...and the coppers get it very wrong

'Poof' goes that warm and fuzzy feeling from my last post:

Quigley attacks WA police commisioner  By Josh Jerga, AAP, February 17, 2011 - 3:49PM

Western Australia's shadow attorney-general John Quigley has launched a blistering attack on the state's police commissioner for distributing what he calls "a litany of lies".

In state parliament, Mr Quigley criticised the role of Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan in "vilifying" an Aboriginal man who was tasered up to 41 times in a week by police and corrective services officers.

The behaviour of officers in arresting Kevin Spratt and his treatment at Perth lock-up was the subject of a Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) inquiry in December.

Mr Spratt's treatment came to light when a video was released last year of police tasering him 14 times while in custody at Perth Watchhouse on August 31, 2008.

Following the release of initial video, which pixellated Mr Spratt's face, WA police issued a flow chart to media outlining the events leading up his tasering and involvement with police, including charges previously brought against him.

Mr Quigley told parliament that when examined against police documents and evidence before the CCC, the flow chart was a "litany of lies".

He called on the government to get to the bottom of the creation of the document, which he said was compiled by the WA police internal affairs unit.

"What discussion (did they have) with Commissioner O'Callaghan and Deputy Commissioner (Chris) Dawson before they so willingly went out into a press conference selling these lies to the public of WA to vilify Kevin Spratt?" Mr Quigley told parliament.

"It is beyond imagination as to why they did it ... but it's got to mark them down as the worst commissioner and deputy commissioner in Australia by their conduct."

Mr Quigley told parliament Mr Spratt had complained to Mr O'Callaghan about his alleged vilification, but was told via a letter in October that police did not identify him.

He said that following the press conference in which Mr O'Callaghan released the flow chart, a Seven Network TV news crew went to the home of Mr Spratt's parents, who told them he was at work.

"The commissioner of police would want us to believe this eye-wash, that there was no communication with Channel Seven of the address or person ... that's just a lie," he said.

Mr Quigley said the flow chart stated Mr Spratt had acted violently and obstructed police at Perth lock-up before being tasered, and as a result had been charged over that behaviour.

However the CCC hearing in December was told Mr Spratt had not been violent and had been convicted on the basis of a misleading statement of facts.

"There's a day of reckoning coming," Mr Quigley said. ...read on

Now, that's much more familiar behaviour from the coppers

The coppers get it right

News just in from the 7 News site:

Police officer sacked over alleged Indigenous alcohol breach  Kim Lyell, ABC February 17, 2011, 2:42 pm

A central Queensland policeman has been sacked over allegations he took alcohol into a 'dry' Aboriginal community.

The Queensland Police Service says a 44-year-old senior sergeant from the central region has been dismissed.

It has issued a statement saying the dismissal followed allegations he transferred an "excessive" amount of alcohol into a community subject to restrictions.  More...

It might not exactly balance the ledger but a damn good response (and a damn good message) I reckon

Crime and perspective in Townsville

Maybe today's headline news in The Bulletin may finally give the city's 'opinion makers' a real perspective on crime and law and order in Townsville.

Contrary to the wedge first inserted by Mooney all those years ago and repeated ad nauseam ever since by the likes of Cr Dale Last and of course The Townsville Bulletin, the real crime/law-and-order issue in this city (as in any other) is not a few homeless people looking untidy and (perhaps) drinking in full view of the general public (and the 'opinion makers' in particular) or a few teenagers in the western suburbs meeting in public spaces at night or having the occasional brawl or leaving the occasional graffiti tag.

As is very clear from today's story, the locus for crime in this city (as in most) is the night club district where the purveyors of and profiteers from legal drugs provide the venues, culture and environment for the illegal drug traffickers.  As has been the case since the days of Al Capone, they're also great places to lander money.

Arguably these dealers - the legal and the illegal - are some of the city's greatest social menaces.  The police understand this, that is why they devoted so many resources to this last operation (on top of what they have to normally devote to Flinders Street night-in and night-out).

Perhaps now Cr Last and The Bully will finally get it too?

PS: Having again broken a lifetime habit and read today's editorial in The Bully, maybe it will be a while before they get it.  Reading that 'opinion-making' piece you'll see that the problem is young people (2 out of 11 identified in the article were below 20 years), that responsibility rests with parents (tell that to the aging parents of the over-40s who were arrested) and that the public policy response should be an education campaign!  Doh!

The most appauling aniversary

19 November, in a little over a month, will be the sixth aniversary of the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee at the hands the Qld coppers - SIX years and today this:

Is there no end to this for Mulrunji's family?  Is there no justice?

Not a good news day for the Coppers

Mulrunji and the coppers - "The whole charade is totally offensive"

Tony Koch has consistently written the best pieces in the MSM on the outrage that is the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee and the charade that has followed ever since.  In today's Oz:

THE lawyers' picnic in the Queensland Supreme Court is masquerading as a titanic battle.

THE lawyers' picnic masquerading in the Queensland Supreme Court as a titanic battle between the Crime and Misconduct Commission and the Queensland Police Service is just another attempt to deny any blame for the disgraceful investigation into the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee.

The CMC, after years of ignoring its responsibilities to ensure that police acted properly, recommended that disciplinary action be taken against six officers involved to varying degrees in the sloppy cover up.

Last month, CMC chairman Martin Moynihan gave Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson a fortnight to report back on action the QPS intended to take against the officers.

The only body with more culpability is the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee, which has the responsibility to be the watchdog, but whose members have sat mute all this time.

So this week it was back to court with injunctions ensuring that justice for Palm Islanders is further delayed. The whole charade is totally offensive.

Commissioner Atkinson has not had just a fortnight to consider action against the police involved - he has had almost six years. He has a sworn responsibility to ensure the law is applied equally to all citizens, but he has a special duty when a situation involves the most vulnerable in our community.

His refusal to accept the responsibility of his office and to take the obvious action against his officers is reprehensible. His contract should not be renewed when it expires late this year.

The motto of the QPS is "With Honour We Serve".

The investigators of the 2004 death of Mulrunji, so enthusiastically supported by Atkinson, have defiled that noble claim.

Charges must be laid after the findings of Inquest into Mulrunji's death

In case you haven't seen it, Monique Bond has some spot-on suggestions after reading Coroner Brian Hine’s findings.  More here

When you’ve found your whipping-boy, whip it, whip it good

Following my long post yesterday, I see that the Bulletin is at it again today (so much for the power of the blogosphere!).

Today’s front page screamer (not available online - isn't that interesting!) moves from the completely inappropriate “war-zone” language of yesterday’s Bulletin to talk of “madness” and pleas for the Premier’s intervention. The hook for today’s beat-up? - the release of the most recent Statistical Review by the coppers.

The article quite rightly expresses concern at an apparent increase in assaults in the last year and manages to note later that, in reality, the data only indicates reported crimes and is not a count of actual crime. But they then somehow manage to imply that all of this is evidence of a youth crime problem (“madness”?).

The data they use is for all ages and says nothing (repeat, nothing) about youth crime. In fact, it also says nothing about Townsville – the data is for a region covers that about ¼ of the State and that stretches from the coast to the NT border.
Unfortunately, the coppers report isn’t available online as yet (check here later) – it will be interesting to see whether in fact there is any type of reversal in the trending decline over recent years in young offenders involved in crimes against the person (see here).

Furthering the impression that this is all about kids (and welfare mothers for that matter), the article then goes on to regurgitate Mooney’s proposal to somehow withhold welfare payments (not quarantine them) from the parents of bad kids – however that is going to be decided (see the end of this post).

We finish off with news of a new police operation targeting kids in Kirwan and a report that 100 kids have been checked (presumably, that the coppers had seen and perhaps talked with) in 3 days (and NOT broken any laws necessarily). Finally, there is a listing of ‘crimes’ detected (presumably) in that operation and again, no evidence that they were committed by young people – despite the implication.

All in all, shoddy work and a totally meaningless analysis - as we’ve come to expect from the Bulletin. But then whipping boys (or is that dead horses) are there for one thing – to whip.

Do you think there might be a problem here?

Queensland police are investigating another death in custody - the fourth in just over a month.

No other state has a record that even approaches this.  A problem - I certainly think so!

But please,  let's not have a CMC’s probe into the problem - remember that 5 years and 3 months after it stared we're still waiting for their report into the coppers investigation into death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee!!

PS: To keep tabs on the goings-on in the Qld Police force, I recommend John Ray's blog Queensland Police -- With dishonour they serve