"A policeman shot my angel"
A Mother’s Story
as told to Derek Mortimer

Self published, Sydney, 2002
112 pages, illustrated
$25 plus $2.45 postage (Australia)
Download PDF order form

(Extract)

The killing

I remember every moment of 10 November, the Sunday before Angelo was killed. He was at home all day in bed and very scared. At 6 o'clock John came to see the children. John and me had a big argument and Angelo was very upset. Not long after, Angelo left but, before he went he came up to me, put his arm around my shoulders and kissed me. He said, “I love you very much. You are the best mother in the world and I'm very lucky to have a mother like you. Don't forget that, never.” He wandered round and round the house as though he was frightened. Then he kissed me again. I told him not to be home later than 8.30.

He came home at that time and Peter and Rhonda told him I had taken a sick friend to a medical centre so he did not stay. Sometime later he passed the medical centre in a car with a boy called Joe Zammit and two girls, Dianne and Laurel, and waved to me. I found out later that Laurel had run away from home and Angelo was trying to get her to go back to her mother.

I didn't know it then but that was the last time I was to see Angelo alive.

When it became late and he was not home I got very worried because he was never late. I waited, and waited, and waited and he didn’t come. I was so frightened.

I learned later that between2.30 and 2.45 on the morning of 11 November he was in a flat with two mates and the two girls when someone made a phone call to him. When he had finished talking he took off his watch, gave it to one of the boys and said, “If they kill me tonight I want my watch returned to my brother Steven”, then he left. This was never referred to in court.

He left the flat and got into a car with a boy called Morgan Cain. Morgan was fourteen. He had earlier stolen the car, a Laser. It was the one Angelo was driving when he was shot. All I know about Angelo's movements from then on are what was revealed in the inquest, the committal hearing and the trial.

The aftermath

On Monday morning of 11 November, John came walking up the driveway, his head was down and I knew something was wrong. I had not slept all night because for the first time Angelo had stayed out without ringing to say where he was. I called out to John, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” My girlfriend Jenny was with me, Rhonda and Peter had just set off to walk to school, and Steven was in bed. John told me to hold on to myself because something terrible hand happened. Angelo had been in a car chase with the police. There had been an accident and he was dead.

It was the most terrible moment of my life, like a bomb going off in my head.

I began screaming and thrashing up and down the house. Steven woke up and came out, half asleep, to see what was the matter. I told him Angelo was dead. I remember clearly his hair standing on end all over his head and he shouted out, “No, no; he’s not dead!” I told John to take me to the police station, because that’s where my anger was, against them, because of the car chase that I thought had led to Angelo’s death. I was so angry and wanted revenge that moment. I took a knife and hid it in the sleave of my jacket. I was going to kill one of them, any policeman. But when we got to the police station Steven saw the knife and told his father. John drove around and around while Steven fought with me for the knife, it is lucky no one was seriously injured. Steven finally got it from me. They drove me around for a while to settle me down, and we went to Paul Zammit’s house, a friend of Angelo’s. When I told Mrs Zammit what had happened, Paul shouted, “The bastards, they planned to kill him!”. He was so incredibly angry and upset.

John took me from there to Westmead Hospital because I wanted to see the body. They told me I couldn’t and I started screaming and said I wouldn’t go until I had seen him. I made such a fuss that they finally relented and I was able to view Angelo through a window from a few metres distance. He was covered up to the neck and so far away, as though he was in a different world. I understood for the first time what people meant when they said someone had been taken from them when they died. Angelo had truly been taken from me. His body was there and I wanted to hold it, but Angelo was gone. It was a feeling like falling into a deep dark pit. Falling and falling and never hitting the bottom. I wanted to hit the bottom, so I would waken up, or die and it would all end. They didn’t allow me to go near him. I couldn’t touch, Angelo, my own son. As I was looking at him I heard two men talking behind me. I thought I heard one of them say Angelo had been shot, once or twice.

I turned towards the men, they were hospital security guards. “What!? What did you say?’ I shouted.

One of them said, “Mrs Tsakos, didn’t they tell you? The police shot your son.”

It is impossible to put into words my feelings when I heard this. I thought I was going mad. It is terrible to be told your son has been killed in an accident, but then to discover another person, a policeman, has killed him. Oh my God! Oh my God!

I tried to smash the window with my hand to get into the morgue but Steven grabbed me. It seemed the world had collapsed again. I felt I was dead. There were so many feelings all at the same time; anger, pain, numbness.

Peter and Steven took me back home and my sister Voula and her husband Eric came to the house. Voula and John went to the school to get Rhonda and Peter. I told them not to say what had happened, but the kids knew something was wrong of course and wanted to know if I was OK. When they came home I told them. I’ll never forget Peter’s face. It became blank. He looked like he was completely lost. They both hugged me. Peter was eleven and Rhonda was twelve.

The news was out by then and a short time later a television crew turned up on the doorstep as well as people from the newspaper of a left wing political party, the Socialist Labour League (SLL).

Two hours later a detective from Blacktown police station came. He said to me “Your son’s been shot. If you want, you can take legal proceedings against the man who shot him.”

I didn’t. I was too upset to do anything, I didn’t know what to do, and I thought that if I left it in the hands of the law they would do something about it. I trusted the law. Even though Angelo had been killed by a policeman, I thought the law was there to defend ordinary people like me and I would be protected and helped and there would be justice.

• • • •

I was in a terrible condition. The doctor came every day to give me a needle and I was on Serepex and other drugs. I could remember nothing of what was going on. I was like a mad thing, one moment laughing, the next moment crying. He wanted Voula to put me into hospital but she refused because the funeral was coming up. All week long I phoned the morgue, pleading with them to let me hold my son but they refused. On 16 November, the day before the funeral, they finally said yes, and I went with Angelo’s clothes to the morgue and was allowed in for a few minutes. He was covered up and bandaged around his neck. I asked to be allowed to follow the Greek tradition to dress Angelo but they refused. I don’t know whether they were protecting me from seeing the terrible wounds, or whether it was an order from the police, or what. I was very upset and very suspicious. I had terrible grief and great anger.

I held Angelo and I started kissing him and I saw a hole in the back of the head as well as in his neck. When the news of his shooting had been on television, the reporters said Angelo was shot in the back of the head. In the inquest they said he had been shot only once, in the neck, and only one photo was shown. In the morgue I saw two holes, one in the neck, one in the head.

We prepared to bury my boy. On the evening before the funeral I was allowed into the morgue with the priest and I was able to see Angelo up close again, but only for a few minutes. Once more I was refused permission to dress him. But the priest promised me he would follow Greek tradition and the coffin would be open at the church.

Over one thousand people turned up at St John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Parramatta. Many of them were young. My goddaughter Vicki’s father, Sam Varriteles, said at the time that he would never forget the sadness of those young people and how poorly they were dressed. They were all the nationalities of Blacktown, each at the church to pay their last respects to Angelo. They wore old jeans and battered runners and took wreaths they had made with blue ribbon and flowers. I still have the ribbons and cards.

But the coffin had been sealed and the priest refused to open it. I would not allow my son to be buried without seeing him one more time. A great argument broke out. I abused the priest and said he was breaking his faith with God and breaking his promise to me. He ordered me out of the church. I said it was my son who was being buried and the funeral was not going to go ahead unless he first removed the lid for a while. Peter, a friend of mine from Shepparton in Victoria, told the priest that if he did not open the coffin, he would burn the church from the bottom to the top. So the priest did open it for a few moments, even though normally the coffin is left open to the end of the service. I said goodbye to Angelo and so did the family and a few close friends.

I remember very little about the burial at Rookwood Cemetery. I remember the incidents in the church, I remember events after the burial. I remember nothing of the time from the church to the grave and only a little of what happened at the cemetery. I know I tried to throw myself on Angelo’s coffin when it had been lowered into the ground and some of Angelo’s friends fought with me and held me back. When the grave was filled in I took a handful of soil and vowed to Angelo that I would fight forever for justice. I later saw the funeral on TV news and on video. I was screaming out, why did you kill my son? And thrashing about. I must have been out of my mind at the time because I remembered so little of it. Some people said that Michael Harris was there among the congregation at the church. I was very angry at the thought that this might have happened. He had no right to be there. He had killed Angelo. But I but I don’t really think he turned up. There was a wreath delivered without a name card which people thought might have been from Harris. It was made up of white carnations, white lilies and mauve lilies. I was shown it when I went to the grave the next day. I was screaming with rage at the thought that he had sent them and wanted to chuck the flowers. But the children said to me, “You don’t know if they’re from him -- maybe the card fell off.” So we left the wreath, but deep inside me I was not happy. I don’t think Michael Harris was sorry for what he had done. When I saw him later at the inquest he had a cruel face. He stood up and said in a very positive way, “I’m not guilty.”

Not long after Angelo had been buried I promised myself that as soon as I had enough money I would have a statue made of him, and fix up the grave and make it look beautiful. I didn’t realise then how many years it would take.

• • • •

In all this awful period John didn’t seem to be able do anything to help. I think he was filled with guilt because he had left the kids and me and because when I was away in Greece he was supposed to get a house and look after them so we could try and get back together. He didn’t do that, Angelo was staying with friends when I returned a few days before the shooting. There were probably a lot of things on his mind that made him incapable of doing anything to comfort and help the kids or me. They did a lot more than he did, they gave support, particularly Steven, despite suffering terribly from shock himself. He used to hear Angelo’s voice all the time. He would run home from school, into the house and say, “I heard Angelo call me.”

At that stage I could do nothing for them. I just sat in the chair. I didn’t cook, didn’t wash their clothes, didn’t do anything. The mothers of friends of Angelo cooked, people brought in take-away food every night. I could eat nothing. From the Monday when Angelo died, until the following Saturday I had no food. Peter became so worried that he got down on his knees and begged me to put something into my mouth. He thought I was going to die.

Just after the killing there were phone calls from teachers at Angelo’s school and many, many of his is friends came to the house day-after-day. They sat and talked about what had happened for hours and hours. They tried to help me get through it and help themselves with the talking. It was a terrible shock for them too. Their friend had been killed. They were used to being hassled by the police, but this was different. Everybody was very frightened. They were young people like Angelo had been, trying to find their way in a hard suburban world. Most of them were too old to be kids, but were not yet young men and women.Young friends of Angelo’s, both boys and girls came round to the house every day, lots of them, and they would talk about him and the things they had done together.

At these remembering sessions they talked about how much fun Angelo had been, how they had lost their best friend who loved to laugh, who didn’t want people to hate each other; how he gave them advice – they shouldn’t steal and shouldn’t talk badly to their mothers. They wanted revenge for Angelo and wanted to kill the police for what they had done to him. I used to feel that Angelo was with them. On 13 April, his birthday, everyone went to the cemetery and took flowers. Even now when I see these adults who were youths then, they come and give me a hug and mention Angelo’s name.

After the funeral and everyone had gone, there was just me and the kids. We slept in one room, Peter and me in one bed, Steven was on the floor on one side, and Rhonda on the floor on the other side. It was a terrible time.

© Derek Mortimer, Sydney, Australia, November 2002