by ray jackson
president, indigenous social justice association
many thanks to gary foley and the other readers of the previous post for sending me the article or link involved. the article is attached.
several people have also contacted me about my wish to spread the article even further than it already has been by arguing that all i am doing is exacerbating a black-on-black attack and giving the right-wing acolytes more ammunition to use against the aboriginal cause. the argument makes some sense to me as during my trade union life it was also argued that what happened in the union, stayed with the union and no bullets were made for others to fire.
whilst in some areas that may still be the case it most certainly is no longer the iron rule it once was. public communications is now at its peak of public availability, thanks to a host of social sites and bloggers. the absolute smother-coverage from the mainstream media, especially 'the australian' and the verbal vomit of the shock jocks, in giving access to those aborigines who agree with and push the government line of failed interventions into aboriginal issues, whilst generally denying any other view.
the triumvirate in this category revolves and evolves around noel pearson, warren mundine and marcia langton whilst the voices and opinions of significant others like gary foley and others become muted by a mainstream censorship. whilst i can agree that the triumvirate have every right to put their views, we on the reverse argument do not get such coverage. bias is something that is mostly in the eye of the beholder but it is strictly analysed in mainstream political issues. how many times has the abc reporting been seen as or claimed to be biased?
why doesn't 'the australian' give equal space to the opposite spokespersons to the triumvirate to allow their views to the general readers of that paper or the radio vomit to be made. we know the answer. it would allow for a differing dialectic to be made and, worse, heard. the triumvirate are seen, falsely, as voicing the opinions of all, or at least most, aborigines. this fatuous and fanciful example of social engineering to argue that these three speak for all aborigines is quite wrong. we come from many nations, many clans, many families. we are not a homogenous group as the term 'australians' encompasses. we are distinct, each to our own group.
for noel pearson, up in cape york, far north queensland, whilst he can speak for some of his people, he cannot speak for all of them. and we know that there are different views within his community. the other two 'leaders' come under the same social aboriginal ethos.
so, the only solution to circumventing the mainstream censorship is to use the tools that we have whether in our own papers, radio and tv or by the wide distribution by posts like this. hence q.e.d or even q.e.f.
three most important issues now need to be raised that involve nsw police dic and ongoing brutality. also there needs to be a serious and determined questioning on the public right to know what our police are doing and the investigative reports that they make on police incidents. the third matter of great concern is the usual practice of the nsw director of public prosecutions to not allow cases involving the police to be legally dealt with in a court of law. after all that is why we have courts, so as to make sure that justice may be at least obtainable.
readers of the national indigenous times, one of our 3 papers, will be aware that the editorship is counting the days since the infamous use of glocks and unprovoked assaults upon 6 youth in a stolen car by the kings cross police back in april 21,2012. the police on the scene, having been made aware of the presence of the stolen car, attempted to stop the car from moving by firing their glocks, 6 times, into the car interior in a wild manner. the 14 year old driver was wounded twice whilst the front seat passenger was also severely wounded. the police claim that they had to use their glocks to stop the car to better protect pedestrians. there is a further claim that a pedestrian, a woman, was dragged under the car for several metres. there has been no evidence presented by the police to verify this story. whilst the police were photographed assaulting the two wounded youth there does not seem to be any photographic evidence of this claim. why? one media report stated that a woman did attend hospital but was released after observation. no media report of or from the mystery woman has been made available. did it really happen? police say yes but, evidence please.
so, over one year later where do the youth involved, their families and the general public find themselves. very, very much in the dark and mushroomed. other police performed an intensive review of the 'facts' and subsequently made a report. it is my understanding that a senior police officer met only with two of the six families, those who had been shot, and 'explained' the outcome of that report to the two families. he informed the two families that police were not at fault, so end of story.
the report was also sent to our dpp, who after some consideration, decided that the kings cross officers would not have to justify their dangerous and thuggish actions in a court of law. this despite the clear facts that those kings cross officers had used their glocks in a manner most dangerous to the occupants of the car and to the general public. these officers had completely abrogated their combined duty of care to save life. they gave no consideration to anyone other than their own pumped-up sense of self importance.
the question must be asked as to why the police-on-police investigation was not made public? do the families, all 6 of them, not have the innate right to be given a copy of the police report? especially as the dpp has stated that no court appearance is necessary. why is the dpp report not given to all 6 families? as the public with a direct interest in these matters, why is his/her reasons not made public.
what do they fear? what are they hiding?
the killing of roberto laudisio curti in march last year has been reported and publicised many times and on monday it was made known that after nsw coroner mary jerram referred several officers to the police integrity commission for their incompetence, brutality and lies, the pic had recommended to the dpp that the five officers referred to them by the coroner, be prosecuted for their actions of recklessness for human life and that they had shown an excessive and unnecessary example of police powers. the report is not yet on the pic site. perhaps it never will be.
the nsw ombudsman, bruce barbour, in his investigation of the circumstances leading to the death of roberto, stated that it was his opinion that the investigating police had failed to show any example of evident police misconduct.
i have no idea as to whether such a scenario had occurred previously in nsw whereby a coroner had referred a matter to the pic who had then referred the matter to the dpp. i believe this now places a great public weight upon the dpp to allow the charges to proceed to a court of law. after two distinct and independent levels of the nsw law have both stated that the police need to face charges, i would find it difficult for the dpp to say that both sets of recommendations have no legal value and only the dpp can be right.
this is the time for the dpp to bite the bullet, as the coroner and the pic have publically done, and to allow these errant police to be duly charged and face the full justice of a court of law. this was tried, as we know, in queensland with then s/s chris hurley for the killing of mulrunji doomadgee in 2004 but an all white jury in townsville found him not guilty of anything. will the same happen here?
isja will be holding a rally outside of the office of the dpp to show support for roberto's family, both here and overseas. of course we will also be strongly urging the dpp to, firstly uphold justice in this matter and, secondly, to make public the reasons why the kings cross police should not be charged.
the rally will be outside of the dpp office, 175 liverpool street, sydney, on thursday 6 june 2013. the rally will start at 1pm and we will be inviting the family here in sydney to join us. we have also provided some relevant information to the family in brazil. a letter urging the dpp to uphold justice will also be hand-delivered to their office. a short news article is given below.
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PIC recommends police be charged over death of tasered Brazilian student
Roberto Laudisio Curti
The police corruption watchdog has recommended that charges be laid
against a number of police involved in the fatal arrest of a Brazilian
student in Sydney last year.
Roberto Laudisio Curti died after police fired Tasers at him in Sydney's
CBD in March last year.
The Police Integrity Commission says it has handed a brief of evidence
to the Director of Public Prosecutions recommending a number of the
officers involved should be prosecuted.
Late last year the NSW coroner found police acted "like schoolboys in
Lord of the Flies" as they tasered Mr Curti.
The 21-year-old had stolen a packet of biscuits from a convenience store
and was delusional and behaving erratically after using a small amount
of LSD.
He died after police fired Tasers at him 14 times - seven of them within
51 seconds - following a chase.
Coroner Mary Jerram said the actions of police were reckless and
excessive, and constituted an abuse of police power.
She strongly recommended that disciplinary action be taken against five
officers involved in the fatal confrontation.
In February this year the NSW Ombudsman Bruce Barbour released a report
that was critical of the police investigation into the death.
"The police investigation into the death of Mr Laudisio Curti failed to
adequately identify and deal with the question of whether there was any
police misconduct," the report said.
Other issues we need to catch up with
we need to catch-up with our other ongoing dic issues whilst we await the good words from the nsw dpp on the other two previous matters.
we start with the death of veronica baxter by hanging in the metropolitan remand and reception gaol at silverwater, nsw, during march, 2009. paris, as she was also known, is a transwoman who was arrested in a police drug sting and placed in the surry hills police centre cells where she was held for 5 days. she was then transferred to the metropolitan remand and reception gaol at silverwater, nsw. this gaol is a male gaol but this is where she was placed in a cell by herself. as a transwoman she could have elected to go to a gaol of her identified sexuality, such as mulawa women's gaol, also at silverwater.
paris remained at the male gaol and arrived there on the friday evening from the police cells. she was found hung on monday morning and a police/corrective services investigation found that she had hung herself and there were no suspicious circumstances. letters were written, petitions made, many questions asked which led to the strong conclusion that paris had become suicidal due to a complete lack of hormonal medication whilst she was locked up at the police and gaol cells.
meetings were had with the jumbunna unit at the university of technology, sydney where resident legal, craig longman, offered assistance. over the years however we ran into a brick wall with the brothers of paris not signing the consent forms to further the case.
friends and supporters of paris still wish to continue with the charge against justice health that because they did not supply paris with her hormonal medication for a week or more then this lack of medical care led directly to her suicide. we are still investigating other avenues of proceeding her case.
another case that the authorities would consider to be closed is still an event of significance to isja and others.
Terrance Daniel Briscoe, a 28 year old Anmatyerre Aboriginal man died today in the Alice Springs Police lockup after being taken into custody for public drunkenness.
The family of 28 year old Terrance Daniel Briscoe were informed by Northern Territory Police at approximately 6:30 am on the 5th of January that Mr Briscoe had been arrested for public drunkenness and taken into the care of the Alice Springs police force where he suffered a heart attack and died.
The police further informed the family that while in their care, Mr Briscoe had fallen over and sustained a head injury before being locked away. A while later a Police officer noted that Mr Briscoe had ceased breathing and emergency CPR was initiated but he was unable to be resuscitated. (thanks dt for your words).
a newspaper report stated that mr briscoe was found to be dead in the cell at 2am but the family were not informed until approximately 6.30am. why the delay? during the coronial inquest by coroner greg cavanagh, he was scathing of the police actions and lack of actions that caused mr briscoe to die yet no recommendations to find that the nt police on duty that night had breached their duty of care to mr briscoe or of the assaults made by the police were forthcoming. why?
in queensland coroner christine clements found against s/s chris hurley for the death of mulrunji doomadgee on palm island in november 2004. in nsw coroner mary jerram found against five of the police involved in the attack on roberto laudisio curti on 18 march, 2012 that caused his death. is there a pattern forming here?
the nt cops were not charged and the attorney-general in the nt believed no case could be made against them. isja disagreed as did my good friend, danny taylor, so we wrote several letters to the nt government pointing that nt law allowed for the cops to be charged but they disagreed. danny and isja will continue to question the legalities of the decisions in this case including the charging of the police who were legally responsible for the death of mr briscoe. this fight for justice continues.
another nt dic that continues to interest us concerns the strange case of the death of mr clark.
mr clark was serving a sentence in the alice springs gaol and was due for parole on 26 march 2012 but he became very sick whilst in gaol yet he was not transferred to the alice springs hospital until some time later on monday 19 march, 2012. on arrival at hospital he was put into an induced coma and placed into the intensive care unit where he died without regaining consciousness on 3 april, 2012.
firstly the authorities claimed that he was not a recognised death in custody as he had been paroled before he died, which was a total falsehood, but a spirited campaign by the family turned that around and mr clarke is now a recognised death in custody under the nt coroners act.
an inquest date of june was set and isja and others supported kylie hampton in her request to obtain a good solid legal team. this was achieved but the inquest date was changed to july to suit the coroners needs. this created some problems for kylie as she is with child and the change of date was not medically suitable. after some legal chit-chat and niceties the date has now been moved to october, 2013. this move better suits kylie and her condition and that was our main concern.
kylie was able to raise the travel and accommodation costs to come to sydney to meet her legal team and isja.
previously i had posted a call for funding to be raised on her behalf and i shall do so again but not here. suffice to say we still need funds but all will be revealed in my next post.
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
we live and work on the stolen lands of the gadigal people.
sovereignty treaty social justice
