RACHEL'S COLUMNS
These articles appeared in Rachel's column every Friday in the A3 section of The Age
Fighting crime with the mother tongue
11th June 2004
Organised crime and police corruption is hardly new to Melbourne. In 1904 Snowy Gilbertson and a Police Inspector called Lucky Hogg (so nicknamed after he accidentally shot himself between the eyes and survived) were discovered in a brothel trying to sell a contraband gin-infused ointment to the ladies who worked there.
A journo by the name of Smarty Bill was jailed for referring to Sub Inspector Hogg as a " felon constable with bad hair and disgusting posture". But Gilbertson and Hogg did not spend a single night behind bars. Their only punishment was to be blindfolded and led into a dark room where they had to identify what sort of cheese was being shoved up their noses.
In 1927 Squizzy Taylor, who according to Smarty Bill, "was a dapper little braggart with a nasty mouth that curled into a perpetual sneer" was shot dead in a revolver duel in a house in Barkly Street Carlton. Squizzy, known to admirers as "The Turk" was a pickpocket who graduated through extortion and blackmail, to armed hold-ups of shops and factories. Like Achilles in Homer's Iliad 3000 years before him, Squizzy got all het up over a girl – not the daughter of one of Apollo's priests, but Edna – a St.Kilda barmaid.
The shooting was the outcome of a vendetta, which according to one of Squizzy's associates Vinnie Tortallini – the Olive Oil King, had existed between the dead men for years. In their efforts to sort out the shooting, police were doubly hampered by the unwillingness of Edna to aid them in the reconstruction of the crime and the fact that Squizzy was not popular among the underworld crowd and nobody was talking.
Squizzy was a guy who didn't give a toss about putting police on the trail of one of his associates if he could save his own skin. Nobody trusted him, he was known as "The Shelf". In underworld-speak, a "shelf" is an informer, (don't ever go into a furniture store in Carlton and ask for a shelf! A stool is OK, a bed maybe – but never ever ask for a shelf who's generally loathed by criminal types. Taylor was blamed by many men with weird facial scars who lived at Pentridge, as the man who had "shelfed" them.
And not much has changed. Sure, Squizzy Taylor and Police Inspector Lucky Hogg would never have stumbled across a female Police Commissioner; that experience alone would have made them wilt into submission. But all other illicit activities like drugs, gambling, kidnapping and wearing heavy gold jewellery, continue as I write. That's why recreational drugs will never be legal and remain expensive – how would corrupt cops survive if they didn't accept bribes not to enforce unenforceable laws? And we pay for it. We pay directly if we buy the product because it's expensive – because it's illegal and unobtainable and we pay indirectly because our taxes pay for the police and now the Ombudsman to try to stop this whole unenforceable voodoo. And excuuuuse me, but I don't think tapping into private conversations is useful at all. What can any-one hope to glean from this transcript of two well-known mobsters, that I recorded accidentally when I got a cross-line in the middle of a conversation with my mother?
Rocco: Is that you George?
George: Rocco is that you?
Rocco: Who else you idiot?
George: Don't call me an idiot?
My Mother: Don't call him an idiot, vy can't you talk nice to him?
Rocco and George: Who is this?
My Mother: Rachel's mudder
The word mother fuelled such fear in these men that they couldn't hang up quick enough.
I don't think we should rely on the police, they're busy enough getting their stationery in order. I believe that fighting crime starts at home by following these simple suggestions.
a) Get a deadlock on your door.
b) Install a peephole.
c) Crawl around on all fours and pretend you're not home when criminals turn up.
d) If they don't go away get your mum to answer the door.
We must take control of the situation because this whole heinous organised crime/police corruption stalemate is like a bagel – the longer it lasts, the harder it will get.
