Shot in dark blew two lives apart

Yesterday the first New South Wales policeman to face a charge of murder while on duty walked free. GREG ANSLEY backgrounds a tragedy in which the officer, a former Aucklander, was also a victim.

Almost a year ago, the lives of two young men crossed tragically in a few brief minutes of a spring night.

Reuben Sakey, now aged 27, a broad-shouldered New Zealander who had swapped heavy metal for a blue New South Wales police uniform, shot and killed 22-year-old petty thief and heroin addict Edison Berrio, son of Colombian migrants.

Late yesterday, in a decision that provoked angry scenes inside and outside a Sydney courtroom, magistrate Brian Lulham ruled that Sakey need not stand trial for murder.

The former Aucklander was the first NSW officer to face a murder charge for an act in the line of duty.

But after a four-day committal hearing, the magistrate ruled that there was insufficient evidence to try him either for murder or on a lesser manslaughter charge.

The evidence indicated that the discharge of Sakey's pistol was accidental, not voluntary as submitted by the Crown, he said.

There was no evidence Sakey had been guilty of gross negligence that September night.

As the magistrate finished his 30-minute verdict, he told Berrio's friends and family in the packed court that what had happened was a tragedy - "I just want to say how sorry I am."

"Sorry won't bring him back," shouted someone from the public gallery.

"There's no justice," yelled another.

As they filed out of the court, people threatened Sakey and swore at him as court staff and lawyers shielded him, and extra security was called in.

The time of the tragedy, September last year, was an intense time for police, hauled from normal duties and packed into Sydney to protect the hundreds of thousands of Olympic athletes and spectators.

For Sakey the pressure was even greater: only weeks before, his own gun had been turned on him during an arrest that came a hairsbreadth from killing him.

And at the time, Australia's largest police force was trying to clear itself of the stench of corruption and the outrage that erupted over two previous shootings by officers, both of mentally ill victims and one by police associated with drugs in the full glare of cameras on Bondi Beach. None of those officers faced charges.

But Sakey, to the surprise and anger of colleagues, was charged with murdering Berrio.

The bare facts sound grim. About 9.15 pm last September 5, Sakey took out his service-issue Glock pistol and shot Berrio in the neck through the window of a stolen white Toyota.

Berrio was unarmed, had no record of violence or resisting arrest, and was allegedly reaching to undo his seatbelt as Sakey fired.

But magistrate Lulham decided that the evidence showed that when the Toyota stopped at lights, the three officers jumped out of their own vehicle and rushed to make an arrest, Sakey drawing his pistol.

Berrio reversed harshly to make a getaway, colliding with the police vehicle.

The sudden movement of the stolen car startled Sakey, who involuntarily pulled the trigger.

The dead man's father, Jario Berrio has sympathy for an officer he believes should not have been back on duty after the trauma of that earlier bungled arrest

But for the family, it is an issue of simple justice for a son and brother shot for no reason.

Among Sakey's supporters, there is the view that the young expatriate Kiwi was also a victim, pushed back on the streets without adequate counselling by a force stretched to the limit, and pursued over Berrio's death to help clear its badly stained image of corruption and in-fighting.

Sakey's life had never prepared him for this.

Raised in Mangere and West Auckland, he was first a drummer with the metal band Nine Livez, playing around Auckland at the Powerstation's five bands for $5 nights, releasing three singles and scoring minor fame by penning Live It Up for Australian rockers the Angels.

Seven years ago, he crossed the Tasman to work, first as a spa pool salesman, then in a radical change of direction as a police officer.



When he shot Berrio, he was coming up to five years' service.

While Sakey was growing up in West Auckland, Berrio was starting his tragic life in blue-collar Sydney, born to parents who had arrived in Australia three years before and who had built up a cleaning business, first in Bondi, then in Woolloomooloo.

Woolloomooloo was then a tough, blue-collar neighbourhood. Many of its residents worked in the big naval dockyard in the bay that cuts in from the harbour just east of Farm Cove and the Opera House.

It is now a suburb in transition, discovered by wealthy young renovators lured by homes on the harbour, but it still retains much of its origins and the character of adjacent Kings Cross.

So it is not surprising that Berrio was caught by the heroin epidemic that police admit they have no hope of defeating.

He stole to support his habit, and at the time of his death a warrant was out for his arrest for failing to appear in court on a charge of breaking and entering. The Toyota Corona he had been driving for a month, and in which he was killed, was stolen.

Police records confirm that Berrio was not violent nor habitually - if ever - armed.

Jason Wasley, a friend of 12 years, said after the shooting: "He was always a nice little bloke who looked more like a kid. I realise he was in a stolen car and it wasn't the right thing, but he didn't deserve to be shot just because he wasn't wearing his seatbelt."

On September 5, Berrio slept in, had a late brunch about 4 pm, and met a group of friends at the Kauri pub in Glebe.

It was a quiet night. The friends had a few beers, ate a meal of spaghetti and about 9 pm decided to head home. Berrio offered a lift to his mate Jett Farrow, 21, and they drove off.

Outside, Sakey and Constables Brad Freney and Julie Hart from the Newtown-based Endeavour region anti-theft squad were checking the carpark in the red, unmarked patrol car when they saw Berrio leave and decided to run a check on the Corona.



Sydney is a hard and often dangerous city.

Major property offences, especially breaking and entering and car theft, have been climbing steeply and, more ominously, the number of handgun shootings, especially by young men, has jumped fourfold in the past five years, despite tough gun laws since the Port Arthur massacre.

Police have been killed and wounded, and six weeks before the Berrio shooting Sakey himself nearly died.

A suspect turned on him with a beer bottle and, as the young constable grappled with him, snatched Sakey's Glock and pushed the barrel into his stomach. As the man pulled the trigger, Sakey grabbed the slide and the gun jammed.

Badly shaken, Sakey was counselled by a police psychologist and assessed fit for duty after two weeks' stress leave, despite complaining that he was really twitchy about going back on the streets.

Instead of transferring to the pushbike squad, as was intended, he was moved to the frontline Endeavour squad.

The police union and the State Opposition had been warning of the pressure on officers for months.

The understaffed force, down by 800 sergeants alone, was reeling from a flood of resignations. The state Police Academy was trying to stem a 15 per cent dropout rate, and half the resignations were of probationers or staff with less than two years service.

At the other end of the scale, 750 senior officers were on long-term sick leave.

Stress was - and is - endemic. In four years, the number of officers on stress leave had soared from 21 to more than 450, while severe cutbacks had left only three full-time and one part-time psychologists for a force of 14,500.

The State Ombudsman warned last year that one-third of the force was not even aware that counselling was available.

Against this background, Sakey and his colleagues began tailing Berrio and Farrow as they left the Kauri and drove towards Newtown.

A check confirmed that the car was stolen. For reasons not yet explained, the police VKG radio network warned the team that the occupants could be armed.

In Newtown, other police were waiting, Members of the bomb squad on duty for the Olympics drove their car across the intersection of King and Elizabeth Sts, forcing Berrio to stop.

According to Farrow's evidence this week, Berrio turned to him and said: "They're here for us."

"He took his seatbelt off and tried to get out," said Farrow. "I shit myself. I think I got out and seen them everywhere around with guns. I remember seeing four around the car."

Sakey, Freney and Hart rushed the car, yelling to Berrio and Farrow to get out.

Then everyone heard a shot.

Sakey screamed: "Ahh. Oh. Oh f ... I thought I was going to get hit. F ... What have I done?" and collapsed on the ground, apologising while Hart tried to comfort him.

In the Toyota, Berrio was dead.

Sakey's nightmare was just beginning.

- ADDITIONAL REPORTING NZPA