By Shannon Ewart
In 1987 Jacqui Payne, a lawyer with the Aboriginal Legal Service in Brisbane, presented a paper to the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, which stated in part that her Aboriginal clients "expected to be beaten by police following arrest. They thought this was normal."
Coroner's reports of Aboriginal deaths in custody revealed bodies with brain and skull injuries. Aboriginal relatives have reported seeing broken teeth, bruising and red marks on their kin who died in police stations.
The autopsy of John Pat, a Koori who died in Roebourne police station in WA in 1983, revealed a fractured skull, haemorrhage of the brain, bruises to the head, two broken ribs and a torn heart artery. Witnesses said that Pat had been severely beaten by police officers, who were subsequently acquitted on a manslaughter charge.
In 1992, I stayed with a Koori family in Melbourne. The young men there said that they "expected to be beaten when arrested by the police — it was just normal".
The young daughter of the family was taken into custody while walking down a street, after her mother had told police she was missing and was very worried about her. The police took her back to a police station, forced her to strip, jeered at her, sexually insulted her and told her to run along. They did not take her home, nor did they tell her mother that she had been found.
In Canberra, Aidex peace activist Sean Kenan was tortured for five hours by federal police, who squeezed his eyeballs, pressed sharp objects into his feet, knocked him unconscious and choked him with water.
The Federation of Community Legal Centres (Vic) Inc and the Police Issues Group wrote, in 1992, "It is the experience of legal centres that violent crimes committed by police contribute significantly to violence in the community. It appears that such violence is becoming more frequent and more serious. There are a significant number of people in the community who are deeply traumatised physically and emotionally by such abuses and who live in fear and dread of the police."
Research done by legal centres and other groups documents the prevalent nature of police violence. Those most frequently affected are vulnerable people who have little chance of
defending themselves. Research in Victoria on homeless young people found that 47% of females and 50% of males reported being physically hurt by police.
A survey by GLAD (Gay men and Lesbians Against Discrimination) disclosed a disturbing extent of harassment and violence at the hands of the police.
There are many cases of police assault and sexual abuse of women. One woman reported to the federation, "A police car pulled up, asked me what I was doing and told me to get in the car. I was taken back to the police station, through a back door, and told to strip. I was questioned whilst I was naked, and police tried to insert an instrument. They then hit and kicked me."
Children are not exempt from physical abuse by the police. The following is an extract from a statement by a 10-year-old boy: "A cop hit me and they put me in Winlayton for one day, just for begging alms. I was put in jail and there was three kids at the back of the jail and three kids in the front. Then I found a kid who had bruises all over his body and I asked the others what happened and that's when they told me they got caught stealing out of a truck.
"They told me they got bashed by cops and they told me how he got all those bruises over his body. There were these really big bruises on his head. I said how did that happen? They told me the cops put a metal bin over his head and started to bash it with their batons. You could see his face moulded in the bin."
On Thursday, March 11, this year, about 40 people gathered outside the South Melbourne police station to make it clear to the police that they were upset at the bashing and torture that went on there. Police were told in advance that this gathering would be peaceful, would be an act of communicating with the police about their violence to the community.
The police were asked before the gathering not to respond with violence, and they did not. No arrests were made, and the gathering ended peacefully. Perhaps citizens all over Australia could begin to talk directly to the police like this, gathering together outside police stations where their friends or relatives have been bashed, to tell the police to stop it.