FILIPINOS were among Sydneysiders who experienced up-close-and-personal the 17-hour siege of the Lindt Café on Monday, December 15, 2014 at Martin Place and who mourned over hostages killed or traumatised in the aftermath.
The siege took on a more terrifying dimension when one TV channel announced an “unconfirmed report” that lone gunman Man Haron Monis had planted four bombs at different locations in Sydney’s central business district. This later proved a hoax.
Monis had taken 17 café staff and customers hostage at about 9am. Several had managed to escape in the hours leading the siege’s tragic ending 17 hours later.
One of the last hostages to escape before the siege came to a dramatic end in the wee hours of Tuesday, December 16, was the café’s Filipino-born Australian barista Harriette Denny, 30. Still wearing a Lindt Café apron, Denny burst through one of the café’s unlocked doors onto the footpath and into a phalange of heavily armed police.
Outside, editor and publisher of the Australian Filipina website Michelle Baltazar had just concluded a business meeting across the Lindt Café when the siege began: “I had intended to drop by the café for coffee before walking back to my office two blocks away.”
But police in bullet-proof vests waved Ms Balatazar away as they barricaded streets surrounding the café. Back at the office, she received police instructions to stay put and it was about 7pm when staff in offices and shops in the “danger zone” slipped out for home.
“I also received a call from broadcast journalist Gigi Grande in the Philippines for details of the siege,” Ms Baltazar said.
It was not long after the gunman had walked into to the café at about 9:30am that part-Filipina television news reporter Kathy Novak of national broadcaster SBS-TV led a news crew to cover the siege.
Also filing news reports on the action for 2BACR’s Filipino program Radio Rizal producer and community newspaper news reporter Marilie Bomediano who stood alongside Australia’s crime reporters from major daily newspapers and radio-television media.
Not far from the siege were banks and offices with Filipino employees.
Offices of the Philippine Department of Tourism and Department of Trade and Industry were only a few blocks east and less than 500 metres from Lindt Cafe, well within the danger zone established by NSW Police during the siege.
Philippine tourism attache Consuelo Jones was on her way to the office from an early morning meeting when she heard news of the siege on television. She immediately rang her secretary Evelyn de Jesus with an order to leave the office immediately and head home by taxicab.
Philippine trade commissioner Emmanuel Ang was in Manila, and he rang his secretary Luningning Smith with instructions to close the office and send staff home immediately.
The siege took three lives: Lindt Cafe manager Tori Johnson, barrister Katrina Dawson, and the gunman Monis. Johnson died when shot as he moved on Monis in a bid to disarm him. Dawson took a bullet while shielding a pregnant hostage. Monis died in a hail of police gunfire as they stormed in at 2:10am .
At dawn, people laid flowers and tribute notes just metres from the crime scene. Three or four memorial books were placed on makeshift tables for people to sign and leave messages. Among the crowd was a retired Filipino who wrote: “Should never happen again in my city of Sydney.”
The Courier Mail website was first to identify hostage Harriette Denny as part Filipina whose father Robert is Australian married to Catalina, a Filipina.
On the family business’ Facebook page, a message said: “We are most happy and relived that our dear family member Harriette is safe and unharmed after her terrible ordeal in the Lindt Café siege.
“We will however not be celebrating, as there are two families whose loved ones have not survivied. Harriette has lost a valuedfriend and work colleague, and our hearts go out to his family and also to the family of the lady who lost her life.”
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