The Russell Street Bombing (2 page)

Despite his injuries, he still managed to joke. 'Yeah,' he gasped, 'my Mona
Lisa face.'

Within what seemed like minutes, he was collected by an ambulance and on his
way to the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

When the bomb exploded, either by accident or by design, flames and heat had
shot out one side, while the bulk of the shrapnel had shot out the other. It was
for this reason that Angela Taylor was so severely burnt, while Carl Donadio was
barely burnt but rather hit by flying shrapnel. Magistrate Iain West was also on
the shrapnel-side of the explosion and suffered serious injuries along with nine
other police officers and ten civilians.

Once the area was cleared of the injured, members of the SOG
went into action. Their immediate priority was to extinguish the ensuing flames.
Fire had already spread to the unmarked police car behind the bomb car and, if
not extinguished, would lead to a domino effect engulfing the line of cars
parked up Russell Street. It seemed like the whole top end of Melbourne had
turned black. Sirens screamed as police, fire trucks and ambulances converged on
Russell Street. Media flocked to the scene and helicopters flew overhead to film
the damage sometimes barely visible through the thick black smoke.

Because small explosions continued to emanate from the centre of the blast,
fire fighters were unwilling to get too close. The job of extinguishing the
flames fell to the SOG. Dressed in a bomb suit, SOG member Senior Constable
Dennis Tipping cautiously approached the burning cars.

Tipping had been trained that the first bomb is not necessarily the only one.
Sometimes terrorists use a first explosion to attract police and civilians to
the site, and then set off a second explosion to kill them. There were grave
fears that a second device could go off at any time. Nonetheless, Tipping, with
a line tied to his waist so that he could be pulled out if anything went wrong,
approached the blazing epicentre. He was fed a long line of fire hose by firemen
keeping a safe distance from the blaze. As he got closer, Tipping could see
detonators scattered across the ground - he knew that these were the source of
the smaller explosions after the initial bomb. Tipping was careful not to tread
on any of the detonators. If he did and one exploded, he could lose a foot.

Once he was close enough, Tipping blasted the fierce fires with the fire hose
until they sizzled into smoke and steam, and the immediate danger was lessened.
As soon as the fire was extinguished, the SOG examined the surrounding areas for
any other explosives. There was always a likelihood that part of the bomb had
failed to detonate and the danger after the initial explosion was very real.
Members of the SOG are specially trained in explosives - they knew what they
were looking for. Combing the area for a second bomb, the men failed to find one
but there were still a number of live detonators as well as sticks of gelignite
that hadn't exploded. The findings removed any doubt as to whether the explosion
was accidental or deliberate. Someone had planted a car bomb right outside the
Russell Street police headquarters.

Within an hour, the area was evacuated, all the injured had been taken to
hospital, and the surrounding streets had been sealed off. As the news footage
flashed onto televisions all over the country, Carl Donadio's parents, Bev and
Vic, watched the unfolding drama from their Ballarat home. Bev turned to Vic and
told him that she knew Carl had been injured in the explosion. She could feel it
in her bones. Not long after, their phone rang...

Suddenly every car parked in the city seemed suspicious and
members of the SOG had to check out one report - among many - of an old car
parked in McKenzie Street with no registration plates and the keys in the
ignition. Some people fled the city while others stayed to watch the drama
unfold.

After the initial scene containment by the SOG, the first people called to
the bomb site were the crime scene examiners. The initial call-out went to the
new Victoria Police State Forensic Science Laboratory in the north-eastern
suburb of Macleod. Police crime scene examiners had operated from Macleod since
1983 and the rest of the lab workers were slated to move into the new buildings
in a couple of month's time - for the present, they were still in the old lab in
Spring Street in the city.

The first indication that a major incident had occurred at Russell Street
came over the police radio and was quickly followed by a call from Spring Street
requiring the crime scene examiners to attend. At the time, protocols dictated
that crime scene examiners worked in pairs, but it was obvious from early
reports, that this was an all-hands-on-deck job. Every examiner on duty piled
into the unmarked forensics van loaded with equipment and headed towards the
city.

Sergeant John Moushall was the senior officer on duty; the rest of the crime
scene examiners were senior constables: Wayne Ashley, Allan Nilon, Steve Spargo,
Peter Guerin and Dave Royal. On the trip to the bomb-site, the police officers
could only speculate as to what they would find when they go there. They knew
that a number of people had been injured, they knew that the Russell Street
headquarters had been damaged, and they knew that communications had been
affected because D-24's visual display units had broken down in the force of the
blast and the subsequent power failure. The lines of communications had been
disabled until the emergency generator kicked in, and even now, were not running
at full strength. Windows at D-24 had been shattered and the only things that
saved the operators inside from flying shards of glass were the heavy drapes
that covered the windows.

En route, the crime scene examiners listened to frantic calls over the police
radios. Breathless officers shouted communications back and forth. To the
trained examiners, these panicked communications could sometimes be unreliable,
but from as far away as Fitzroy, they could see the thick black smoke hanging
over the city leaving them in no doubt that they would have their work cut out
for them. Without the benefit of lights and sirens, the unmarked van got stuck
in the bottle-neck of traffic into the city and the officers had time to ponder
this attack on their turf. Someone had targeted
them
.

When they finally made it through the traffic, the crime scene van headed
straight for the command post which had been set up on the corner of Latrobe
Street and Exhibition - far enough away from the bomb site to be considered
safe. Even so, that area of Latrobe Street was strewn with bits of rubber,
metal, bricks and glass.

At every crime scene, one officer assumes responsibility for overseeing the
operation. Sergeant John Moushall nominated Senior Constable Wayne Ashley to
take charge of the scene. Ashley had six years experience as a crime scene
examiner under his belt and had worked the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires, and
therefore had ample experience with wide-spread devastation.

At the command post, the crime scene examiners were introduced to Bob Barnes
and Peter Kiernan from the Materials Research Laboratories in the Department of
Defence. Barnes and Kiernan were post-blast experts and had been called in by
the SOG in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. The two Department of
Defence experts had done a sweep of the site and officially confirmed that the
explosion was indeed caused by a bomb. As the various teams swapped notes and
organised plans of action, the odour of burning rubber hung thick in the air -
even two hours after the explosion.

In consultation with the Department of Defence experts, crime scene examiner
Wayne Ashley agreed that Barnes and Kiernan could work the immediate area around
the bomb site, and he and his men would do everything else. Debris had spread
over several city blocks and the crime scene examiners, with the assistance of
the SOG, would be responsible for its systematic collection and examination.

With debris crunching underfoot, the post-blast team moved in; they could
feel the aftermath before they saw it. The streets of Melbourne looked like a
war zone. The first thing that Wayne Ashley saw as he turned into Russell Street
was the mangled wreck of the bomb car. Stripped of everything but its frame, it
looked like a giant black spider. The second thing Ashley took in was the
blackening of the entrance to the Russell Street police headquarters. Up until
this moment, the concept of the attack on the police had been esoteric. Now,
seeing the shattered windows of the art deco monolith and her blackened façade,
the affront was palpable.

Initially, Wayne Ashley had been a surprised that the scene had been so
quickly out-sourced to the Department of Defence experts, especially since all
crime scene examiners were trained in post-blast examination, but when he and
his team made their way into Russell Street, the breadth of the devastation
became obvious. He was glad of any assistance they could get.

The group made their way gingerly towards the bomb car. Ashley and his
colleagues could see that the force of the blast had moved the car several
metres to the east leaving behind a shallow crater of sorts, measuring 15cm by
1.5m, which had formed with the impact of the explosion.

Because the back of the car was more mangled than the front, investigators
concluded that the bomb had originated in the boot of the car. The amount of
live detonators and unexploded gelignite strewn around the bomb car told another
story - the bomb had not exploded to its full capacity. A second explosive had
been placed either on the front seats or in the centre console. Investigators
theorised that it had been dislodged in the first explosion. If the bomb had
exploded to its full capacity, the structure of the Russell Street building
itself might have been compromised.

Senior Constable Dennis Tipping, who had earlier extinguished the flames of
the bomb, examined the immediate area for clues. He noticed a block of wood near
the steps of the south entrance. Nailed to the wood were the remains of an alarm
clock. It was only metres from the bomb car and remarkably still intact. The
experts concurred that the block of wood looked like it had been sawn from a
fence post. The clock had been nailed into place by a strip of metal fixed with
2-inch nails. There were wires attached to the block of wood and also a green
and white Chux Superwipe dishcloth. It looked like the bombers had used the
dishcloth to keep the wires from connecting on the drive to Russell Street.

Chillingly, in the immediate vicinity was a plethora of wires tied together
in bundles. Also scattered around, were automotive sockets and other metal tools
that had been packed around the bomb to act as shrapnel in the explosion. To the
gathering of experts, this meant that the people who built the bomb had intended
to do maximum damage to anyone nearby. It was a deliberate attempt to main or
kill, and if the attack was against the police force, it was a vicious one. But
at this early stage, it was by no means certain that the attack was against the
police. Early media reports speculated that the bombing could have been directed
against the Melbourne Magistrates' Court across the road. Perhaps it was a
disgruntled person who held a grudge against a court ruling. It could even have
been a terrorist attack.

Whatever the reason for the bomb, it was the lot of a crime scene examiner to
take a clinical rather than an emotional approach. Even though police may have
been targeted, and police officers had been seriously wounded in the attack,
this scene had to be treated methodically. Wayne Ashley also knew they had no
time to waste - a shower of rain or strong winds could interfere with potential
evidence. Somewhere in this chaos may be clues that could eventually identify
the perpetrators and help bring them to justice.

The first priority for the Department of Defence team was to examine the bomb
car. The car could link back to the offenders, and its history was vital.
Despite the damage to the car, the make and model were still ascertainable. The
car was a 1980 two-tone VB Holden Commodore with gold mag wheels, a V8 engine
and a twin exhaust system. Luckily one of its numberplates was found nearby and
police were immediately able to trace the car's owner - he had reported the
Commodore stolen from the Brandon Park shopping centre in Mulgrave two days
before the bombing.

Incredibly, they found a red and cream chequered blanket inside the twisted
wreck that had survived the blast relatively intact. The rug was removed and
placed in an evidence bag.

When Bob Barnes and Peter Kiernan were checking the car for identification
marks, they noticed among the blackened remains of the engine, that the chassis
number, located on the radiator support panel, had been drilled out. The drill
was circular and whoever had removed the number, had drilled through the panel
at the beginning of the number, removed the drill bit, then placed it on the
next part of the number, and drilled through again. This had been repeated until
the number had been obliterated leaving a line of joined holes that looked like
a caterpillar.

This was not the usual method car thieves used to get rid of identification
numbers. If they were removed at all, they were more usually ground down with an
angle grinder. When stolen cars were made to look legitimate, it was more usual
for the numbers to be altered. Numbers that were removed altogether meant that
the person responsible hadn't being trying to legitimise the car at all.

While Barnes and Kiernan busied themselves with the car and the immediate
bomb area, Wayne Ashley began the wider examination. The first thing to do was
to grid off sections as far as the debris had flown - which in this case
included parts of Victoria Parade, Exhibition Street, Little Lonsdale, to as far
away as sections of Swanson Street. In the immediate bomb vicinity, the grid
squares were five metres by five metres. Further away, they were ten by ten.
Every grid was numbered so that evidence collected in each square could be
labelled and referenced.