Ben Harvey: What happens when a bikie, a Northbridge identity and a journalist walk into a bar

A bikie, a Northbridge identity and a journalist walk into a bar

Sounds like the start of a joke, right?

Here’s the punchline: the gang crime squad is there waiting so the bikie is detained for questioning while the Northbridge identity threatens to sue for unlawful arrest and the journo gets sad that he can’t finish his beer.

That little scene played out shortly before midday on Monday at a pub close to my work, where I met Troy Mercanti to discuss a story I’ve been writing for some time.

John Kizon was there for no other reason than he and Troy are old friends who hang out a lot. They’re the Bert and Ernie of the Australian underworld.

Finding out I was drinking with two of WA’s longest-running police targets, and before midday on a Monday to boot, will dismay my family but sometimes a crime reporter’s gotta do what a crime reporter’s gotta do.

As the police surrounded our table I realised I had a front row seat to the well-publicised war on bikies.

I have seen countless cops speak to countless bikies over the years but I have never actually been part of the conversation; now I was at the sharp edge of the justice conundrum of the age.

And it was … Boring.

This wasn’t a kick-the-door down-put-your-hands-up police raid like you sometimes see on the news. They are actually quite rare events in bikie land.

What’s more common is the interaction I observed at the pub on Monday – a calm, methodical, almost transactional interaction, which I shall recount here.

On one side were a half dozen irritatingly young and dashing officers from the specialist gang response team.

These guys are part tactical response group, part riot squad and they perform bikie-related duties where there is a chance things might get, errr, willing.

Here’s a handy life hack: if you are ever pulled over by a cop with GRT anywhere on their uniform best don’t answer back.

On the other side were two men who have caused more police over-time cheques to be written than you could possibly imagine. Generations of cops have bought holiday homes with the OT they clocked chasing the two blokes sitting opposite me.

The police politely asked all of us for ID. I hope that was standard protocol because if they didn’t know, they’re in the wrong profession.

Then they alerted us to the fact the exchange was being filmed by their body-worn cameras (which pick up everything, unless the owner of the body wearing the camera is a little too willing whilst enforcing the law, in which case the technology coincidentally tends to fail).

Formalities over they got to the nub of it: Mercanti was being detained.

This was where it got a little tense.

Troy asked why and one of the cops said something about how he was being held under “the criminal law act”.

Now, I was pretty sure that piece of legislation didn’t exist but I wasn’t about to point that out lest I was beset by some physical ailment that six sets of body-worn cameras failed to document.

There was a bit of argy-bargy about whether he was under arrest but there was no real heat in the conversation until Kizon asked if he too was detained.

When he was told that yes, he was, Kizon started asking a barrage of questions. When he didn’t get the answers he felt he was due he ended the conversation with “I’m going to enjoy taking you for another $10 million”.

At that point the police decided it was best to check with the boss (covering one’s arse is a time-honoured, career-preserving tradition at WAPOL) and a few moments later they came back to give Kizon the good news that he was free to go.

One of the officers then turned to me and something along the lines of: “You don’t have to leave the pub but I’m going to have to ask you to leave this table because I’m going to be discussing some personal matters with Troy.”

He delivered the direction politely but in a tone that suggested the subtext “I’m a nice guy right up until the point I’m not”.

Kind of like a lot of bikies I have known over the years, to be honest.

I didn’t need to be asked twice because I could see Mercanti was becoming a little agitated.

It wasn’t a case of there being a Harvey-shaped hole in the door but I was happy to leave the pub, which is a sentence no journalist has ever written.

They let Mercanti go a little while later and having got the impression the police action had something to do with the bikie’s presence in a licensed premises I looked around for another location.

And that’s why if you were driving down Scarborough Beach Road around lunchtime on Monday you may have seen me sitting on a park bench talking to Troy Mercanti and making notes while he drank a take-away green tea (what has happened to bikies, honestly).

As for the story I needed to talk to him about, well you’re going to have to wait and see.