Latest news with #policeBrutality
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Brickbat: Armed, Elderly, and Dangerous
Two police officers in East Sussex, England, are accused of using excessive force against 93-year-old Donald Burgess, a wheelchair-bound amputee with dementia, after he threatened care home staff with a small knife. Within 83 seconds of entering his room, Officers Stephen Smith and Rachel Comotto allegedly pepper-sprayed Burgess in the face, struck him with a baton, and tased him. Both have been charged with assault. Prosecutors argue the force was "unjustified and unlawful," while the officers claim their actions aligned with their training to disarm him quickly. The post Brickbat: Armed, Elderly, and Dangerous appeared first on
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Deeply disturbing question a cop asked an Indigenous teen detained at an ACT watch house sparks furious backlash
Concerning footage has emerged of a watch house officer grilling an Indigenous teen and his disturbing comments that have sparked outrage and prompted an investigation. The early morning exchange took place at an ACT watch house after the Indigenous boy was arrested in June 2024. Footage played during an ACT Supreme Court hearing earlier this year, the officer, who was off-camera, was heard asking the boy a series of questions, including whether he was thinking of taking his own life. 'Are you thinking of necking yourself?' he asked the teen. When the boy replied no, the officer was heard muttering: 'You wouldn't have the guts to do it anyway.' The watch house CCTV also showed several officers standing behind the teen – none of whom made the offensive comments – who appeared to smirk during the exchange. The same sergeant later asked the teen, who was living in foster care, if he had any parents. 'Nah,' the teen replied. 'No parents? You just magically appeared on the face of the Earth?' the sergeant mocked. The court was also played a series of other clips from the vision, including the moment the teen was later tasered and violently pinned down in a watch house cell. The judge referred the vision to the territory's Chief Police Officer Scott Lee, the Canberra Times reported. Indigenous leader Jordan Hindmarsh-Keevil recently took to social media to express outrage about the incident. 'I hate making videos about negative things, but this is f***ing very important because I bet you didn't hear about it,' he said in a video reshared by 'Although this video might make you angry, I do not mean to divide anyone. All I want from this is for people who believe that Australia is not a racist country – those people say so because it doesn't say it legally anywhere. Mr Hindmarsh-Keevil claimed the 'treatment is not a one-off', saying 'this happens all the time'. 'This officer looked at a 17-year-old boy and he said 'are you thinking about necking yourself?' Two of the other coppers who were standing next to this man started smirking and smiling. And this officer had already mocked this kid for not having parents because he was in foster care,' he claimed. 'I am angry at the police that did this, but I'm angry that this type of hatred towards other people exists.' The ACT's Chief Police Officer, Scott Lee described the officer's actions in the footage as said the officer's actions as 'are unacceptable and will not be tolerated'. 'I hold everyone in ACT Policing to high standards of professionalism and integrity, as do our officers, and this is in line with community expectations,' Mr Lee said. 'The comments of the officer during a Watch House intake in 2024 are unacceptable and will not be tolerated. 'It falls well below the standards expected of our officers and was dealt with swiftly after the incident occurred with the matter currently being investigated by AFP Professional Standards.' He added that the investigation into the incident is ongoing. Daily Mail Australia has contacted ACT Policing for further comment. Venessa Turnbull-Roberts, Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children said the incident was 'abhorrent misconduct'. 'In the context of the horrifying and ongoing epidemic of Aboriginal deaths in custody in this jurisdiction and across Australia, this comment can be seen as a deliberate incitement to an Aboriginal child to end his life,' she claimed. 'What is even more horrific is the young person is a survivor of forcible removal … the police interrogation used against this young person by police is shameful.' Suicide rates have been on the incline over the past decade to 2023, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) mortality report. Between 2019 and 2023, suicide was the leading cause of death for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, according to that same report. It
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
A shameful death after a supermarket scuffle shines a light on Australia's unfinished business
In the middle of Reconciliation Week a young, disabled Warlpiri man died following a scuffle in a Coles supermarket in Alice Springs after he was 'placed' on the floor by two plain-clothed policemen. People are not 'placed' on the floor – that is what you do with bags, boxes and rubbish. But that was the word used by the Northern Territory police to describe the sequence of events to the media. Tragically, painfully, I think it says a lot. I try to imagine a similar scene at my local Coles, where many people who have not been winners in life's lottery also shop for little items to keep hunger at bay, but no image comes to mind. I think the situation would most likely have been quietly defused, no one would have been 'placed' on the floor and died, the shop would not have become a crime scene. On the same day in Western Australia, the state government decided to provide $85,000 to those remaining stolen people who had spent their lives wondering and suffering because of cruel policies that removed children from their families. A measly lump sum from a state treasury grown fat from mineral resources, many from native title lands. First Nations people have a life expectancy decades lower than others, so the numbers are much smaller than they were. Delay is the most effective way of maintaining the status quo – people die, responsibility is diminished, the mistake no longer has a human face. The WA announcement came, inexcusably, nearly three decades after the profoundly revealing and moving Bringing Them Home report. It landed in the national consciousness and triggered a heartfelt realisation of the long-term consequences of bad policy for those who paid attention; people marched across bridges, signed petitions and wept watching Rabbit-Proof Fence. It also provided a pretext for a cruel and cynical, politically led culture war that has put Australia in aspic for decades. Then prime minister John Howard's rejection of the recommendations of that report was crystallised as a refusal to say sorry. This was the headline and the source of his global humiliation when Midnight Oil, their jumpsuits stamped with the unmissable word 'sorry', sang and danced in front of him on the stage of the Sydney Olympics closing ceremony. Saying sorry then gave Howard's successor Kevin Rudd his greatest political triumph. But saying sorry is not enough – actions must follow to fix the foundational flaw. Behind the moral dilemma about where responsibility ended was a crass calculation. Among that report's many, and largely still not acted on, recommendations, was that compensation be given for the thousands of lives that had been deliberately upended with tragic and traumatic consequences for generations. It was this recommendation that galvanised Howard and his minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, John Herron. Compensation for individuals was out of the question and would be impossible to calculate anyway, they declared. That gave way when Ken Wyatt was the minister for Indigenous Australians in the Morrison government, and with little fanfare, compensation of $75,000 was allocated to stolen children survivors in the territories. Pat Turner, a long-term Indigenous public servant, told Dan Bourchier on The Elders that an appropriate amount in 1997 would have been a million dollars each, enough then to buy a house and provide families that had been deliberately destroyed with some ongoing intergenerational security. Queensland has yet to provide redress, and is now, as it has done for more than a century, locking up another generation of children. What bit of this don't they understand? Crime is not innate, it is mostly caused by circumstances – such as poverty, family dysfunction and trauma – that can be addressed. Locking people up hasn't worked in the past, and it won't now. There is unfinished business in this country, and there can be no excuses for not knowing or understanding. We need to change direction and remove the burden from the most vulnerable. Endless consultations have been conducted, reports have been written, deep studies of the intergenerational impact of trauma have become part of everyday language. The thing that has not been tried is to listen, and act, on the advice and wisdom of those closest to the problems. To really listen, deeply and seriously to the elders and those who have been working on the ground for years to restore hope. The evidence shows this works – top-down solutions don't. Almost a million more people voted yes in the referendum than voted for the Labor party in the recent election. The combined Liberal National party vote was about half the no vote. While the majority rejected the voice proposal because they didn't know, didn't care or thought it was unfair, this cannot be mapped on to the political snapshot that the election provided. The referendum was not a proxy election. The door to meaningful, symbolic and practical recognition can and must be opened again. I have written here before that this government has an historic opportunity at a time of crisis. It needs to work with the states to grasp it in relation to First Peoples so they can be relieved of trauma, live fulfilled and meaningful lives, so that children are not taken away and locked up, and the whole nation can achieve its potential. In a land of home improvers surely the principle of fixing the foundations first if you want to really close the gaps is obvious. Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support; or call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 Julianne Schultz is the author of The Idea of Australia, the co-editor of First Things First (Griffith Review) and the librettist of the multi-award winning opera Black River
ABC News
28-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
NT major crimes unit investigates 24-year-old Yuendumu man's death in custody
A 24-year-old Aboriginal man who died after being restrained by police in Alice Springs was from the remote community of Yuendumu. Northern Territory police said the man stopped breathing shortly after two officers restrained him at a Coles supermarket about 1:10pm on Tuesday following an altercation. Assistant Commissioner Travis Wurst said the man was placing items down the front of his clothing when he was confronted by security guards. "One of the security guards was assaulted and there were two police officers, who were in plain clothes at the time," Assistant Commissioner Wurst told reporters on Tuesday. "The male behaved rather aggressively and was placed onto the ground by those police officers. "He was later identified as losing consciousness." Assistant Commissioner Wurst said St John Ambulance paramedics arrived and took the man to Alice Springs Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 2:20pm. Detectives from the NT Police Force's Major Crime Section have travelled to Alice Springs to investigate. A report will be prepared for the coroner. Police are treating the incident as a death in custody, where a person has died while being detained by law enforcement, or while they were in the custody of a correctional facility. They include deaths in prisons or police stations, during police transfers and in operations like police pursuits. The most recent high-profile death in custody is the 2019 police shooting of 19-year-old Warlpiri-Luritja man Kumanjayi Walker during a bungled arrest in Yuendumu, about 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs. The former NT police officer who fired the fatal shot, Zachary Rolfe, was found not guilty on all charges in 2022. The long-awaited coroner's findings into Mr Walker's death is due to be handed down on June 10 in Yuendumu. Twenty people have died in custody so far this year in Australia, eight of them First Nations people, according to data from the National Deaths in Custody Program. Data shows 593 Indigenous people have died in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
CBC
25-05-2025
- CBC
Inquiry finds Victoria police officer abused authority in fatal shooting
A Victoria police officer has been found to have committed abuse of authority by using unnecessary force after fatally shooting a woman with plastic bullets on Christmas Day in 2019. The Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner concluded that the officer's actions were unjustified after the death of Lisa Rauch. Kathryn Marlow reports.
