All those who have been following the Australian news in the last few weeks will no doubt be aware that there has been an absolute spate of police taserings right across the country. In the most recent incident a New South Wales man died after being tasered by police. On the police version of events the deceased was involved in a fight and police tasered him in an effort to subdue him. Problem: the ubiquitous phone camera! Phone camera footage of the incident taken by a bystander clearly shows that there was no fight and the police apparently decided to celebrate the NRL grand final by finalising the life of an innocent and then attempted to hide behind the veil of self defence or line of duty or some other euphemism to justify yet another police kill, all in the name of public safety, naturally!
This incident comes on the back of Western Australian Police tasering an unarmed Aboriginal man thirteen times. That’s right, a thrill tasering by nine of Western Australia’s finest. In Australia it appears that the question is not “To Teaser or not to Teaser”, but rather “How many times can we taser someone before it becomes obvious even to the Australian media that it was unjustified.”
On Wednesday 6 October I was driving through Capital Country (that part of NSW which surrounds our nation’s capital in Canberra) and was unfortunate enough to tune into Cameron Sullings programme on MIX 106.3. Mr Sullings had devoted a fair portion of his programme to the incident of the aforementioned Western Australian Police tasering of the Aboriginal man. During Mr. Sullings precursor diatribe to a phone in session he said words to the effect that he has no problem “with the behaviour of the WA police as he would never find himself in such a situation as he is a law abiding citizen.”
Talk about Mr. Naive and his Ivory Tower. Canberra is Australia’s seat of government and the home of all the important fat cat policy makers. Mr. Naive, Mr. Sullings is in the position of an opinion former in Canberra and his opinion is:
Let the bastards taser the black c@#ts.
Mr. Sullings clearly had not read the article which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on September 18, 2010 headed Muslim lawyer alleges police brutality. If he had he would have come across this interesting snippet:
THE high-profile Muslim lawyer Adam Houda has been arrested again while walking near his home in what he says is the most outrageous example yet of racial vilification, harassment and brutality by police.
The incident brings to five the number of times Mr Houda has been arrested or detained in the past decade, including a well-publicised occasion involving the former Bulldogs rugby league player Hazem El Masri.
None of the earlier incidents led to a conviction, instead they produced apologies and more than $150,000 in compensation from the NSW police.
While it might be a fact of life that well fed Anglo/Saxon fat cat Public Servants can walk down the street and not be harassed by the police, the same cannot be said for some of the more marganilised groups in Australian society, including Aborigines and Muslims.
It may seem a little unfair to single Mr. Sullings out in this way. I do so only to illustrate how ignorant our policy makers are when it comes to the realities of life for the marganilised in Australian society. Most ‘white’ Australians assume that if the police arrest a Muslim or Aborigine they must be guilty. Why? Because of their ethnicity or because we as a society have unfaltering trust in our police – I suspect that both of the above answers are correct.
As the ubiquitous phone cameras are beginning to prove, police lie and they kill and they lie again to cover up their misconduct. Should we assume that an Aborigine or Muslim is guilty just because he has been arrested? Well in the case of Mr. Houda it would appear that the answer is no!
A statement provided to me by a former New South Wales Police Officer as part of my proposed application to the United Nations states that she witnessed:
- Police unlawfully kill two Aboriginal men and dispose of their bodies;
- A Sydney male police officer unlawfully assault an Aboriginal woman to the point that she was hospitalised for a number of days;
- Another male police officer stationed in an area with a high Aboriginal population state that “I hate all those Abo cunts, want to kill’em all”
Still think that we should assume that just because an Aboriginal or Muslim person is in police custody that they are guilty?
Apart from the incidents mentioned above, I hold a number of statements where both white and Aboriginal Australians have deposed to witnessing ‘white’ police officers assault Aboriginal people who have subsequently died of their injuries. Have any been charged? No. Were they guilty of a crime? Who knows, they didn’t make it to court!
Who are the guilty parties? Consensus and opinion formers like Mr. Sullings. Australia, wake up and look around, your tin foil helmets won’t protect you from police brutality and bureaucratic corruption.
What we really need in Australia is for the Commonwealth to hold a Royal Commission into racism within the Australian Federal Police, where it is rife and let the results trickle down to the State Police Forces. As I have said in previous posts the biggest offenders in terms of racism are the Australian Federal Police, the Stanhope Government in the ACT and the cronyism of the ACT ‘judicial’ system.
I was talking to my teenage son about his attitude and I told him that because of his height 6″5, youth and wild curly hair he was an obvious target to the police if he was walking the streets with his mates. I said if the coppers tell you to do something bloody well do it. because if you ask them why? You are failing to obey a police officer and when they punch you in the head and you put your arms up to protect yourself, that is assault police while resisting arrest.
That is the rule rather than the exception as you well know.