Blood in failed arrest

By Kath Gannaway
NEWS on Thursday that Healesville police officer Chris Bullen was out of hospital and recovering at home was the best outcome in what could have been a very different scenario.
Senior Constable Bullen walked into a situation on Tuesday night which neither he, nor, police believe, his attacker, James D’Zilva had contemplated, much less planned.
Sen Const Bullen had received a call from the console operator at the service station advising that D’Zilva, a person of interest at the time, had been in there and had potentially stolen something, but had since left.
Superintendent Geoff Forti said Sen Const Bullen and his partner started to walk over to the service station to speak to the operator, having been advised the suspect had already left the premises.
“Little did they realise that between the phone call and them going over to talk to the console operator, he had returned,” he said.
In the meantime, the second officer went back to lock up the station.
A Healesville man who was in the service station at the time told the Mail a man he later identified as Mr D’Zilva was in the service station when he went in to pay for fuel.
The man, who does not want to be named, said he had walked around him and was waiting at the counter, behind three other people, when he heard a commotion.
“The policeman said something like “come with me” and I heard someone hit a shelf. I turned around and they were wrestling with each other.
“The policeman was really calm and for the most part kept repeating “just come with me ….”
He said they grappled with each other and he saw the man raise his hand and hit Sen Const Bullen in the head before running out the door.
“I didn’t realise until I went out that he was in a bit more trouble than I had thought. He didn’t look like he had been stabbed. He was pretty calm.”
Supt Forti said while D’Zilva had been a person of interest to police, and they had wanted to speak with him, he was at that time not suspected of any criminal offence.