Amidst steaming clouds of tear gas, burning garbage dumpsters and mobs of ugly masked anti-war protesters, I suddenly found myself trapped in no man’s land.
But I never imagined that I would receive such a penetrating blow to the stomach with a police weapon.
As a veteran of the major protests in Victoria, I know all too well that there’s a good chance you won’t come out the same way you came in.
But on Wednesday, even I was surprised by the shot of a “non-lethal ammunition” that hit me in the stomach. I thank God it was not a lethal bullet.
Arriving at Clarendon Street, near the Melbourne Convention Centre, home of the Land Force weapons exhibition that became the focus of the hate mob, I made the usual rounds.
I found other means and we laughed with nervous bravado as we downplayed the obviously dangerous situation we were all in.
We’d all been there before, but something about this demonstration seemed a little more electric, a little more dangerous.
Before I arrived, row upon row of police had already been attacked by the volatile mob, at one point nearly breaking through the exhibition’s perimeter fence.
Wayne Flower is pictured during the protest near the Melbourne Convention Centre on Wednesday. He is a veteran journalist on the streets of Melbourne.
Flower was shot by police in what appeared to be a random shooting.
I had made the preemptive decision to wear my journalist ID around my neck. During the pandemic protests, I didn’t have it on until the show was practically over.
To be honest, they never helped then… and they sure don’t work now either.
The police were shooting. The sound was unmistakable. It was strange, disconcerting and unprecedented.
It appeared that they were simply firing bullets into the crowd from rifle-like weapons, some of which had bright fluorescent stocks and magazines.
Others looked like something more common in American school massacres: knockoffs of the black AR15 (or the original, who knows?).
I don’t remember ever seeing this during the huge Covid protests and it obviously made me nervous.
As they walked towards the front line, even more gunshots rang out.
The next thing I knew, I had been shot.
At that moment you’re not worried about being shot, you’re worried about where the next shot is going to hit you.
These things hurt, but this one hit me in the stomach, which despite having recently stopped taking Carlton Draught, is still well padded.
I don’t know what triggered it, but like I said, these shots seemed to happen randomly.
Gas grenades and projectiles were thrown.
People around me suggested that the New South Wales Police had been among the Victorian police on the front line.
Police appeared to fire randomly into the crowd.
Clarendon Street became a war zone on Wednesday as protests erupted
I don’t know, I didn’t see them, but the worst was yet to come. The tear gas in the air probably hurt more than the shot.
The air was thick with acrid smoke and toxic plastic burning from containers and trash that protesters set alight.
It pained me to see a dear fellow photographer from a rival news agency hunched over and nearly vomiting after being gassed.
Then a mixture of tear gas and stale fumes filled my lungs. It was a toxic substance, no doubt. And we all inhaled it deeply.
Sadly, Victorians are no strangers to the horrific scenes they woke up to on Wednesday.
We all hoped we would never see him again, but that was an illusion.
I covered the most horrific protests during Victoria’s effort to overcome the global lockdown during the Covid 19 pandemic.
During one of them, I was doused with human urine along with legendary Channel Seven crime reporter Paul Dowsley.
That bottle of d*** was thrown by a CFMEU thug who was aiming to make a difference by attacking members of the “evil” mainstream press.
In those days, police showed up in armored vehicles and carried gas-launching guns that looked like something straight out of a Grand Theft Auto video game.
On the grounds of the sacred war memorial, police pepper-sprayed and fired at protesters during one such horrific clash.
Herald Sun photographer Jake Nowakowski hunches over in pain after being gassed by police
Melbourne burns in the streets as a lone protester stands in front of a police line
Officer falls amid chaos at Melbourne protests
There I was, running along the edges of the Botanical Gardens as stinger grenades exploded around me and rubber bullets whizzed past my ears.
Many photographers were temporarily blinded and sickened by the blasts of pepper spray they received that day.
It’s something no photographer wants, and almost a rite of passage when you’re one of the few working photographers left covering major news events.
The smell of trouble was thick in the air as I approached the Crowne Plaza on Clarendon Street on Wednesday.
I had arrived late after having to dodge traffic chaos when the highway was closed for the protest, which had started early and quickly made national headlines.
On arrival, all the familiar faces were there: the veteran Chilean photographer who likes to shoot in black and white, the news reporters, the television crews on the ground and old warhorse Dowsley, now sporting a beard.
Everything that happened on Clarendon Street was filmed by the police and countless protesters and media photographers.
Investigations will be carried out.
Nobody cares much if I or my ‘mainstream’ colleagues are gassed, beaten or killed at work.
We don’t care about that hate either.
But the police response on Clarendon Street I think was a little bit beyond the usual police response under intense stress.
I guess every shot fired will be investigated.
The findings are unlikely to provide comfort to those who were there.
