Ray Jackson, president of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, spoke to Green Left TV’s Peter Boyle at a protest against deaths in custody in Sydney on July 27. He spoke about Tasers, shackling and the death of Aboriginal man Mr Clarke in Alice Springs. Watch the GLTV video of the interview, a transcribed extract of which is below, here.
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The demonstration today is to highlight the death of Mr Clarke up in the Northern Territory. We decided to hold it outside Corrective Services NSW because a report has just come out from the ombudsman that finds that jail officers have been assaulting prisoners.
And whilst we’re here to publicise the death of Mr Clarke we’re also here to protest against the assault on inmates in NSW jails.
A further practice that we want to highlight today is the one of shackling. Deaths in custody is a national issue, shackling of inmates in hospitals is a national issue, and assault of inmates is a national issue.
Police brutality, not only against Aboriginal people, but all people who they consider to be lesser mortals than themselves. We are still arguing to the NSW government and to the ombudsman that in fact we want Tasers withdrawn.
A special unit needs to be set up where they can be called in when there is no other alternative. But to give Tasers to young people full of testosterone straight out of the police academy and tell them that they are invincible – it only creates problems. Tasers must go.
Mr [Kevin] Spratt was tasered about 13 or 14 times by the Western Australian coppers, and why he’s not dead I do not know. He was then taken into the care and control of corrective services, who also tasered him about 12 … or 14 times.