Amid smoking clouds of tear gas, garbage bin fires and masked mobs of ugly anti-war protesters, I suddenly found myself caught in no-man’s land.
But I never expected to take the piercing hit in the stomach from a police gun.
As a veteran of big protests in Victoria, I know only too well there is every chance you may not walk away the same way you walked in.
But on Wednesday, even I was caught by surprise by the ‘non-lethal munitions’ shot that pounded into my guts. I just thank God it wasn’t a lethal round.
Upon arriving on Clarendon Street close to the Melbourne Convention Centre hosting the Land Force weapons expo that became the focus of the hate mob, I did the usual rounds.
I found other media and we laughed with nervous bravado as we played down the obviously dicey situation we were all smack-bang in the middle of.
We’d all been in this spot before, but something about this demo seemed a tad more electric, a tad more dangerous.
Line upon line of police had already come under fire from the volatile mob before I even arrived, at one stage almost breaking through the perimeter fence of the expo.
Wayne Flower is pictured at the protest near the Melbourne Convention Centre on Wednesday. He is a veteran reporter on the Melbourne streets
Flower was blasted by police in what appeared to be a random shooting
I had made a pre-emptive decision to wear my media identification around my neck. During pandemic protests, I didn’t have one until the show was pretty much over.
To be honest, it never helped then – and they sure as hell don’t work now.
The police were shooting. The sound was unmistakable. It was odd, disconcerting and unprecedented.
They just seemed to be popping off rounds into the crowd from rifle-like weapons, some sporting bright fluoro butts and magazines.
Others looked like something more commonly seen at US school massacres, black AR15 lookalikes (or originals, who knows?).
I didn’t recall ever seeing this during the huge Covid protests, and it obviously made me nervous.
Upon walking to the frontline, yet more rounds sounded.
The next thing I knew, I was shot.
At that moment, you don’t worry that you’ve been shot, you worry about where the following shot is going to hit you.
These things hurt, but this one hit me in the guts, which despite backing off the Carlton Draught recently, remains well padded.
I don’t know what sparked it, but like I said, these shots seemed to be going off at random.
Gas grenades were tossed, projectiles were thrown.
People around me suggested that New South Wales Police had been among the Victorian cops on the frontline.
Police appeared to fire randomly into the crowds of people
Clarendon Street was turned into a warzone on Wednesday as the protests erupted
I don’t know, I didn’t see them, but there was worse to come. The tear gas in the air probably hurt more than the shot.
The air was thick with acrid fumes and toxic burning plastic from the bins and garbage the protesters set on fire.
It hurt seeing a dear photographer mate from a rival news agency hunched over and near vomiting after being gassed.
Then a mixture of tear gas and rancid fumes filled my lungs. It was toxic stuff to be sure. And we all sucked it in deep.
Victorians are sadly not unaccustomed to the ugly scenes they woke to on Wednesday.
We’d all hoped we’d never see it again. But that was wishful thinking.
I covered the ugliest of protests during Victoria’s world beating lockdown effort during the Covid 19 pandemic.
During one of those, I was doused in human urine alongside Channel Seven’s legendary crime reporter Paul Dowsley.
That bottle of p*** was hurled by a CFMEU thug pretending he was making a difference by assaulting members of the ‘wicked’ mainstream press.
During those days, police turned-up in armoured vehicles and carried gas grenade guns that looked straight out of a Grand Theft Auto video game.
On the grounds of the hallowed war memorial, police pepper-sprayed, gassed and shot at protesters during one of those ugly encounters.
Herald Sun photographer Jake Nowakowski hunches over in pain after being blasted by police with gas
Melbourne burns on the streets as a lone protester stands in front of a line of police
An officer goes down amid the chaos at protests in Melbourne
I was there, running down the banks of the Botanical Gardens as ‘Stinger Grenades’ exploded around me and rubber bullets whizzed past my ears.
Many photographers were left temporarily blinded and sick from the blasts of capsicum foam they copped that day.
It’s something no photographer wants, and almost a rite of passage when you’re among the few working photographers left covering big news events.
On Wednesday, the air was thick with the smell of trouble when I approached the Crowne Plaza on Clarendon Street.
I had been a johnny-come-lately after having to dodge traffic chaos when the freeway was closed by the protest, which had kicked off early and quickly made national headlines.
All the familiar faces were there on arrival: the veteran Chilean photographer who likes shooting in black and white, the diehard current affairs reporters, the on-the-spot television crews and the old war horse Dowsley – now sporting a beard.
All of what happened on Clarendon Street was filmed by police and countless protesters and media photographers.
Investigations will be made.
No-one very much cares if myself or my ‘mainstream colleagues’ get gassed, bashed or killed on the job.
We don’t care about that hate either.
But the police response on Clarendon Street was something I think went a notch above the usual response by police under intense stress.
My guess is every shot fired will be probed.
The findings will not likely provide comfort to anyone who were there.
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