Gun violence is gripping the city and as Victoria's justice system and politicians come under fire for failing to tackle the crime wave, cops on the frontline have become the targets of real bullets.



Read part three of The Age’s investigation into how Melbourne became a gun city.

He was 22 years old the first time he got caught with a gun. Police chased him down on foot and recovered a stash of drugs and a revolver. He was charged and released on bail.

Five months later, he would be caught with more drugs and another gun - this time a .22 calibre semi-automatic pistol.

For these crimes, he got nine months jail and a community corrections order.

Angelo’s* next run in with the law - five months after his release from prison - would see the now 24-year-old allegedly point a fully-loaded 9mm semi-automatic handgun at a police officer. They came face-to-face during the burglary of a suspected marijuana ‘grow house’ in the city’s western suburbs.

Browning 9mm Hi-Power Pistol Used in an alleged burglary of a hydroponic marijuana "grow house" in 2016. The weapon, which was stolen two years earlier, was used to threaten a police officer before the suspect was arrested.

Angelo chose to drop his weapon, but the split-second confrontation could easily have resulted in another fatal shooting by an officer - or the death of the officer himself.

The gun had allegedly ended up in Angelo’s hands after being stolen from a home two years earlier.

Once again, he got bail. As did his two co-accused despite having a string of gun and violence convictions between them, including possession of a sawn-off shotgun, attempting to pervert the course of justice and serious drug trafficking offences.

Yet, within months, Angelo’s bail was revoked when he was arrested again for allegedly committing another crime.

Police Association secretary Ron Iddles. Photo: Simon Schluter

It makes no sense, says former homicide detective, now Police Association secretary Ron Iddles.

He says the Angelo case, “serves as a glaring example and a cautionary tale of why the courts can’t afford to get it wrong. How can someone with a long list of prior convictions for violence, drugs and firearms offences be granted bail after pulling a gun on an officer?”

Decisions like this, he says, “beggar belief”.


Bad to the bone

One of Victoria’s most notorious prisoners, Christopher Dean Binse, is another repeat offender whose new-found freedom and easy access to firearms ended in a cop staring down the barrel of a gun.

Armed robber and East Keilor siege gunman Christopher Dean 'Badness' Binse.

A prolific armed robber, Binse had spent nearly all of his adult life in prison by the time he got out in September 2011. Yet the man known as “Badness” managed to stockpile more than seven guns - including a Thompson submachine gun, shotgun and .357 revolver - in the months after his release.

Binse then went on a wild crime spree. He robbed an armoured car, threatened a police officer with a pistol and then fired heavily on armed officers during a 44-hour siege at his Keilor East home.

Christopher Binse in police custody after his two-day siege in Keilor. Photo: Channel 7

The chilling truth is Angelo and Binse aren’t exceptions.

In the past year alone:

A police officer has been shot in the head with a shotgun blast after attempting to stop a vehicle suspected to have been involved in a series of shooting and firebombing attacks on the homes of the Williams crime family

A police van was shot as officers attempted to intercept a suspected stolen vehicle

Members of the Hells Angels bikie gang were believed to be behind bullets being fired into a police building in a suspected revenge attack

It’s not that the courts don’t have the powers to lock up gun criminals or refuse bail. Sentencing options, for one, have been strengthened in successive Liberal and Labor state government law-and-order crackdowns. County Court Judge Lance Pilgrim, in a sentencing last year, outlined the possible jail terms that could now be imposed.

“I am now becoming an old ancient; when I first worked in the courts 54 years ago, 55 years ago ... the maximum for possession of a handgun, first offence, was 12 months. Now look what has happened. In that time it has gone, if I am remembering correctly, from 12 months to seven years. That is a 700 percent increase,” Judge Pilgrim said.

Regardless, less than half of criminals are ultimately sent to prison after being found guilty of possessing an unregistered firearm, according to the Sentencing Advisory Council.

Meanwhile, the number of guns on the street swells. Firearms offences have doubled in the past five years. There is now a shooting once a week. It is only a matter of time before more innocent people get caught in the crossfire.

Last year alone, there were 755 incidents in which “prohibited persons” - those with serious criminal convictions - were caught with firearms. It’s a five-fold increase since 2011, according to the Crime Statistics Agency.

Part of the problem is no one can really pin down where all the illegal guns are coming from.

A burnt out vehicle in North Coburg. The car was allegedly used in a police shooting in Moonee Ponds on July 7, 2015. Photo: Darrian Traynor



TOP

Money and guns

Authorities point to the “grey market” the term given to rifles and shotguns that were not handed back in the 1996 amnesty that followed the Port Arthur massacre and have circulated for the past two decades.

A new national gun amnesty, which many have advocated for, would lead to the voluntary surrender of illicit weapons. Gun control advocates say a new amnesty would particularly target those grey market firearms.

But that argument doesn’t account for the many handguns that have been used in recent shootings. Handguns were not part of the original amnesty, and hence are not part of the grey market.

A truck unloads prohibited firearms at a scrap-metal yard in Sydney, 29 July, 1997 where they will be loaded into a shredder and destroyed.

Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission chief executive officer Chris Dawson admits the “serious national problem” of illegal guns circulating through the country is far from well-defined.

Guns, points out Assistant Commissioner (Crime) Stephen Fontana, are surprisingly easy to hide, and traffick.

“You can pull them apart, you can bring it over with a whole lot of car parts and metal in there. That's the challenge.”

For Fontana, the answer lies in improved intelligence to help follow the money trail.

“This is what we're trying to do from a serious and organised crime perspective nationally...to get a much better picture of what's happening, and try and identify the syndicates involved in importing this weaponry and trafficking it.”

Admittedly, this is easier said than done. Fontana says that while some people are making good money out of the illegal gun trade, importing and trafficking firearms is not where you find the really big bucks.

“It’s certainly a far more lucrative business to be in drug-related crime than firearms-related crime,” he notes.

The laws that worked

New South Wales has shown that some state laws can be part of the solution. A raft of new laws allow police to slap orders on suspected criminals that ban them from being on a property with a firearm or accompanied by a person with a firearm.

The laws have been used more than 500 times since being introduced in 2013.

Detective Superintendent Peter McErlain, acting director of the organised crime directorate for NSW police, says the laws gave police "extraordinary powers" to be able to search a prohibited person without a warrant.

And it seems to be working.

"If you look across the board, gun crime in NSW is falling overall. Violent crime and gun crime is falling. You couldn't attribute that entirely to the legislation, but it certainly would contribute to it," Superintendent McErlain says.

Victoria’s time

Now, Victoria is following suit.

Last year, Victoria Police began a review of firearms laws in other jurisdictions, including NSW, to see if they should lobby the state government for similar measures.

Days after the review was announced, the federal government committed to a new national approach, which promised a coordinated amnesty within 12 months and better intelligence to find out where the guns are coming from.

Police Minister Lisa Neville. Photo: Eddie Jim

Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville says the state government will act on the police review, clamping down on gun crime based on the NSW model. This means introducing new offences to deal with:

Drive by shootings

Producing guns with technologies such as 3D printers

Banned people possessing guns

Ms Neville said gun storage rules could also be tightened to insist on better security and reduce the number of guns kept at hobby farms or holiday houses.

Victims of Crime Commissioner Greg Davies welcomes any new police powers but said they would make little difference if repeat offenders continued to get bail and were free to walk the streets armed.

"It has become abundantly clear that Victorians will continue to become victims of violent crime if criminals are not given custodial sentences that take them out of circulation, protect the community and act as a real deterrent,” he said.

“If they can be rehabilitated, well and good, but we have to accept there are some people out there who are seriously bad and need to be dealt with."

Meanwhile, on Friday two masked gunmen shot a 23-year-old man in the leg during an early morning home invasion in Brunswick West. Two days later, a man was shot in the leg in Broadmeadows.

It was the 100th shooting since January last year.

* Not his real name.




TOP