Ben Courtice, Melbourne
On March 17, the Flemington and Kensington Community Legal Centre lodged its fifth official complaint with the Office of Police Integrity about unlawful police behaviour in the Flemington area. The complaints contain reports of police violence including the excessive use of force in arrests, assault, unlawful public strip searching and threats of violence directed at young refugees.
"The complaints related to events dating back to October of last year and have been made by 11 youths who allege they were assaulted in a variety of circumstances. All of the youths are from ethnic minorities", legal centre solicitor Tamar Hopkins told the March 27 Melbourne Age.
In other incidents, Hopkins said, "a police officer told a young person 'Why don't you go back to Africa'", and "a police officer called a young person 'black dog, black dog' while punching him in the head".
In another incident, a police officer struck an 18-year-old man in the face with a torch in a car park on Racecourse Road on February 14. Hopkins told the Age that the 18-year-old required dental treatment after being hit and that police initially refused to take him to hospital.
Police racism is not new to Melbourne's western suburbs. In 2003, after a young Somali man was allegedly racially abused and bashed unconscious by Footscray police, 200 supporters organised by the Somali community and the Socialist Alliance protested outside the Footscray police station.
Another anti-racist rally, this time against government comments vilifying Muslims, has been called by the Socialist Alliance in Footscray for May 20.
"The large number of independent reports that have been made to our centre indicates that the behaviour is widespread among police officers in the Flemington region", Hopkins told Green Left Weekly.
Hopkins is calling for offending officers to be sacked and for an independent investigation by the Office of Police Integrity into police conduct in the Flemington area.
From Green Left Weekly, April 26, 2006.
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