I was ‘Raptor 13’ – the no-nonsense cop Aussie criminals so detested. I’ve been gagged for so long… but now I’m out of the police, I can tell you what REALLY happened

He was the no-nonsense cop known as Raptor 13 who gained notoriety on the streets for his uncompromising style of policing. 

But Senior Constable Andrew Murphy has broken his long silence to insist he was never actually kicked out of the elite, bikie-busting squad he came to symbolise. 

Murphy attracted criticism – and won plenty of fans – for his hardline approach to issuing traffic infringement notices while working with Strike Force Raptor.

He gained widespread media attention from 2018 onwards after clips of him clashing with bikies and their associates were uploaded to social media. 

In one well-publicised incident he was captured on camera clashing with mourners attending the funeral of slain Comanchero boss Mick Hawi.

Other videos showed him brandishing a metal pole near a motorist’s head, throwing a motorcyclist’s licence on the ground and shoving a rider on a Hells Angels run. 

Murphy became the victim of an online hate campaign which included threats he would be murdered or raped. More than 30,000 detractors signed a petition calling for his dismissal.  

In February 2020 it was reported Murphy had been removed from Raptor and put in an administrative role as punishment for ‘serious misconduct’.

NSW Police told Daily Mail Australia that Murphy had been disciplined after a video emerged of him threatening and abusing two women in April 2019. 

‘The officer has transferred from the Criminal Groups Squad to a non-public facing unit,’ a police spokeswoman said at the time. 

But Murphy has told the Zero Limits podcast he was never removed from Raptor and was medically discharged from the force in 2021 due to serious injuries he suffered in a near-fatal car accident in 2000. 

In an interview which ran for more than three-and-a-half hours, the former cop said he had always acted to protect the public and stood by the tactics he used while working for Raptor.

‘I was doing what the community expected,’ he said. ‘I was executing my duty as a police officer, without fear or favour.’ 

Raptor opens up 

The podcast also revealed Murphy’s nickname among his fellow officers was ‘Jug’ or ‘Jughead’, that he had originally wanted to join the army rather than police, and he owned a huge collection of Lego. 

The recording was released in March last year but, unlike the controversies surrounding Murphy’s last years in the force, received no mainstream publicity.

Murphy told his interviewers he was still receiving threats and ‘people don’t like me still’ but there was more to his service than his time in the spotlight.

‘Raptor 13 you could say was a number,’ he said. ‘Andrew Murphy the police officer has always existed.’ 

Bankstown-born Murphy joined the NSW Police Force in 1997 and began his career as a 19-year-old probationary constable at Fairfield. 

He served in general duties, licensing and the water police, did specialist Operations Support Group training and was seconded to Operation Vikings. 

Vikings was set up to provide a high-visible police presence across NSW and as part of that team Murphy was engaged in the 2005 Macquarie Fields and Cronulla Riots.

Raptor was established in 2009 as a proactive arm of the Gangs Squad to disrupt and dismantle outlaw motorcycle gangs and used every legal tactic to do so.

Murphy applied to join and was accepted on secondment into Raptor’s highway patrol team. His first shift was policing the July 2015 funeral of Rebels bikie Mark Easter.

At another funeral, this time for a member of the Finks, Murphy wrote up 46 traffic infringement tickets in a day. He gave one target six tickets before he got out of the car park.

‘We used any legislation or power that we could find and lawfully use to disrupt those gangs and stop their criminal activity,’ he told the podcast.

Murphy sometimes wrote out 100 tickets during a shift, issuing defect notices for the slightest problem. Eventually his position at Raptor was made permanent. 

‘I felt like a square peg into a circle everywhere else,’ he said. ‘And now I was allowed to make a square peg to fit in because I brought something to that unit.’

That was when Murphy became Raptor 13, but the official name was not to last long.

‘This is how it is’: Murphy’s law 

‘Once I got a spot, everyone had numbers,’ he said. ‘There was a Raptor 13 before me and when they left Raptor they gave it back.

‘I only wore it for maybe six months, if that… They just said don’t use it anymore because it’s attracting that attention.’

By then, Murphy’s car – first a Ford Falcon XRC Turbo then a Holden Commodore SS VF Series II – was almost as well known to criminals as his callsign.  

‘People generally knew who’d be getting out of that car and they’d go, “Ah, it’s Murphy”, he said. ‘They would see it. It became, you could say, part of my persona.’

Murphy said the videos that social media users claimed portrayed him as heavy-handed only ever showed part of the story. 

‘I may come across as abrasive but this is how it is,’ he said. ‘This is what’s going to happen. This is what you’ve done.’ 

Murphy noted no one was there to film him the day he stepped up to 16 Finks – handing out tickets and defect notices – while on his own.  

The clips that were uploaded to YouTube ’caused me an untold amount of grief and put my life at risk’, he told the podcast.

‘From what I understand I was the first police officer from Raptor to actually have their face put over the media [excluding commanders],’ he said.

‘Which wasn’t good because I got synonymous with that brand, causing me a lot of issues and it still does cause me a lot of issues which is difficult to deal with sometimes.’

But Murphy’s profile also brought him praise, including from the family of a boy who had found the confidence to stand up to school bullies after watching Raptor 13 at the Mick Hawi funeral.

‘Members of the community would contact the OMCG hotline and say personally we think what Raptor 13, Senior Constable Murphy, is doing is awesome,’ he told the podcast.

The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) found in October 2019 that Murphy had threatened and abused two Muslim women during a traffic stop.

The police watchdog described Raptor 13’s behaviour as ‘intentionally intimidating, abusing, threatening and bullying’ and slammed it as ‘serious misconduct’. 

Murphy had berated the driver as ‘the most stupidest person I’ve ever met’ and threatened to send her passenger, a recent migrant, ‘back to jail’.

He told the LECC he was ‘not proud of’ his ‘stupidest person’ comment and stated he ‘had never been this rude to anyone else before.’

Three months later police said Murphy had been kicked out of Raptor.

Murphy did not deal with those findings in the podcast but insisted he was never removed from the strike force, which eventually became a separate squad. 

Instead, he retired on medical grounds aged 42 on March 4, 2021.

‘I was still part of Raptor,’ he said. ‘There’s certain things I can and can’t say. When I left the police force I left as a member of Strike Force Raptor.’

Murphy said he was still ‘very pro-police’ and did not want to be seen as ‘that disgruntled cop’. 

‘I’ve been told that I’ve had a pretty good career,’ he said. ‘I’ve done a lot of things, a lot of crazy stuff.

‘I’ve been in the thick of it. I’ve never been a cop that walked away. I never walked away. And you can take that how you want to.’

Murphy also exposed a lighter side of himself, revealing he was a huge fan of Star Wars and had a room full of Lego.  

‘I have a very extensive Lego collection,’ he said. ‘I have some very high-end stuff that’s worth a lot of money.’

Murphy said he went on the Zero Limits podcast, which features guests who have served in the military or emergency services, because ‘for so long I’ve been gagged’.

‘I know I’m getting haters,’ he said. ‘I deal with that every other week still. 

‘I still have the threats, I still have the comments yelled at me. It’s a s*** thing but getting my story out there might change that stuff.

‘Everyone knows what it’s like to get a pat on the back. Everyone knows what it’s like to get a hit in the guts. And you know which one you prefer.’