Posted by: "Ray Jackson" isja01@internode.on.net
Mon Mar 8, 2010 11:46 pm (PST)
more on the not so unexpected racism involved in the secrecy and suppression involving the history of thuggery by hurley towards aboriginal people.
the qld. police tried every trick in the book in an attempt to stop the assault record of hurley being made public but had only half a victory. it was used in the inquest but was not made public.
of course we know that the task of the white legal system is to protect their shock troops, the police forces of this country. that protection nexus must be broken as must the criminal practice of police investigating police. other truly independent investigation bodies must be set up. such bodies can be community driven or be more formally legally based.
the police, and their masters, will fight this as a viable option so a second position must be to have, as a minimum, aboriginal involvement both in the police investigation and the inquest. this would occur by the relevant aboriginal family nominating an aboriginal qualified barrister to work fully with the police as an investigator and then sitting with the coroner to ascertain that the proper procedures are followed by all.
no more white-washes. no more cover-ups.
i do not believe that real justice will come from the hine inquest but the full investigation of mulrunji's death has surprised from time to time so anything is possible. if he finds hurley guilty there will be caveats attached such as 'accidental death whilst involved in an arrest', etc.
jeff waters is the author of 'gone for a song' which gives a view of the mulrunji/hurley case from his perspective as an abc reporter. another view, and i believe a more substantial one, is 'the tall man' by chloe hooper. still another view is given by my association that follows the machinations of the tragedy in our newsletter, djadi dugarang, in v6 #2 2005, v6 #3 2005, v6 #4 2005, v6 #5 2005, v7 #10 2006, v7 #11 2006, v7 #12 2006, v8 #3 2007, v8 #4 2007, v8 #5 2007, v8 #6 2007, v8 #7 2007 and v8 #8 2007. to find these newsletters please go to our site, isja.org.au, for your use.
i strongly maintain that all three sources need to be read to obtain a very good understanding of the issues and the criminal acts involved in by all the players.
one continuing error that jeff, and others, make is that hurley is the first police officer to be charged and gone to court because of an aboriginal death in custody. he is not. the wa police involved in the death of john pat were the first that i can find. there was of course the 'trial' of those involved in the coniston massacre but that cannot be counted.
more recently was the nt a/sergeant who was charged with the shooting death of the young man from wadeye who got off due to a police initiated technicality. hurley was/is the first qld. police officer to be charged and gone to court.
let us hope he is not the last.
fkj
ray jackson
president
indigenous social justice association
----- Original Message -----
From: michael
To: undisclosed- recipients:
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 12:15 PM
Subject: The Mulrunji Affair: secrecy and suppression
The Mulrunji Affair: secrecy and suppression
By ABC's Jeff Waters
Updated March 9, 2010 11:27:00
Protest in Brisbane over the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee
Mulrunji's family and the wider Indigenous community will be waiting for
a very long time before anyone is held to account for his death. (AAP:
Tony Phillips)
Some have called it the "Mulrunji Affair". It's been an irritant for the
Queensland Police and that state's government since 2004, and it's not
going away.
The inquest into the death in custody on Palm Island has resumed this
week. The court has been ordered to finally resolve the mysterious cause
of death of the young and drunken man known as Mulrunji, almost six
years down the track. He died in a cell of massive internal injuries
less than an hour after being arrested on an alleged language offence.
But the inquest will also be discussing - in secret - a large amount of
explosive evidence which Queensland's legal and political establishment
is keeping hidden from the public. I've seen it, but it is illegal for
me to tell you what it contains. Other correspondents claim they've
revealed the details of this evidence, but I can assure you they have
not. It has never been fully aired. In this article, I'll do my best to
show you what I can.
The secret evidence actually pre-dates the death itself, which took
place on a steamy morning in November 2004. The arresting officer,
Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, maintains Mulrunji Doomadgee swore at him
as the sergeant arrested another man. Other witnesses say he was singing
the reggae song "Who let the Dogs Out." Sergeant Hurley says he
accidentally fell on top of Mulrunji as he escorted him into the police
station. A witness said he saw the giant policeman repeatedly punch
Mulrunji as he lay on the floor. Whatever the truth, Mulrunji was found
dead in his cell soon after. He had multiple face and internal injuries
including broken ribs. His liver had been, literally, split in two.
An inquest, presided over by the Deputy State Coroner, Christine
Clements, subsequently found Sergeant Hurley to have been responsible
for the death. You can download her damning findings. But the Clements
hearings, which were originally set down for about a week, stretched for
more than a year, thanks to legal battles over the secret evidence. The
Queensland Police Commissioner was determined to stop the court from
even considering this body of material, so appealed to the state's
Supreme Court. The case was lost, and the coroner did include it in her
considerations, but she imposed an extraordinarily strict
non-publication order which prevented public scrutiny of the material,
which could be perceived as highly critical of certain people in authority.
This first non-publication order is so wide, and so all embracing, that
it will stand, until successfully challenged in court, until the end of
time. Nevertheless, the suppressed evidence was discussed in open court
on August 19, 2005. I can't find any transcript on the web, but readers
may apply for a written version of it through the court. The case number
is BRIS-COR-00002857 of 2004. The Clements non-publication order also
prevents anyone broadcasting or publishing details of the video recorded
at the Palm Island watch house on the day of the death.
There were two Queensland Supreme Court appeals on the Mulrunji matter
which the ABC lawyers tell me are illegal to write about, and which were
responsible for the long delays in the Clements inquest. Strangely
however, there are links to two of these judgements available on the
court's own website, on the judicial decisions page. The first judgement
(which is actually the second listed on this page), Commissioner of
Police v Clements & Ors [2005], contains passages which are highly
critical of the police service and Queensland government, but,
strangely, the download on the court website doesn't work. Instead, the
link directs you to a case from the NSW Court of Appeal. Conspiracy
theorists may draw their own conclusions. The second judgement,
Doomadgee & Anor v Clements & Ors [2005], isn't as critical of
authorities, but the link works. This judgement only reveals a tiny
fraction of the secret. The full details aren't published anywhere on
the web. They are firmly locked away.
After a great deal of controversy, Senior Sergeant Hurley became the
first Australian police officer to be charged over a black death in
custody. He faced a court on manslaughter charges and was acquitted in
June 2007 by an all-white jury drawn from the population of Townsville.
But he, and the police service, didn't want to stop there. The Clements
Inquest findings still hung over them. So, last year, they went back to
court in an attempt to have them overturned. Perhaps unexpectedly, even
for them, the court ruled that a full inquest needed to be re-opened.
This week's inquest (which some are calling a second inquest, but which
is really a continuation of the first as evidence from the Clements
hearings is being considered) is being presided over by Deputy Chief
Magistrate Brian Hine. His pre-inquest hearings opened last year with
the news that he'd rejected a submission by the state's Attorney General
that accidental death should be ruled out. But there have also been
pre-trial hearings for the Hine Inquest over the last couple of weeks.
Once again, the secret evidence was at the centre of debate and, once
again, it is illegal for me to write about what transpired. Mr Hine has
imposed his own, new and apparently unusual, non-publication order,
which the court tells me I'm not even allowed to quote to you. Once
again, full and fair discussion of all the details of this case is being
suppressed; full disclosure, disallowed.
Under both the Clements and the Hine non-publication orders, it is legal
to discuss a number of previous complaints against the conduct of Senior
Sergeant Chris Hurley. They were covered during the Clements inquest and
two of them are outlined at length in the findings. They include the
allegation that Mr Hurley kneed an Indigenous man in the stomach, then
squeezed him by the throat until the man wet himself. There is no
indication in the inquest findings if any investigation into these
claims took place. There's the allegation that Mr Hurley drove over an
Indigenous woman's foot, causing a fracture in which the bone protruded.
Mr Hurley is alleged to have told her to get up and go home.
In this case, Christine Clements found that: "A cursory and completely
unsatisfactory investigation was belatedly undertaken by Detective
Robinson, who dismissed the complaint as fictitious." Finally, there's
an allegation that Mr Hurley punched another Indigenous man five times
in the upper body, and hurled abuse at the man as he was dragged to a
cell. This is included in the judgement from the second police Supreme
Court challenge but, again, there is no indication if an investigation
into the incident took place, or if any action was taken against the
officer.
Meanwhile, the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission is still to
release details of its probe into the dodgy police investigation into
the death. The lengths police apparently went to to control their own
investigation into the cause of death are astounding. CMC spokeswoman
says the Hines Inquest won't affect the timing of the release of this
investigation, but she can't say when that release will take place, in
spite of the fact the death happened nearly six years ago.
Whatever the CMC finds, however, it may have little effect on the police
service or the state government. That's because it has few powers. Its
negative findings against police have been ignored before. Indeed, when
a CMC report slammed the police for their conduct in the aftermath of a
riot on the island, the Police Commissioner called a press conference to
announce he "disagreed with the CMC's advice." That was it. The report
would be ignored. The state police minister remained uncritical during
an interview I conducted for Queensland Stateline in August 2005.
It seems Mulrunji's family and the wider Indigenous community will be
waiting for a very long time before anyone is held to account for
anything to do with this very strange death. And it seems unlikely the
public will ever be able to discuss the full story.
Jeff Waters is Senior Correspondent for the ABC's Australia Network
television news service.
http://www.abc. net.au/news/ stories/2010/ 03/09/2840386. htm?site= thedrum
___________________________________________________________________________
[4ZzZ 102.1fm Radical Radio Collective]
[radradio@4zzzfm.org.au][www.4zzzfm.org.au]
Comments
I believe it is an on going whitewash !
The phrase Queensland the police state springs to mind. Death in custody or when hospitals refuse access and people die is often underlined by an identifiable racist bias. In the time after the death and subsequent riots, I spoke with one community leader about the death of a woman whose male friend could not get her into a hospital for treatment. We are all equal under Australian law or we are not. It is my perception we are not! Edward James Umina CBD
You do the crime, you do the time. It is as simple as that
i know the law is said to be an ass and can be very interpretive, the basic tenets of common law justice are still meant to apply to all. nowhere have i read or seen or been told that the police, the judiciary and their attendant legal friends or even for that matter our self-titled 'honourable' politicians were ever meant to be exempt from that common law process. regardless of the circumstances.
hurley has admitted, somewhat belatedly, to be involved in the death of mulrunji. no argument there. hurley must be charged with manslaughter, culpable or otherwise, but still manslaughter. during my driving days if i had caused the death of a pedestrian, whether intoxicated or no, i am still culpable for the death of a pedestrian and/or another driver. i am guilty of causing the death of a person or persons due to my actions. i have breached my duty of care to those i have killed. the circumstances behind the deaths would dictate the term of imprisonment. that to me is the law.
you do the crime, you do the time. it is as simple as that.
so to is hurley guilty of causing the death of mulrunji, whether by accident or design. i can see no legal circumstances, apart from a legal conspiracy and corruption, that hurley would not be sent to gaol. the sentence to be set by the presiding judge.
of equal importance to me, and so to of many others, are those police from commissioner Atkinson down to the rank of probationary constable who have willingly and physically involved themselves in the conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. added to those ranks of police must also be included the police union and their officers. our gaze must also turn to the police ministers and the dpp personnel of the time.
of special interest however must be those officers who were present on palm island that night and those of the 'investigating team' who flew to palm island who then shared a meal and some beers together whilst allegedly 'looking at the facts.'
detective darren robinson, i have no doubt, is one of the pin-up boys of the qld. force. he absolutely epitomises the police culture of protecting your friend/fellow officer regardless of the crime committed by him/her and regardless of what crime he had to commit to protect hurley. worthy of a promotion for services rendered to the culture.
robinson is known to have threatened witnesses, both before the doomadgee event and afterwards. he is known to have destroyed evidence, also before and after doomadgee. it is stated that he not only threatened roy bramwell and 'binned' his original statement but he was also seen and heard to threaten patrick as well. patrick was taken for a ride by robinson the night before he was found hanging from a tree.
so to was eric, the son of mulrunji, found hanging from a tree. had robinson taken eric for a ride and spoken to him the night before he died? maybe, maybe not. at this point in time we just don't know. what we do know is that robinson has proved to be a rogue cop and must be charged and investigated on his full role from that november night in 2004.
i have only used the first names of eric and patrick in an attempt to respect the culture and their families.
sergeant leafe is also worthy of investigation in his actions during these events. it looks likely he too is a pin-up boy for the force.
as an old trade unionist over many decades i have a keen perception of the workings of a trade union and its duty of care to its members. but the audacity of the qld. police union left me breathless. they took on all opposition voices in the almost holy quest to prove that 'their member' was upstanding in every sense of the word. surely it is a crime to instruct their members to pervert the course of justice by not dealing with the prosecutor prior to the court case? their other crimes of intimidation and interference were legion. well worthy of investigation, surely.
whilst i have no trust in royal commissions, for obvious reasons and because i am old enough to recall pm menzies saying that you only called royal commissions when you already knew the answer, i am firmly of the view that the criminal nexus of the qld. police, some parliamentarians and some legal bodies need to be closely scrutinised in a legal fashion. we must stop the rot in returning to the bjekle petersen days where the corrupt police ran the justice system.
we are also now hit with the tragedy of the criminal death of sheldon currie, the 18 year old who died in the arthur gorrie gaol due to the complete lack of duty of care by nursing staff at that gaol. this cause of death is so prevalent in the gaol systems of this country as to almost be considered normal by corrective service departments. deaths such as this have existed since gaols were first built and it is beyond the time that such callous and deadly treatment was banished from our gaols. such deaths are cowardly and unnecessary in this day and age. i will make comment on this death at a later time.
the sympathies and heartfelt condolences of isja and myself go to his family, his community and friends. we know that he walks his country in peace.
i have included the vox populi, the voice of the people, as some impart interesting information to reinforce my statements that whilst hurley is the first qld. copper to be charged and sent to court he is most definitely not the first in australia. our invasion legal system has been known to at least make an attempt at justice, be it all somewhat weakly, over the 20th and 21st centuries.
let us all hope that hurley, robinson, leafe and many others are the first to go to gaol for a death in custody of whatever ethnicity.
fkj
Wednesday, 10 March 2010 / 21 comments
Holding their breath for Palm justice
by Chris Graham
Another day, another inquest into the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee — an Aboriginal man killed in the Palm Island Police Station in 2004, is under way.
The findings of the second inquest (the first was abandoned) were set aside last year after a court found Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley could not have inflicted the fatal injuries simply by punching Mulrunji Doomadgee.
For his part, Hurley has admitted killing Mulrunji, but claims it was a tragic accident.
Mulrunji was found dead on the floor of a cell in the station less than an hour after he was arrested by Hurley on the morning of November 19, 2004 for swearing. He had suffered four broken ribs, bruising to the head, a torn portal vein and his liver had been almost cut in two.
A week later, Aboriginal residents torched the police station, courthouse and Hurley police barracks amid claims of a cover-up, claims that later proved true.
This latest inquest is being watched by Aboriginal people around the nation for one simple reason: it represents the best chance yet for justice over an Aboriginal death in custody.
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody looked into the deaths of 99 Aboriginal people. All of them, apparently, did it to themselves, because while there were deep suspicions of occasional foul play, no one was ever charged over a single death.
Hence, Hurley was the first police officer in history to face trial over the death in custody of an Aboriginal man. He has already been acquitted of manslaughter, but Aboriginal people haven’t given up hope Hurley will one day pay a price for the death, even if it’s only in a civil court.
Thus far, Hurley has escaped sanction, and has even received a promotion to the rank of Acting Inspector.
The inquest has so far heard from Roy Bramwell, an Aboriginal man who was sitting in the Palm Police Station when Mulrunji died.
In past inquests, he claimed his vision of a scuffle between Hurley and Mulrunji was obscured by a filing cabinet, but that he saw Hurley strike Mulrunji about three times, and yell, “Do you want more Mr Doomadgee, do you want more?”
But this week, Bramwell told the court that while his direct view was obscured by a filing cabinet, he watched the assault in a mirror. He told investigators this in his original statement, but it was removed after he was threatened by one of the local detectives investigating the death.
“(The officer) told me ‘Hurley is a good man, he’s a good friend, anything happens to him and I’m going to come after you’,” Bramwell told the court yesterday.
That officer, says Bramwell, was Detective Darren Robinson, who screwed up his original statement and binned it, before threatening him.
Robinson is already in hot water — during the criminal trial of Lex Wotton, the man ultimately convicted of torching the Palm Police Station and Court House — it emerged that Robinson had repeatedly lied to superiors during an investigation into another assault by Hurley, this time an Aboriginal woman, six months before Mulrunji was killed.
Robinson was appointed to investigate allegations Hurley — a known friend of Robinson — had run over an Aboriginal woman with a police vehicle. Barbara Pilot was airlifted from Palm with her shinbone sticking through her skin.
A doctor who treated Pilot told investigators he felt pressured by police to agree the incident never occurred. Indeed, according to Robinson, it never did.
Twice Robinson submitted false reports to his superiors in Townsville claiming the incident was fictitious. Despite the deceit, six months later his superiors again appointed him to investigate Hurley, this time over the death of Mulrunji.
Three months before that, Robinson was present with about half a dozen other police when Hurley assaulted another Aboriginal man — Douglas Clay — in the police station. Interviewed by superiors, Robinson claimed the attack was simply a “slap” by Hurley. A subsequent Crime and Misconduct Commission investigation found Clay’s blood on the walls of the police station.
Robinson was also one of the officers who ate dinner and drank beers with Hurley on the night of the killing (as was a member of the Ethical Standards Command, sent from the mainland to ensure the investigation was above board), while Mulrunji’s body was still cooling in the hospital a few hundred metres away.
While the inquest continues, Aboriginal people remain keenly aware that justice hasn’t caught up with Robinson anymore than it’s caught up with Hurley.
Robinson is still a serving detective. Indeed, since the riots he’s been promoted to the rank of Sergeant, and in 2008 Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson awarded Robinson the top police bravery medal, the Queensland Police Valour Award, for his actions during the Palm Island uprising.
Lex Wotton, by contrast, is still cooling his heels in the Townsville Correctional Centre. He’s expected to be released from jail in July this year. The inquest rolls on.
21 Comments
michael crook
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 1:38 pm | Permalink
Sad indeed that a large part of the Queensland Police Service, still believes that it is there to “keep down the blacks”. They are encouraged in this by the endemic racism in Australia which is not only evidenced by black deaths in custody but also in our non response to the racism inflicted on refugees and other minorities. We must also feel sorry for Lex Wootten, jailed for the crime of being a freedom fighter for his people when the law failed them, as it always has. But I forget, in this country black people are not supposed to be angered by the many injustices forced upon them, they are supposed to be grateful for the racist crumbs we bestow on them as a gift. But, as always the two main parties play up to and participate in this racist ethos because it is popular with the shock jocks and the commercial media, these parties have no humanity and no empathy. Hopefully, if those voters disenchanted with the racism exhibited by the Rudds and Abbotts, were to change their vote to Greens or Socialist then perhaps a new balance of power could open a new debate, and the humanists could gain a voice.
Ern Malleys cat
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 2:00 pm | Permalink
Apart from the cause of the fatal injuries, and whether it constitutes manslaughter, there seems to be an irrefutable case for criminal negelect.
No medical assistance was given to an obviously badly injured man. And to compound the callousness, when Mulrunji’s wife came to the station in the morning after he was already dead, she was sent away and only informed much later.
I wish the inquests included not just the graver charges and maybe at least something might stick.
1934pc
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 2:39 pm | Permalink
“she was sent away and only informed much later”. Was that so they could get their story straight?.
So many injuries could not be accidential.
Andrew Lewis
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 2:46 pm | Permalink
This is just one of the saddest stories of our time. I can only hope that some justice eventuates. I have followed this terrible story from the start and my heart goes out to his relatives and to his people. You don’t need to be a member of the indigenous community to have been struck by the sheer tragedy of this story, and moved by the injustice of it all.
And thanks Michael Crook for your inflammatory comments. “Endemic racism in Australia’ eh. Endemic - peculiar to a particular people or locality; native to a country. Apparently racism is peculiar to Australia. Never see it anywhere else on the planet.
That’s the way to fight racism, with more racism! Well done.
Spare me.
shepherdmarilyn
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 2:51 pm | Permalink
I have followed this since the beginning and read Chloe Hoopers depressing book “The Tall Man”. If it wasn’t for Hooper and Tony Koch, the family and a very small number of others who give a damn about justice this would be buried as surely as the tragedy of Mr Ward who was cooked by negligent staff in WA.
Greg Angelo
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 3:00 pm | Permalink
I can only hope that finally we will get to the truth this matter. It is painfully obvious that Queensland police look after their own, whether the victim is black or white. In this particular instance, notwithstanding any aspect of racism, there was a clear failure of due process in relation to the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee, and the obvious aspects of “mates” looking after “mates”.
I suspect that if Mulrunji Doomadgee had been white, the same apparent cover-up would probably have occurred. Intimidation of witnesses is not always just undertaken by criminals under suspicion or threat of legal action.
It is vitally important that justice be seen to be done, for a number of reasons, the least of which is the presumption that when there is a confrontation between a black man and a white man, that the white man is morally superior.
All members of the Australian community must be able to assume that they will get equal access to justice, regardless of the colour of their skin, or their economic or social circumstances. This includes not being assaulted by police, or being denied appropriate medical treatment when injured either through indifference, neglect or sheer bloody mindedness.
twobob
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 3:11 pm | Permalink
This is a tragic story of police brutality and injustice, from the perpetrators through the inspectors to the superiors of the QLD police force.
If someone should make a film of this disgraceful act it will both nationally and internationally be an example of the injustices suffered by Australian indigenous people.
The story makes me angry and that it could happen here disgusts me.
This leaves a stench upon all white Australians that can never be entirely removed. But an attempt would be appreciated.
Hugh (Charlie) McColl
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 3:29 pm | Permalink
Anyone who has read Chloe Hooper’s excellent, calm and sobering book and/or been present in the court to hear the evidence in the manslaughter trial will be well aware that there is unlikely to be any further ‘truth’ revealed that might undo the injustice that surrounds this case. Although, as Greg Angelo writes, it is vitally important that justice be seen to be done, what exactly do we think this “justice” might look like? The accused policeman has been acquitted by a jury after an ordinary and quite uncontroversial criminal trial so it’s hard to see any further justice available via that route. Palm Island has been shaken, stirred, ripped apart, patched up and repaired, not for the first time, so I can’t see any justice available via the community sector. Something similar could happen just about anywhere in Australia, including the metropolitan areas, tomorrow and we’d still be stunned by the shortcomings of our justice system.
I know the Coronial enquiry is the last official hurrah so to speak but I think it is wishful thinking to hope for some sort of comprehensive ‘justice’, against all the odds, at the finishing post.
nicolino
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 3:46 pm | Permalink
As with the inquiries into police misconduct on the Gold Coast, what’s the betting that this will all be swept under the carpet. That’s the Australian way after all as the authorities time and again play the out of sight out of mind game. There are those of us out here who do remember however.
Barb Oldfield
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 4:04 pm | Permalink
This must result in the sacking of the Current Commissioner as the whole process reeks of cover up from the very top. A national disgrace.
harrybelbarry
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 7:02 pm | Permalink
Police Corruption , Queensland Style . Get away with murder, you get promoted , you lie for someone , you get promoted. Heads should roll, from the top down.
Chris Graham
Posted Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 7:25 pm | Permalink
Andrew Lewis: I’m sorry Andrew, but if you can come up with a better term than ‘endemic racism’ to describe the backdrop of what has occurred, I’ll eat my own arm. Michael Crook hit the nail on the head. To suggest that its racist to point it out smacks of a naivete of biblical proportions.
As to it being the last hurrah, if only that were true… there’s much much more to follow. The fresh coronial inquiry is simply about Hurley trying to knock over a finding that he caused the death, because after this he faces a very expensive personal lawsuit from the Doomadgee family. That’s what this fresh inquest is fundamentally all about… Hurley using the law to lessen the legal bill (which will be picked up by his union). The sad news is we expect this issue to drag on for a t least a few more years before Hurley and his corrupt cronies ever face any sort of sanction.
napoleon dynamite
Posted Thursday, 11 March 2010 at 7:40 am | Permalink
i knew of this case but never too the time to learn about it.
thanks to Crikey for bringing this type of story to my attention.
disgraceful.
Hugh (Charlie) McColl
Posted Thursday, 11 March 2010 at 8:19 am | Permalink
Chris Graham, the point I tried to make about the form of the justice that can be ‘seen to be done’ in the Palm Island case is exactly opposite that which you describe in the last sentence of your reply above. As someone said somewhere, justice delayed is justice denied.
Having “… this issue drag on for at least a few more years before Hurley and his corrupt cronies ever face any sort of sanction” is not justice ‘seen to be done’.. The possibility of “… a very expensive personal lawsuit” is never going to be justice ‘seen to be done’. It’s all sad news. Sadly, our justice system is not up to the task. Our society and all of us are diminished by this inadequacy.
Chris Johnson
Posted Thursday, 11 March 2010 at 10:53 am | Permalink
Most Queenslanders haven’t a clue that Hurley and the Police Union are running an agenda over this Palm Island debacle. They only hear about the lives and careers of the players moving onwards and upward along with those of then Police Minister Judy Spence and her Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson now maxing out his super package with a three year extension to his post. Queensland is one mangled mess of public sector administrative bungles costing lives, careers and draining the public purse. Hugh (Charlie McColl) says a catastrophe like Palm Island would be similarly short on justice anywhere in Australia. But I bet Hurley, his mates and the Queensland Police Union would swear their State is far more fertile territory for victimising the vulnerable.
helayne_h
Posted Thursday, 11 March 2010 at 7:45 pm | Permalink
I remember John Pat, a 16 year old West Australian Aborignal boy, who was killed on September 28th 1983 whilst in the custody of five drunk off-duty police officers of the WA police force.
…The five police officers were eventually charged with manslaughter over John Pat’s death and in 1986 were found innocent as the driven snow, by an all white jury. Was it 40 or 42 seperate heel marks counted on the inside of John Pat’s peeled back scalp during the autopsy? In 1986 a torn aorta, bruised brain and broken ribs were considered reasonable force. Some things never change.
Gardia law
a concrete floor
a cell door
and John Pat
(Exert from the poem ‘John Pat’ by the Aboriginal poet Jack Davis)
Dingoes Breakfast
Posted Thursday, 11 March 2010 at 10:44 pm | Permalink
This is very sad about Black Deaths In Custody and all those black people looking for justice. I wonder if they would be protesting if it was a White Death In Custody.
beachcomber
Posted Thursday, 11 March 2010 at 11:59 pm | Permalink
And the Deaths keep on coming. Another reported today, of an aboriginal teenager who died last month serving time for a petty crime. And the Courier Mail no longer bothers to have the article about his death on its’ website. The cops know they get away with anything, and a racist Government and Media will turn a blind eye.
Daniel
Posted Friday, 12 March 2010 at 1:18 am | Permalink
If it was a white death in custody there would be no need to protest.
helayne_h
Posted Friday, 12 March 2010 at 8:33 am | Permalink
Re: Dingoes breakfast, for your information lacking smart mouth….in Perth in the 80’s when a white boy died whilst in police custody ( i cannot recall his name as I wasn’t in perth at that time) his white family tried to get white people, friends and politicians to help them protest, to their despair on;y the Democrats would help, i think it was Janine Haynes, who put the family in contacte with the Black Deaths Action Group headed by Lenny and Maureen Culbong, with hundreds of other Aboriginal people behind them. The Black Deaths Action Group organised a protest march through the streets of Perth with banners and placards, about this boys death, and over a hundred Aboriginal people (mainly Nyoongah people) marched in support of this white family’s, grief and protest, only a handfull of white people marched, the family close friends a nun and Janine Haines and her partner, by memory. They also supported another white deaths protest, the Searcy boy, and many other incidents of brutality against white prisoners. These public marches are always followed by a huge contingennt of WA police force members, over the top, with many police media people filming for identification purposes for their files, all protesters.
Ten years later when 18 year old white boy, Joseph Dethridge, had his jaw smashed at the Fremantle lock up and was knocked unconscious and had kick marks all over his body (arrested for being drunk no previous convictions) over a hundred Aboriginal people came to the protest rally. They however, were not allowed to speak at this white organised rally. Tis police officer was charged and found guilty and sacked. The Dethridges, a wealthy family, spent tens of thousands of dollars to get this half measure of justice for their son, and lost half of their business clients because of the publicity, “He must have deserved this kind of trreatment,” people would tell them.
What do you do to stand up against any injustices in this world…you Dingoe?
SBH
Posted Friday, 12 March 2010 at 10:19 am | Permalink
Like an old woman once said ‘Don’t feel guilty daught, feel angry’
read this it’s unfinished business
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/IndigLRes/rciadic/
The recommendations are at volume 5
read it over the weekend, write to Macklin on Monday
ray jackson
president
indigenous social justice association
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Re: Will Mulrinji inquiry deliver justice?
There are a few facts missing from this whole diatribe and which I can clarify.
I am an ex police officer. When I was newly sworn in, I was stationed in a remote aboriginal mission with Chris Hurley as my senior. I had come from a city background, and to be honest had found the self-chosen lifestyle and behaviour of the aboriginal people in this community to be quite confronting. While I watched the money pour into this community from various government agencies, I also saw it disappearing down the throats of the local population, resulting in constant violence between themselves and all others in the community.
I speak of this to provide a point, and that is that when I, from my city background came to this remote community I was quite racist. The only aboriginal people I had been exposed to where these drunken, violent people who on a daily basis would hurl abuse at us.
Chris Hurley changed that for me. Chris would not tolerate racism in any of the police in his team. At that point Chris was dating one of the aboriginal teachers in the local school. I remember after a particularly violent encounter between us and a group of drunken locals on a rampage I had let fly back in the station with my personal opinions of the situation. Chris sat me down and spoke at length to me about how there were many good and kind people in this community, and how the history of the stolen generation and the welfair mentality had combined to create a miasma of apathy and despair amongst the people of the community. It was Chris Hurley who taught me that they had to be met with understanding and forbearance, and that our role in the community was far more than enforcing the law, that we were there to become a part of the community and to look for community based answers to these problems.
So how is this guy racist? It's easy for someone to see a white copper and a black prisoner in a scuffle and make the white copper out to be a racist thug.
Living in small communities like Palm Island, the coppers can't afford to be either racist or thugs. The numbers are against them. If Chris was like that, then how come in the 20 odd years that he has worked in remote aboriginal settlements, the locals haven't turned on him? He was not always armed, he'd quite frequently work on his own. If he was the ogre the press and the activists have made him out to be, then you can't tell me that someone wouldn't have sorted him out by now. Because it happens. As coppers living in those communities you're either a part of the community or you are out of there. There's no middle ground. No one can tell me that the locals were too afraid to step up or have a go at Chris, because I can't even count the number of times that Chris and I were involved in full-scale riots and 'clan' wars between groups of aboriginal people, with them armed with guns, clubs and machetes and us frequently having left our guns in the station (for fear of having them ripped from our bodies as we faced a crowd of 200 or more people).
Instead, Chris was the one who unarmed, would take the lead and walk into the mob, talking to the locals who knew and trusted him and calming the situation down. I saw groups of aboriginal people who were beating each other with bricks, literally smashing bricks into unconscious peoples heads as they lay on the ground, settle down and come peacefully with us while Chris pulled them apart. Yes, we used force sometimes. Try getting a drunk person to go somewhere they don't want to go yourself sometime and see what it's like. But, I've never known Chris to use unreasonable force, even when some drunken idiot spat on him.
So, you can get carried away in the hype and look for the scapegoat, but the reality is that while the aboriginal communities allow alcohol to be consumed, there will always be the danger of violence and the brave men and women who chose to work in these communities need the publics support, not the medias hype.