Islander compo insult to cops
THE anger among the general population at Annastacia Palaszczuk’s decision to award Palm Islanders $30 million in compensation for “racist” police actions in 2004 will be felt for a long time, possibly even at the next state election.
Newspaper letters pages and comments on social media display a feeling that this state government has not only capitulated to violent extremists but also thumbed its nose at police after initially appealing a court finding that police raids in the riot’s wake were racially prejudiced.
This $30 million may as well be the biblical 30 pieces of silver that leave police stained with the “racist” tarnish.
After the death in custody of Cameron Doomadgee at Palm Island on November 19, 2004, tensions were high.
As reported in The Australian in 2008, Sgt Darren Randall was one of 22 officers sent to Palm to keep the peace after the watch-house tragedy.
On November 26, 2004, an estimated 1000 people were out of control.
(Sgt) Randall had been woken by breaking glass. For the next three hours, Randall says, he and his colleagues feared for their lives. The police station was set alight as they
WHEN THE HEAVY RAIDS ARE PUT INTO CONTEXT ... YOU HAVE TO SUSPECT THAT GOING IN HARD WASN’T ONLY APPROPRIATE BUT NECESSARY.
sought shelter from the volley of rocks, and they were forced to retreat to their barracks.
Then that building was attacked. For hours the police, who were armed, resisted the urge to pull out their guns, as others donned cycling helmets for protection and grabbed pool cues and cricket bats to defend themselves.
Randall, who is clearly not a racist, says there was a conscious decision not to use their guns – for fear of hurting an innocent or exacerbating the riot – unless someone crossed a line drawn in the sand outside the barracks.
“That was the point of no return: we were cornered and had nothing left to defend ourselves with,” he said.
As they were holed up, and with smoke billowing around them, several of the officers telephoned their spouses to say goodbye.”
On November 27 and 28, police acted against people they suspected of being the main offenders in the riots.
They went in heavy – guns drawn, tasers deployed, shouting. Children were traumatised and some innocent people were arrested.
A reasonable person can see why complaints were made against police, and it’s also reasonable to expect a strong community reaction to the reports released that day on the extent of injuries sustained by Mr Doomadgee.
But it was far more than just a strong reaction, and when the heavy police raids are put in context with – what many believe to be – the attempted murder of cops, you have to suspect that going in hard wasn’t only appropriate but necessary.
As one ex-cop said to me: “It’s not as though police were going into an area where they knew people would be throwing rose petals at their feet.”
He’s right. The cops had to not only act quickly to restore the rule of law, but they also had to err on the side of caution knowing the people they were dealing with had only just recently displayed extremely violent and possibly murderous intent against people in uniform.
The complainants finally had their day in court, but I believe the cops never had a chance of being exonerated of charges they only acted the way they did because they were dealing with Aborigines.
In her 2016 judgment, Federal Court Justice Debbie Mortimer, refused to even call the barbaric events of November 26, 2004 a “riot”, preferring instead to say it was a “protest”.
She said: “To use the word ‘riot’ to describe these events would be to convey an impression that does not reflect my view of the evidence before me.”
To her credit, the Justice also declined to use the word “raids” to describe police actions, but to not call the burning down of government buildings a “riot” seems to be at odds with many people’s conclusions, especially considering the main perpetrator was convicted and jailed for “rioting with destruction”.
The Justice also said she was satisfied the police would have behaved differently if they were dealing with a non-Aboriginal community.
However, if white people at Cardwell had burnt down buildings and threatened police in the same manner, it seems strange to rule that special-forces officers wouldn’t have gone in heavy to find and arrest the perpetrators.
After last week throwing farmers under the bus with over-restrictive vegetation management laws and now agreeing that police deployed to arrest Palm Island rioters were motivated by racism, this government has shown itself to be completely out of touch with many ordinary people in the North and may come to regret it at the next poll.