Demonstration over taser killing of Roberto Laudisio Curti

by ray jackson

today we held a very successful rally outside of the building where the brazilian consul-general works. up to 50 people attended, including 2 police officers, and the interest and enthusiasm of those present in hearing the good speakers from several groups was great to see.

speakers included myself, raul, irene doughty of the nsw greens, paul from socialist alliance, nikki from cpi and louise from crossborders. all speakers referred to the killing of roberto and broadened it out to include the fight against the use of tasers by police and the criminal actions taken when police investigate police. these two subjects, among others, will be further discussed at our next meeting to be held at the redfern community centre, hugo st at the block at 7pm on thursday 19/4. all are welcome.

prior to the rally raul, myself, and two journalists, jacira and liz, approached the brazilian consul-general, americo fontelli, and gave him 2 letters, one for himself and one for the curti family here in australia and including his girlfriend, jeanne berringer. the letter from isja given to americo is attached. we will not be distributing the letter to the family to respect their privacy. we enquired if americo could or would address the rally but this was not seen to be possible.

there were several media representatives there who interviewed the speakers, filmed and photographed the rally and showed enthusiasm for what they were being told. however, the representatives did not come from any australian media source. no mainstream press, radio or tv showed any interest in the rally and its message. but this is normal practice for that media. sometimes sbs will attend a rally, rarely does the abc but the rest, never. they take their stories straight from the police media unit and the politicians protecting 'their police.'

below i have added an article from the socialist web site and a reply to that article from brazil. they name the consul-general as being andre costa but as i said we saw americo fontelli. a further problem has been raised that in fact roberto was a case of mistaken identity perhaps because he was not wearing a shirt and therefore he was confused with another person who seemed to be having a psychotic episode. if this is true then roberto's was killed for no good reason but because all 6 police officers proved to be incompetent even before their use of lethal force.

the article quotes acting police commissioner, alan clarke, attempting to exonerate not only his officers but also the use of tasers as being lethal. of course they are as the article clearly shows but this is usual practice for executive police. all that proves is that the life of the citizens that they are allegedly sworn to protect actually count for nothing. and that practice has been a part of the police culture since the days of the troopers from whence they came.

the editor of the sydney morning herald, a nsw morning paper from the fairfax stable, informed us that tasers must still be used by nsw police as a "non-lethal option for dealing with violent offenders." what??????? roberto had been killed only 3 days before.

the incompetency continued as the nsw premier, barry o'farrell, also trumpeted his support for 'his police' and the continued use of tasers, the better to protect 'his police.'

i have also included the 4 letters of support for the rally and for the aims of the participants of the rally and that is that tasers not be a weapon issued to police in general and a full enquiry be done into their use. and further, that a major push be made to stop the criminal practice of police investigating police.

join us in fighting for justice.

fkj

ray jackson
president
indigenous social justice association

isja01@internode.on.net
(m) 0450 651 063
(p) 02 9318 0947
address 1303/200 pitt street waterloo 2017

www.isja.org.au

we live and work on the stolen lands of the gadigal people.

sovereignty treaty social justice

World Socialist Web Site
wsws.org
Australian police Taser attack kills Brazilian student
By Zac Hambides
21 March 2012
Visiting Brazilian student Roberto Laudisio Curti, aged just 21, died early on Sunday morning in the heart of Sydney after six police officers chased him and forced him to the ground, reportedly firing Taser stun guns at least three times. Police also admitted using capsicum spray.

All the evidence indicates that police used potentially lethal force against an innocent young man, leading directly to his death, for no other reason that he supposedly failed to cooperate with police demands. From what is known, there was no justification for what happened to him. Laudisio Curti had committed no offence—except for a suspected theft of a packet of biscuits—was unarmed and posed no threat to anyone. Yet, he was set upon by six police, assaulted, sprayed and Tasered until he was motionless.

His tragic death bears some similarities to the British police killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, another Brazilian, who was shot on the London Tube in 2005 by officers who claimed to wrongly suspect he was a terrorist about to detonate a bomb. In the case of Laudisio Curti, however, there was no claim of an impending threat of violence.

An unnamed police source told the Sydney Daily Telegraph that the Taser use was justified because Laudisio Curti had been uncooperative and had resisted arrest. “He was Tasered a number of times over a reasonable amount of time but he just kept going and was able to shove officers away.”

Laudisio Curti’s family and Brazilian authorities have demanded answers. “He just went out for fun like any other young male on Saturday night and that happened to him, so the family cannot understand it all,” Andre Costa, the Brazilian consul in Sydney, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Police claimed to have received reports of a man taking a packet of biscuits from a convenience store in Sydney’s CBD at about 5 a.m. on Sunday. Within half an hour, police targeted Laudisio Curti in the same area, but it remains unclear whether he was the man involved in the alleged robbery.

An eyewitness told the Sydney Morning Herald that Laudisio Curti, shirtless, was running “as best he could” from police. Police then tackled him to the ground. “He was struggling … there was a lot of physical involvement from the police. He was on the ground already and they were holding him down… At one point I heard him scream out, ‘Help me,’ and he kept screaming and was trying to fight back.” After three to four Taser shots, he had stopped screaming.

Another eyewitness told the Daily Telegraph that Laudisio Curti was Tasered “at least three times” in succession. Each time he fell, rose to his feet, was Tasered and fell again.

Chilling CCTV footage, now uploaded to YouTube, shows six officers chasing Laudisio Curti past a café window. One officer attempted to grab him by the throat and shoulders, but he broke free and ran out of the frame. At this point, an officer raised his Taser as the others closed in on Laudisio Curti.

The young man’s friends have started a website calling for a protest at the Australian consulate in Sao Paulo: “In solidarity with our friend Roberto Laudisio, killed by police in Australia, for an apparent robbery of a packet of biscuits… We suggest we all take a pack of biscuits and leave them on the door of the consulate.”

The New South Wales police force has launched a “critical incident investigation.” In effect, this means the police will investigate themselves. Even before that inquiry began, Acting Police Commissioner Alan Clarke played down the role of Tasers in the student’s death. “I think it is very presumptuous for anyone to determine the cause of death is a Taser simply because it’s occurred in an incident where a Taser has been utilised,” he stated.

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell swiftly backed the continued use of Tasers, not bothering to wait for any official inquiries to be conducted by a coroner and the state Ombudsman. Likewise, an editorial in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, despite lip service to the “serious concern” raised by the witness accounts, insisted that police must carry Tasers as a “non-lethal option for dealing with violent opponents.”

In reality, Tasers are known to be potentially fatal. They have been responsible for more than 500 deaths in the US during the past decade according to a February report from Amnesty International. Moreover, there was no evidence to suggest that Laudisio Curti presented any danger to the police officers chasing him, or anyone else.

Laudisio Curti’s death, the fifth Taser-related death in Australia since 2002, raises disturbing questions about the increasing level of police violence. Since Tasers were rolled out by the previous Labor government in NSW, 1,272 state police officers have been equipped with them. Across the country, state and federal police have been armed with more than 7,000 Tasers.

The weapons were first introduced in Australia following a wave of 69 police shootings from 1984 to 1995, on the pretext of averting further tragedies. Since then, they have become a “force weapon of choice” according to a 2010 Western Australian report (see: “Australia: Police use Tasers as ‘weapon of choice’”).

At the same time, police shootings have continued unabated. Last September, when NSW plainclothes police shot a man dead at point-blank range in a Sydney suburb, they claimed he had opened fire on them, contradicting witness accounts. Earlier in 2011, police in the neighbouring state of Victoria shot two people in Melbourne in the space of 18 hours. On both occasions, police chiefs declared that the officers had acted appropriately in self-defence.

All the official responses have followed a familiar pattern. A recent story on ABC television’s “Four Corners” program exposed the police cover up of the shooting of Adam Salter, a mentally-ill man who had attempted to stab himself. On the day of the shooting, acting Assistant Police Commissioner Stuart Wilkins wrongly told a media conference that Salter had “grabbed a knife from the kitchen and confronted police.”

Laudisio Curti’s death cannot be dismissed as an isolated response by officers acting under the pressure of events. Instead, it points to the development of a shoot-to-kill ethos that is encouraged by claims that tough methods are needed to deal with “violent opponents.”

All the time, state and federal governments are boosting police numbers and weaponry to unprecedented levels, resorting to “law-and-order” demagogy to divert attention from their deepening social assault, destroying jobs and working conditions, and slashing public health, welfare and other essential services.

What happened to Laudisio Curti is a stark warning about the violent police methods that will be used on a wider scale against youth and workers as they come into struggle over mounting job losses, worsening inequality and social devastation.

The author also recommends:

Australia: Victims’ families question police shootings in Sydney
[8 October 2011]

Britain: Family of Jean Charles de Menezes forced to accept derisory compensation award
[27 November 2009]

Copyright © 1998-2012 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

On “Australian police Taser attack kills Brazilian student”

I would like to congratulate World Socialist Web Site for this report; a serious, impartial and humanitarian analysis of an incident involving the inability of the Australian police to deal with daily situations. We hope they realize what they did and retreat.

Bento C
Brazil
31 March 2012

TO ATTORNEY GENERAL MR G. SMITH
Sir,
I write to express my concern at the continuing practice of Police
investigating Police particularly in the matter of critical incidents
and deaths in custody.
I do not consider this to be a practice that allows for the adequate
investigation of events, and the post-facto oversight of the Ombudsman
is a similarly inadequate practice.
As these are extremely serious matters for the public, the Police and
the criminal justice system, I would request your prompt action to
improve the independence of investigation and further that Ombudsman
oversight of investigation be from the start rather than reviewing
reports. Ideally Police would be investigated by a different body.
This would give the public and Police more confidence that pressures of
collegiality had not affected the investigation. If the public lacks
confidence in the investigation process, the Police involved can never
clear their name if there is nothing wrong that has occurred. Also,
improvements to Police tactics in critical incidents and emergencies are
more likely to come about if investigations and reports and
recommendations are based on clean information. Hopefully this would
reduce the injury and fatality of interactions between the Police and
the public.
After all, what member of the Police wants to have such a thing as a
death or injury on their conscience, what member of the public wants to
suffer this happening to their friend, family or themselves?
Regards,
from a concerned resident of NSW.
```````````````````````````

I can't attend on Tuesday, but I am sending you my support and my sense of outrage over the cowardly and despicable actions by the police involved. 6 burly cops can't tackle a skinny kid - right!

-Ken Davis

I wish I could be there to support you in bring attention to what happen to Roberto Laudisio Curti, what happen to this young man was wrong, and the police were out of control. I want the use of tasers banned worldwide. As I keep telling people the taser industry is the same as the tobacco industry, they lie to make profits from the misery, harm and that weapon is lethal and it kills people.

This weapon should not be in the hands of the police, they are not using this weapon to save lives, which is their selling point on why they need this weapon, they are using it to make people comply with their instructions, and it is a weapon of torture. The Victorian Police are to be given the latest Taser, which can harm more people when used. The Police and the Taser Industry are trying to convince the public that this weapon is non lethal, and they will use it responsibility, until they kill someone, and then they will use the same argument, that they believe the person was carrying a weapon or they person was dangerous to justify their actions, and that they were acting in good faith at the time because of information they received from the public.

At least the Curti family have the money and the power to take on the police, and we hope that there will be no covering up of the facts, that the police killed an innocent person, because they did not investigate what happened in the first place, that caused this tragedy.

Georgina Woodyard

Greetings to all activists who are standing up for people's human rights!
When are deaths in custody going to stop in Australia? Only when we are successful in holding those who commit these extra-judicial murders to account. And only when their superiors recognise that Australian citizens will not accept police investigating crimes by police.
I congratulate you all for being here today. I wish I could be with you. I'm doing my bit by, among other things, going along to the launch of the Australian Human Rights Commission's Anti-Racism Strategy in Melbourne.
Strength to your arms! Barbary Clarke