00:00:00
July 2009 I was living in a suburb um not far from where we are now called uh westm which is like one suburb over from
00:00:07
point shev so when this came on the news it sort of captivated me and I'd never
00:00:11
ever heard uh before that moment of the phrase suicide by cop had never heard it
00:00:16
before yeah and that was that was you on the news so talk us through that day so
00:00:22
I had a very public mental and spiritual breakdown um I'd broken up from a relationship it was unhealthy and um and
00:00:31
I I helped destroy that even more and it blew up and I thought um I'll get i'll get even clearer I to
00:00:41
get out of this crazy relationship I did something even more crazier and stupid and I went and sleep with somebody else
00:00:48
to make sure it really exploded self-destruct self-destruct I wanted it to really explode and um I called the
00:00:56
police on myself I called the police on myself cuz I thought I was was the biggest pile of crap in the world none
00:01:01
one will ever forgive me for all the things that i' compiled I built a case against
00:01:07
myself and all the flood gates from the past just burst open so it's like the
00:01:11
past present future is all converging all at once and you're hurt scared angry
00:01:17
confused and I thought I don't want to be alive and I thought I know I've seen
00:01:22
police shoot Mary on the news right or wrong I'm a m that should be easy and I
00:01:26
thought I deserved a violent death so I called the police up called them on myself and um ended up
00:01:33
being shot in the chest at close range by provoking the police to shoot me dead I mean the the whole thing is just
00:01:43
awful and there's so much to unpack here um you yeah I've heard the 111 I'm sorry
00:01:48
for laugh I've heard the 111 call you've got you're wearing a t-shirt now that
00:01:51
says shot bro for anyone that wants to watch your play or play documentary what documentary yeah it's on YouTube you can
00:01:58
just look up shop bro you'll find it it's starts with the 111 call and then
00:02:02
the video footage it's it's very difficult to watch but you hear the call
00:02:07
you you call yourself and you describe yourself and you're wearing um like costume camouflage Gear Well I'm wearing
00:02:13
World War II trousers from a theater show that I co-wrote and co- acted in and I'm wearing a Air Force Army trench
00:02:21
coat which a good friend of mine gave to me as a present so I'm looking like
00:02:25
somebody's having a massive mental breakdown who looks pretty crazy dressed military regalia so I was pretty much
00:02:32
dressing the part and freaking the police out yeah so so you had a knife in one hand and in the other hand you had
00:02:38
like a ladle covered with a teail teail so they think that was a gun yeah so I had a yeah it was a meat cleaver and a
00:02:44
soup ladle wrapped in a teail and I went out there wanting to be just I just wanted it to end and I wanted this hurt
00:02:52
to stop in my mind and you know the the police officer did say don't take another step and I took that step and
00:03:00
guess what happens when you take that step when they say don't take another step so I got that 9 mm bullet into me
00:03:07
ripped through my internal organs dropped me and I realized I made a terrible mistake yeah and you can hear
00:03:13
that in the the in the the footage cuz there were camera cruise that made it there in time you you're you're yelling
00:03:18
out over and over again I'm so sorry I'm so sorry yeah yeah and I've had quite a
00:03:23
few people ask me who are you sorry to Rob and I had to think about it and I was like I think I was sorry to the
00:03:29
policeman I was freaking out I was sorry to everybody I may have heard in my life
00:03:34
growing up was just all these sories compounded from childhood so so just going back a little
00:03:41
bit so that the police turn up then how long is is that whole interaction I don't know time time is
00:03:47
just is blued right so so you hear this you're in the house you hear the sirens
00:03:52
that you called on yourself and then you come out on the street so I called the police and I was wondering on myself uh
00:03:58
and I was wondering why no one has come into the house in my mind they're going
00:04:01
to burst and blow me away and that's the end of Rob yeah but no one was coming in
00:04:06
the house and I was getting frustrated so I went outside onto the street and um yeah that's where they're outside cuz I
00:04:14
did call them and they're half far away from you so you're on the street one's
00:04:18
hiding behind a tree one's hiding behind the police car like 20 M 15 M yeah it's
00:04:23
yeah around about 15 M and they're not that far away brothers and and so and do
00:04:28
they do do they TR negotiate with you yes yeah yeah yeah this this police officer trying to reach out to me and
00:04:34
ask me what my name is and trying to reach out but I'm in this full storm I call it the storm of suicide audiation
00:04:43
where I was like don't try and reach out to me and I actually I think I may have
00:04:46
said my name I did say my name actually and so I could said my name who what's
00:04:51
your name I said my name and like and it's got my other inner voice which is
00:04:55
all in shop representation and my inner voice going my inner critic or my in a tany far saying why the hell did you
00:05:01
tell them your name and basically I was kind of like I was trying to reach out through the through the storm myself but
00:05:09
he did warn me they said what's in the Tito I said you know what's in the Tito
00:05:13
they said don't take another step I took that step and bang shot in the chest at
00:05:18
close range um yeah and but it miss your vital organs no it cut through my organs right and it
00:05:26
was stuck inside of me so they couldn't find it how how how are you not how did
00:05:30
you not die that's a great question that's great there must be like a purpose right there's got to be a reason
00:05:35
absolutely and so my grandmother she's from the hook young so very much a hook
00:05:38
younger Catholic she said you know I gave you the Archangel Michael medal and um it's because of I gave you this medal
00:05:45
you're alive and whatever the reasons are it's it's to give me a second chance
00:05:50
and with that second chance I'm no going I'm going around austral Asia to
00:05:55
communities and organizations to normalize this convers ation using humor and lived experience to open up those
00:06:03
very heavy crunchy doors we uncomfortable about addressing yeah bro and the the work you've done since this
00:06:09
happened the darkest day of your life um it's incredible it's inspirational and
00:06:14
it's phenomenal and I guess I wonder if that's the purpose that you survived I I
00:06:18
feel it is I definitely feel it is uh I was at a mental health Grassroots conference in Hastings and I was I
00:06:25
presented and one of the other presenters came up to me he literally rolled up to me in a wheel here his name
00:06:30
is Wayne Forest he's a really good man and he wrote up to me after listening to
00:06:34
me and he said he looked up at me and he said you know that happened to you for a
00:06:39
reason and part of that reason is for you to send this message out to people yeah and I didn't know his story I
00:06:45
looked at this man in a wheelchair and I was thinking what happened to him and then I get to his hear his story about a
00:06:51
rugby playing farmer who went into a tackle rugby tackle and never came out of it so everyone's got a story it's
00:06:57
just I suppose the key thing I'm meeting from people who have gone through trauma
00:07:01
is From the Ashes hope rises and it's creating hope in different communities
00:07:05
yeah absolutely okay so so so you you so you get shot so you're lying on the
00:07:10
ground repeatedly shouting out I'm so sorry I'm so sorry um then what happens
00:07:15
do you black out you pass out no I'm still right cuz the bullet is searing my
00:07:19
internal organs it's on fire yeah because I would say you're you're you're
00:07:23
the only person I'll ever have the privilege of speaking to that's been shot in the chest and survive so yeah
00:07:29
describe that pain uh yeah once again quite a few people have asked that question what does it feel like it's
00:07:35
like having a hot iron poker in the fire and then someone stabs it inside of you
00:07:40
and it doesn't stop burning so it's like sizzling your internal organs so the the
00:07:46
the the suicidal storm that's going in my mind is now overridden by the burning
00:07:51
internal organs so now I was like oh that's not a problem the problem's down
00:07:56
here now brother and I am just like like I am just in a whole world of pain in a
00:08:03
different way and from that from the healing process I've met a lot of people
00:08:08
and I realize meeting lots of different people around austral Asia is that people don't want to kill themselves
00:08:13
they just want the hurt to stop up here 100% absolutely and I uh yeah I'm one of
00:08:19
those people who survived that and a lot of people don't so I'm very blessed to
00:08:23
get a second chance at life m