never seem to have that much trouble with those sorts of characters.

When I have been asked if I am a karate expert, I have to explain that I am the proud holder of the Irish black belt, the most feared martial arts known to man.

It works every time.

IT HAS reached what used to be my ears that certain members of the criminal world with literary delusions have stated, via their publicist, that they wish to share their profits with victims of crime and worthy charities. At hearing this, my heart strings went twang and I was quite touched. To think that these drag queens have been standing in the shadows of fantasy for so long, they can no longer see the daylight of reality. These so-called big name crooks are in reality, petty little nobodies who have been swept under the rug of criminal history. So, for fear they will not be remembered for being anything but the insignificant bugs they really are, they employ publicists to promote their causes.

I know that I am a bit of a cynic, so I thought about it for a while, and I have seen the light. If I have any money left after I have paid my legal bill, I too will join the world of the crims turned charity workers. I will open the ‘Hole In The Head Home For Old Ratbags’.

I can see it now … The Mad Dog kitchen, with curries a specialty. And the Beach Ball-Frankie Waghorn dining room, where if you didn’t finish your meal you’d get a punch in the mouth. We could have the Alex Tsakmakis gymnasium and weight lifting room, but watch out you don’t crack your head on the weights like old Alex did. There would also be the Craig Minogue weight loss and slimming centre. After that you could go to the Cowboy Johnny Harris Memorial Swimming Pool for a dip.

For the retired crim who wanted to study law, we would have the Anita Betts Legal Library available to all members. You could swing a few clubs at the Billy Longley golf course and the bedrooms would be in the Horatio Morris Wing, bringing a new meaning to ‘lights out’.

Anyone with a mental problem could go to the Keithy Faure Group Therapy Room, so you could sit around telling each other lies. We would also have the Ted Eastwood music room. Any complaints would be dealt with in the Dave the Jew room, after which you would never be seen again, unless it was to appear via the Mad Dog’s kitchen in the form of a nice curry.

All cash and valuables could be kept in the Christopher Skase room and if you wanted a beer it could be ordered at the Pat Shannon Bar.

The truth is that I will never make enough money to buy anything for anybody. I have a team of lawyers to support. After all, charity begins at home.

In March 1986, Constable Angela Taylor was killed when a stolen car packed with gelignite exploded outside Melbourne’s Russell Street police station. It was an act which shocked Australia. An elite police taskforce was set up to catch the gang responsible. Police arrested six men. Two were convicted. Craig Minogue was found guilty of Taylor’s murder and sentenced to 28 years, and career criminal Stan Taylor got life.

PAUL Kurt Hetzel was once a member of the most dangerous group in any prison in Australia. He was a member of the Overcoat Gang, the group of men who were led by me in a five-year war inside Pentridge which resulted in at least 100 bashings and 11 attempted murders over five years.

Each member of the gang was crazy, tough and gutsy. All except Hetzel, who was eventually kicked out of the gang on the grounds of cowardice in the face of the enemy. He was flung on orders from me and Jimmy Loughnan, my one-time mate who ended up turning on me.

Hetzel was one of the most evil men I have ever met, and I have not exactly lived a sheltered life when it comes to matters involving bad men. He was treacherous, cunning, cruel and the master manipulator, with a psychopathic hatred of police. He had once gunned down a copper during an armed robbery. Hetzel and Stan Taylor had been an old partnership for many years, in and out of jail. When Hetzel was a member of the Overcoat Gang in H Division in 1976-77, he often raved on about his dreams of killing police.

Hetzel once told me that if he ever found out that he was dying of cancer, or any other fatal disease, he would load up a light aircraft with explosives and fly into the Police Academy, Kamikaze style. He would talk at length about his dreams of murdering police and always had explosives as the preferred method of killing as many as possible.

Jimmy Loughnan and myself were used to big-noting nitwits who raved on about what they wanted to do. We dismissed Hetzel as a dreamer, but a dangerous one. His mate, Stan Taylor, was also a great one for voicing his dreams of ambushing police in some fantasy death trap. But it was Hetzel who always struck me as a man possessed with this line of thought.

Craig ‘Slim’ Minogue actually called me as a defence witness in the Russell Street bombing trial, to give evidence against Hetzel, who was the star witness for the Crown. He was probably the heaviest protected police witness in Australian history.

The idea of calling Chopper Read to discredit a star witness was not considered a good idea. It was even suggested by the prosecution that the real reason for calling me was for me to say something stupid and have the trial aborted so Slim could get another trial.

All I would have said is what I knew about Hetzel. But a man with no ears and a reputation like mine would not have done Minogue much good. In fact, the jury probably would have questioned the sanity of someone like Craig simply because he knew me.

The fact still remains that one of the masters of madness, Paul K. Hetzel, who put together the blueprint, strategy and tactics of the Russell Street bombing, went on to be a witness for the Crown.

He ended up being protected by the police that he hated so much. The mastermind escaped, leaving the workers to cop the rap. I often wonder what the police really thought of that arrangement and what result they ended up with. Two convicted out of six … Stan ‘King of the Kids’ Taylor, the so called boss of the gang, and Craig ‘Slim’ Minogue, whose role in the whole affair was that of odd job boy. He was kept in the dark most of the time.

Craig’s role in this huge crime wave was to spend most of his time lounging back in a large Jason Rocker recliner, with a telephone in one hand and a family size pizza, with extra cheese and mushrooms, in the other.

Slim Minogue had top connections in the automotive industry. The whole crew was supposed to be a car theft gang. They were supposed to knock off top-of-the-range cars, motorbikes, caravans and boats. They would have made big bucks.

The bomb idea was the brain child of Taylor and Hetzel. Minogue launched into the thing after the event in the name of friendship and loyalty. He wanted to protect his friends and his baby brother. I believe he was guilty, but not as guilty as some others and certainly not as guilty as many people think.

I believe Minogue became involved after the event, embarking on a form of damage control which was doomed from the start. Taylor and Hetzel kept him in the dark before the event because they were both terrified of him. He was the sleeping bear of the gang and when he did wake up, it was too late.

Minogue once told me that if the young policewoman, Angela Taylor, had not been killed in the bombing, and if no-one had been killed, then the investigation may have been conducted in a different way with more thought and less emotion.

Minogue was living high on the hog, with no shortage of money, power or luxury. He was the physical power behind the whole crew. He was an honest crook. Evil treachery was not part of his make-up. In the end, he found himself with two masters of double dealing in Hetzel and Taylor.

Slim simply sank in a sea of treachery, while the rest of the crew scrambled for the boats. He kept his mouth shut as he sank, with more knives in his back than Julius Caesar.

Hetzel played them all like a violin. I believe he beat the cops, his old gang and the courts. To catch a fox, the police ended up kissing a rattlesnake. The rest of the gang, including Slim, were only bunnies in Hetzel’s treacherous game.

TERRORISM, whether it be political or criminal, rarely achieves what people hope it will. It normally is a massive failure. The IRA has been blasting the hell out of the British for years and all it has achieved is to make the Brits more determined to dig in. The same with the PLO with the Israelis. The harder one side pushes the more the other one digs in.

In Australia, we have had the Hilton and Russell Street bombings and the shooting of two policemen in Walsh Street. All three acts can be classed as terrorism and what did they achieve? They only strengthened the resolve of the politicians, police and the public. The immediate response is to give the police more funds and power. It strengthens the resolve of the police and bonds them together. If anything, it makes the police a tougher enemy.

It seems to me that terrorism is a weapon of anger and not of intelligence.

The use of terror tactics by criminals against criminals works a treat. It is an underground war where people like me can succeed. But using terror against the people, or the police protecting the people, political targets or any of the armed services, simply won’t work.

The only time terrorism works is when the target has no moral outrage. The Jews used terror to kick the Brits out of Palestine, but the Brits needed Palestine like a hole in the head. Terrorism may work against an enemy who believes he is in the wrong, but it will never work against an enemy who believes he is in the right.

Righteous indignation takes over and no force on earth can defeat that.

Terrorism defeats itself when it creates outrage in its victims.

Pavel Vasilof Marinof, a former Bulgarian army deserter turned burglar, was one of the first men to force the Victorian Police to realise that armed conflict in the streets was a reality in Australia.

Marinof, also known as Max Clarke and ‘Mad Max’, was stopped for questioning by two uniformed police on June 19. He got out of his car firing and shot both police, leaving one a paraplegic. Two more police were shot as they tried to find the gunman, who was a crack shot.

More than 200 armed police were thrown into the area around Noble Park but the man managed to escape.

The hunt for Mad Max ended eight months later when he was killed in a gunfight with police who pulled over a van he was driving on the Hume Highway at Kal Kallo, north of Melbourne. Desperate to the last, Marinof shot two detectives before he was fatally shot by one of the injured men.

IT is my own personal opinion that the Victoria Police is the most blood-soaked body of men and women in Australian law enforcement history.

They have been baptised in a sea of their own blood, along with the blood and guts of those who went up against them.

It would be hard to pick out the worst and maddest of all these. It is like asking what hurts worse, a .38 calibre slug or a .45 calibre slug in the brain. How do you compare one funeral with another, one act of insanity with another?

When I attacked His Honor, Judge William Martin, in the County Court on January 26, 1978, police said to me that I had just opened a new door and that every nutter in town would upgrade their insanity to match it.

When Amos ‘The Witch Doctor’ Atkinson took 30 hostages and staged a siege in the Italian Waiters’ Club to demand my release from prison, again in 1978, it was the first time the newly-formed Special Operations Group was called out.

My stupid attack on Judge Martin was used by the men in power as the reason to set up the SOG in the first place. When Atkinson pulled the Waiters’ Club stunt it confirmed the fact that the SOG did have a role to play.

But how tame that all seems now compared with Walsh Street, Hoddle Street and Queen Street. But an event a few years before that woke the police up to the modern world.

A man no-one had heard of walked up and invited the Victoria Police into the cold world of modern day reality.

The police force changed overnight because of one man. It wasn’t the Commissioner or the Police Minister, it was some crazy Bulgarian named Mad Max, Pavel Marinof. Compared with Mad Max, the rest of the nutters wouldn’t last three rounds with a revolving door.

I have always believed that your greatest enemies are your best teachers and this is true for everyone, including police.

Every time they go to a funeral or get blood splashed in their eyes, they learn and come out of it stronger, and in my opinion, Mad Max taught the police more in 60 seconds than they had learned in the previous 60 years.

We go to the movies or watch television and marvel at the lunatics in America. But I have no doubt that pound for pound the Australian-grown nutter is madder than anything the Yanks have to offer.

The only difference is that in America, they make a movie about their crazies five minutes after they are arrested or killed. In Australia, we tend to forget about them and tell ourselves that it could only happen in America.

The police learned from Mad Max. They learned that no matter how tough you are, how hard you are, how much you think you know, there is always some whacked-out, head-banging lunatic waiting around the corner ready and willing to teach you a little bit more.

Mad Max, for one reason or another, was a lesson to us all.