10 years ago today since the Lindt Cafe siege.
You always remember where you were when this type of shit happens.
Hopefully the bastard is still rotting in hell 10 years on.
My office is 50m from there. It all started in the morning. My street was closed off. There was 20 cop cars outside my window. I turned the lights off because we didn’t know what was going on. We were hiding behind pillars peering out onto the street. Active shooter or bomb threat ? People were calling me to see if I was OK. Rumours he had a bomb and if it went off, woukd I kill me ?
I got out of the building about 3pm but was pulled aside by plain clothed. They took my details in case they wanted statement. If I saw something I guess.
The rest is history. The next morning (or was it the day after) I got off the train at Martin Place. At the top of the stairs at Ch7, the flowers had already started to build. I stopped and looked around. I saw people I knew as commuters. Knew their face, they knew my face. I cried, they cried.
As it turned out, one of the deceased (killed by a ricochet bullet off the old bank vault walls) was Katrina Dawson. We knew her. She was the God Mother to my daughter’s friend. They had a joint 11th or 12th birthday party together. We met Katrina there. We also met her brother Sandy. They were both barristers.
Would you believe Sandy died of brain cancer only a few years later at age 45 or something. So f**ked.
There was a lot of controversy that came from the Dwason side in the aftermath. They claimed that the cops took too long. We have caught up socially with them all since, but said nothing other than the appropriate condolences. Not going there.