John 'Kapa' Kapetanovski, Macedonian, Detective Sergeant

[Soldier of Macedon]

IT should go without saying that claims made in his dying days by police hero John Kapetanovski must be properly investigated.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/claims-need-to-be-probed/story-e6frfhqo-1226361553951

But the sad fact is they may not be under the fragmented anti-corruption system that exists in Victoria today.

The former detective has made serious allegations to the Ombudsman against Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton.

His allegations highlight the need for not just a Victorian Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, but for one with more powers than the one we are about to get.

Mr Kapetanovski had to take his allegations to the Ombudsman because the IBAC, which was supposed to be operating last July, is still not up and running.

The problem with taking the allegations to the Ombudsman is that they relate to Mr Ashton's time as deputy director of the Office of Police Integrity.

Mr Ashton's boss at the time was OPI director George Brouwer, who, bizarrely, also held the position of Ombudsman at the same time he was running the OPI.

Mr Brouwer is still the Ombudsman, meaning his office is investigating claims made against a man who was Mr Brouwer's deputy and which were allegedly committed during the time Mr Brouwer headed up the OPI.

That has conflict of interest written all over it.

The other problem is that even if the IBAC starts work later this year it is unlikely it could take over investigating the Kapetanovski claims.

That's because the allegations relate to alleged misconduct and as the legislation stands at present the IBAC will not touch such allegations.

For the IBAC to be hamstrung with such a narrow definition of what it can and can't probe is a disgrace that needs fixing.

The Baillieu Government promised Victorians a corruption-busting, one-stop shop which would investigate allegations against politicians, judges, police, local government officials and public servants - what they are getting is a long way short of that.

[George S.]

a hero over the disease rather than some battle of conventional means.It's a battle if you beat it you are some kind of a hero.I had a friend who died of ewing sarcoma he had it when he was 6 & died at 11.But he tfought to the end.I think the positive spirit of fighting against the disease is like mind over matter.He was born with a cromosonal defect how unlucky can one get.But he was very positive in every way in the end the doctors could do so much with therapy & the cancer was so agressive the one tha attacks the softissue.He died from comlications like pneumonia with fluid in his lungs.THe most the doctors gave him was 6months to 2 years.

[molika]

Thanks George, i dont see myself as a heroe? I dont see any other way out of the situation but to survive. Being healthy doesnt really mean a person is happy with life. Being happy is what every living person wants. So, an illness makes one sick but not unhappy.

[George S.]

They reckon a lot of the diseases can be cured lwith mind over matter.Those that make it are really like heroes in the true sense of the word.I think people like nolika can inspire others who are in a similar situation not to give up hope or the will to fight whatever they have,A positive attitude is a start the rest is upto the individual to fight it out of their system.

[Soldier of Macedon]

I think Molika's story can be inspirational for many people.

[makedonche]

I'm on the right path, I see a future and I'm not afraid.

All my life I've been searching for someone to inspire me.
Little did I know, every day I look in the mirror, I see it staring back at me.

Molika
That's fantastic! You're my inspiration from now on! Maybe the admins can make you the MTO's inspiration as well!!!!

[molika]

I'm on the right path, I see a future and I'm not afraid.

All my life I've been searching for someone to inspire me.
Little did I know, every day I look in the mirror, I see it staring back at me.

[julie]

I have finished my treatment. My oncologist is very pleased with my progress, I seem to be taking the treatment better then most people. I'm on the path of a new start to a new life, new hair new look at life, not bothered by bullshit situation. I can never return to my old life, I have accepted this deal I have been handed.

Molika, am so proud of you!
Cancer is not a death sentence, it is a hurdle in re-evaluating your life , getting on with a new and positive outlook , and releasing and eliminating all negative situations and people out of your life.
You are a fighter and a survivor, one that does not die whilst living, but lives their life until they die
Onward and upward, beautiful warrior

As for John Kapa, what a wonderful inspirational man!

[Risto the Great]

I have finished my treatment. My oncologist is very pleased with my progress, I seem to be taking the treatment better then most people. I'm on the path of a new start to a new life, new hair new look at life, not bothered by bullshit situation. I can never return to my old life, I have accepted this deal I have been handed.

That is great Molika.
Truthfully, it sounds like you haven't just "accepted it". You have embraced it and necessarily used it to make the changes in your life that simply had to happen. Impressive!

[Makedonska_Kafana]

I have finished my treatment. My oncologist is very pleased with my progress, I seem to be taking the treatment better then most people. I'm on the path of a new start to a new life, new hair new look at life, not bothered by bullshit situation. I can never return to my old life, I have accepted this deal I have been handed.

So, happy and hope 2012 will bring you health and happiness.

[molika]

I have finished my treatment. My oncologist is very pleased with my progress, I seem to be taking the treatment better then most people. I'm on the path of a new start to a new life, new hair new look at life, not bothered by bullshit situation. I can never return to my old life, I have accepted this deal I have been handed.

[makedonche]

Its not over til it is. Keep fighting mr kapa not give

Molina
Very true! How are you going?

[molika]

Its not over til it is. Keep fighting mr kapa not give

[Risto the Great]

A true "Kapetan" indeed.
All the best to him.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Here is some more about John:

http://www.ethicsinpolicing.com/article.asp?id=5962

A POLICE hero who took a bullet for the community has been forced to spend more than $300,000 in a legal battle to clear his name.
The Office of Police Integrity, which sacked Valour Award winner John Kapetanovski, has been found to have acted unfairly by dismissing him.

The OPI has also been ordered to pay him the maximum amount available under unfair dismissal laws.

The decision is another setback for the OPI, which has suffered a series of embarrassing results in high-profile cases.

It may increase pressure on the anti-corruption agency as a review of the state's integrity bodies prepares to report to the Government by the end of next month.

Mr Kapetanovski, then a detective sergeant in the Victoria Police major crime squad, was shot twice in 1986 by Max Clark, a notorious fugitive gunman known as Mad Max.

Clark, who had been on the run for eight months after shooting four policemen, opened fire on Mr Kapetanovski and his partner when they intercepted him, but was shot dead in the gunfight that followed.

Mr Kapetanovski, 59, told the Herald Sun yesterday he had spent a large part of his police superannuation payout on legal fees during a long fight to try to win back his job and his reputation.

"This has destroyed my reputation, my savings and my future," he said.

"And to this day I can't understand what motivated them to behave with such vindictiveness and venom. At least with Mad Max I knew why he was shooting at me. I still don't know what motivated these people to pursue and humiliate me the way they have.

"They've probably spent more than $500,000 of taxpayers' money on what was essentially a disciplinary matter that could have been dealt with by management intervention at a low level."

Fair Work Australia found last October that Mr Kapetanovski had been unfairly dismissed and ordered the OPI to pay him $58,000 (six months pay) in lieu of reinstatement.

Evidence in that hearing was heard in secret in a closed court after a successful OPI suppression application.

Another hearing in December, also in a closed court, refused Mr Kapetanovski's application for reinstatement to the OPI or an equivalent public service position.

Mr Kapetanovski retired from Victoria Police in 2005 after a 32-year career and went to work for the OPI as a senior investigator.

He was in charge of the OPI's integrity testing unit when he was suspended in May 2008, by the OPI's then acting director, Graham Ashton, after an external inquiry.

Mr Kapetanovski was sacked in February last year by new OPI director Michael Strong, after a second inquiry and told he'd been found guilty of serious misconduct.

The second investigation, by a city law firm, is believed to have found that all seven serious misconduct allegations against Mr Kapetanovski were unsubstantiated or unfounded, but said some OPI management issues could justify misconduct or disciplinary charges.

Mr Kapetanovski said yesterday all he was guilty of was failing to follow OPI management processes and properly supervise an OPI undercover operative.

The Herald Sun believes no findings of dishonesty or corruption were made against Mr Kapetanovski by the OPI.

A spokesman said the OPI could not comment on the merits of the proceeding because of a non-publication order made by Fair Work Australia.

Mr Kapetanovski, who was represented by a QC at Fair Work Australia hearings, said he had been forced to use his police superannuation to pay his legal expenses.

"If I'd still been a policeman the Police Association would have looked after me, but without their backing I was on my own - financially and in every other way," he said.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/one-life-one-brave-heart-one-gut-instinct-to-fight-20111230-1pfg8.html

One life, one brave heart, one gut instinct to fight


THERE is more than one way to be brave. There is the instinctive reaction to fight rather than run from an immediate threat. That takes guts.

And there is the will to battle rather than surrender to an enemy you know will ultimately win. That takes heart.

Career policeman John Kapetanovski (''Kapa'' to his mates) has confronted both - a gunman who tried to kill him and a cancer that eventually will. The first time the reflex to throw up a hand diverted a bullet that would have ended his life.



This time the daily battle is to just prolong it.

''I can tell you cancer travels a lot slower than a bullet,'' he says from a chair in his lounge watching the Melbourne Test. He sits directly in front of the television as his peripheral vision is gone. On Christmas Day he woke blind but later that day his sight returned, although there is no way of knowing how long it will last.

The illness and the treatment has left him almost unrecognisable. Cancer has eroded his imposing physical presence and the steroids his swarthy good looks.


But the essence of the man remains; his passion for policing, sense of public duty, black humour and, most importantly, an overwhelming love for his family.

A quarter of a century ago, Kapa was just a fingertip away from being a dead police hero.

In 1986, he was seconded to the major crime squad to head the hunt for gunman Pavel Vasilof Marinof, who in June 1985 shot four police and narrowly missed a fifth.

The Bulgarian army deserter turned professional burglar and dubbed ''Mad Max'' had built a shooting range in his house and turned himself into a marksman prepared to shoot police on sight.

After an eight-month search, Kapetanovski and his partner, Senior Detective Rod MacDonald, pulled over a panel van on the Hume Highway near Wallan driven by a suspect. Even though they were not wearing ballistic vests they decided to question the driver because they feared they would lose him if he reached Melbourne traffic.

Marinof fired twice at Kapetanovski - the first bullet passing through his chest into the bone of the right upper arm, while the second was aimed directly between his eyes.

Somehow the policeman, with reflexes honed from years of playing pennant squash, flung up his left hand. The shot travelled from the top of the palm through the inside of the middle finger, smashing three bones and destroying the top joint. But the bullet was deflected just enough to only crease his right eyebrow.

The gunman then shot MacDonald in the chest and began to drive off. MacDonald, though seriously injured, returned fire with his shotgun, killing Marinof instantly.

''It's hard to believe but it was almost slow motion,'' Kapa says. ''I could see the bullet heading towards me.''

Both police were officially recognised as heroes when they were awarded Valour Awards for their actions.

Kapa says he remembers the incident ''every time I shave'', when he sees the finger missing the top joint in the mirror and he has to deal with chronic shoulder pain accompanied by the ''occasional nightmare''.

These days these are the least of his problems. He is battling cancer and has been told he has very little time left.

Actually it is wrong to say he is ''battling'' cancer. You battle what you can defeat - you endure what you can't.

Kapa knows he will not beat the disease (''no amount of willpower can stop it'') but his legendary determination (some would say his notorious stubborness) has enabled him to chalk up significant victories against the enemy within.

When he was in hospital critically ill the family wrote on a whiteboard in his room one of his remaining goals - to dance at his son's wedding.

On December 9 he was there to see son Christopher marry fiancee Leah. The father's dance was restricted to a simple jig while sitting in a wheelchair but the promise was met.

In a life filled with achievements it was one of his proudest days.

The next was Christmas with his family. He made that, too - although only just.

A few days earlier he felt so bad he thought he was about to die.

So far he has refused to return to hospital because ''I know I will not come out''.

He was diagnosed with lung cancer in September 2010 and after a series of operations, treatments and false dawns was told it had spread to his brain and spine as leptomeningeal disease. Last October he was told he had two to three months to live.

For a man who had spent his professional life fighting for justice, his natural reaction was to reflect on the injustice of this medical death sentence.

''I felt that after the Mad Max thing and all I have done for the community that it seemed so unfair that this should happen to me.''

Doctors say the disease is not hereditary although the investigator in him remains sceptical as his father and two brothers died of lung and brain tumours.

But he is now too busy saying his goodbyes to family and friends to poison his limited time with bitterness.

Like so many of his generation he was not always there for them; policing always came first - when he retired he ''handed back'' 470 unused sick days.

''I hope they [his three children, India, Christopher, Isabella from his first marriage and Alexandra from his second] have forgiven me for all the school concerts and birthdays I missed because I gave everything to the job.''

Not that it was always his ambition to be a policeman. His first choice was to study law but he couldn't go to university because he was expected to work with his father in a series of bakeries in Victoria and Tasmania.

The family arrived from the then Republic of Yugoslavia in 1957 when he was six. Unable to speak English, he was taken to his first school in Fitzroy by local migrant kids who asked him his name.

When he said ''Nake'' they said they couldn't possibly introduce him with such a foreign-sounding name and christened him John. It has stuck ever since.

They then asked who he supported in the footy and when he said he didn't follow the code he was told he was now a Collingwood supporter. That also stuck for life.

He worked in the family bakeries, as a taxi driver, bank teller and Ford stock checker before joining the police force in 1973 - ''a job I loved for 35 years''.

A natural investigator with a keen mind, a sharp memory and a strong work ethic, he gravitated to the sharp end of the force - special response, armed robbery, organised crime and prison squads.

He also worked for the National Crime Authority and his career ended with an unhappy stint at the troubled Office of Police Integrity, which culminated with him winning an unfair-dismissal case against his former employer.

The cases he remembers with the greatest satisfaction are the happy-ending ones, such as saving a newborn child in one of Australia's most bizarre abductions.

A woman befriended a 26-weeks pregnant woman, claiming that she was a district nurse assigned to her case. After the birth the woman arrived at the home of the new mother, saying she was there to provide respite. She drugged her victim's tea, then tried to burn down the house, hoping police would believe both mother and child died in the blaze.

The sedated mother was badly burnt but police found the kidnapper in Williamstown 36 hours later with the unharmed baby.

''She couldn't have children and she was celebrating finally having her own child,'' he recalls.

There has been a steady stream of visitors to see him, so much so that wife Margaret Lewis (a serving police inspector) has had to pull rank and manage his appointments so he is not left exhausted.

''She is remarkable and done more for me than you could reasonably ask from anyone. I am very proud of her.''

When he sees old mates from the job they talk of the moments that made them laugh, rather than crimes that left people in tears.

Such as when he and his partner from the armed robbery squad, Danny Walsh, conducted a series of early-morning raids. ''Danny insisted on kicking in the door. He went back about 20 metres, ran up and gave it a flying kick. He didn't know it was reinforced steel and he bounced off vibrating like one of those cartoon characters.''

Not to be outdone, he insisted on repeating the act during the next raid.

This time he missed the lock, leaving his foot caught inside the flimsy door. Kapa walked up and tried the handle.

It was unlocked.

''Danny asked me to help him get out of the door but I said I should probably go and arrest the crook first.''

Kapa, 60, can feel his body shutting down and accepts that survival ''is no longer in my hands''.

Yet he continues to endure. There will be no medals for this confrontation but those who know him can see that while John Nake Kapetanovski is running out of time he is not running out of courage.

Best wishes to John and his family, may his battle against cancer be a strong one. This is an individual that all Macedonians and Australians should be proud of. Here are some photo's of this great man: