By Ray Jackson, president of the Indigenouse Social Justice Association
another sad example of queensland justice, especially when qld. cops are involved.
surely the two police officers involved are culpable for the death of andrew bornen. if they did in fact need to handcuff and restrain him and laying him on the roadway then they are absolutely responsible for what happened to him.
it's called 'duty of care!'
even the coroner proved gutless in this case by sending the circumstances to the dpp. what a waste of time. remember that the same dpp office found that hurley had no case to answer in the death of mulrunji doomadgee in november, 2004.
just another whitewash.
i don't care if andrew is black, white or dappled, no cops must be allowed to get away with killing those that they have a duty of care for.
for the dpp, courts, police commissioner and/or minister and governments to continue to accept such whitewashes and abuses of human and civil rights is nothing less than criminal.
like andrew's mother, we deserve much better.
fkj
No charges over handcuffed teen's death
Jessica Marszalek
December 23, 2010 - 5:24PM
AAP
The mother of a Queensland boy run over and killed when police
handcuffed him and forced him to lie on a road is disgusted no charges
will be laid.
Andrew John Bornen, 16, was lying handcuffed and face-down on a busy
suburban roadway in the Ipswich suburb of Brassall when he was struck
and killed by a car on February 7, 2009.
His heart, aorta and pulmonary trunk were ruptured and he died before an
ambulance arrived six minutes later.
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Officers had forced the Ipswich teen down after reports a youth was
armed with a machete in the area.
However, Andrew was only carrying a baseball bat when he was confronted
by police and an inquest found he had not been acting aggressively.
Andrew's mother Helen Donaldson said the Department of Public
Prosecutions (DPP) had told her on Thursday that no charges would be
laid over her son's death.
She said the bad news, delivered just before Christmas, had put her
"over the cliff".
"I was a bit disgusted myself," Ms Donaldson told AAP.
"I was very upset, very emotional.
"I'm down anyway, but for them to actually ring me two days before
Christmas, that is what tops the cake.
"... If they would have rang me and said 'look they've been charged with
manslaughter' then I'd be over the moon, I'd be having an excellent
Christmas."
She said the news could have waited.
Ms Donaldson said she took comfort that the inquest had found her son
was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and had not deserved
such treatment.
But she said she doubted police had learned anything from the tragedy.
"I at least thought they should have been charged with something," she said.
The director of public prosecutions, Tony Moynihan SC, said he had
carefully considered evidence that would be admissible in any trial.
"There is no suggestion that the police officers were acting unlawfully
or not in the execution of their duty in arresting Andrew Bornen who was
intoxicated and armed in public," Mr Moynihan said in a statement.
"Given the momentary opportunity the police officers had to assess and
act in this situation, the efforts made to alert the driver of the
vehicle and the contribution of the driver of the vehicle which ran over
and killed Mr Bornen, there is no reasonable prospect of a conviction."
The coroner's inquest found the female driver bore no responsibility for
the death and that the actions of the two police officers at the centre
of the incident should be referred to the Director of Public
Prosecutions to consider whether charges should be laid.
State Coroner Michael Barnes told the inquest in July he could not
accept the evidence of then senior constable Anthony Brett and Senior
Constable Robert Ward that Andrew, who was drunk, acted aggressively
towards them, warranting him being handcuffed on the street.
He said the officers had made a "terrible error of judgment" in leaving
the Ipswich teenager lying there.
Police had stopped their unmarked patrol car on busy Albion Street with
the headlights on, obscuring the view of the approaching car that struck
Andrew.
Mr Barnes also criticised the officers for not activating emergency
lights to warn the approaching driver.