NSW police pressured to provide ‘transparent’ answers over shooting death of Aboriginal man
The NSW police and the state government are under mounting pressure to provide “quick and transparent” answers to the family of an Aboriginal man shot and killed by police this week.
NSW police shot 46-year-old Gomeroi man, Stanley Russell inside his aunt’s house in north-west Sydney on Tuesday. Police later said there had been a “physical confrontation” at the house, where they had gone to execute a warrant.
NSW shadow minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Treaty, David Harris, said Labor supported calls from the family for “for a quick and transparent coronial inquest”.
“This is essential so that those impacted by this death may be able to understand the circumstances of it and have some closure,” he said.
Police alleged Stanley Russell had a knife and an axe and “confronted” four officers, who “let out a number of shots” inside the home.
Stanley’s grief-stricken parents, Ted and Helen Russell, have demanded answers about what happened. They have questioned police reports that their son was holding a knife and an axe. They want to see the police body-worn camera footage of the incident.
Both of their biological sons have died in custody. Stanley’s older brother Edward died in Long Bay jail in 1999.
“We have already been to hell and back during the investigation into Edward’s very avoidable death in custody,” the Russells said.
“Now we have to go through the same pain and trauma all over again. Given what we know currently about how Stanley died, we have questions about whether police failed in their duty of care to him too.
“For 30 years we have struggled to help stop Aboriginal deaths in custody. We have now lost both our sons in NSW custody. The royal commission’s key point about ensuring an active duty of care has been repeatedly ignored.”
Russell’s death was the second in a NSW custodial setting this week alone, after an Aboriginal man died in prison on Sunday.
NSW opposition leader Chris Minns said the deaths, “and the subsequent grief caused by them, should not have occurred”.
Incarceration rates for Aboriginal people are a “historic and ongoing systemic failure which requires urgent action”, Minns said.
Outside NSW parliament on Thursday, the family of another Gomeroi man shot dead by police in his own home, gathered to mark the 11th anniversary of his death.
Mark Mason, 44, was capsicum sprayed, tasered and then shot dead by police in his home in Collarenebri in 2010. A police investigation later cleared the four officers involved and the coroner found they had acted in self-defence.
“Today it’s been 11 years since the police shot and killed our father and we still got no justice,” his daughter Darlene Mason told the rally.
“When is it gonna stop for our people? It never stops. We are still fighting today.”
Mason’s family called for independent investigations into Aboriginal deaths in police and prison custody.
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Later inside the house, Greens MP David Shoebridge told parliament the constant deaths of other First Nations peoples re-traumatises bereaved families.
“But it doesn’t happen once a year. It happens repeatedly, month in, month out,” Shoebridge said.
“For First Nations peoples, we don’t have a criminal justice system in this state.
“For First Nations peoples, you don’t call the police to come and help, because some of the most dangerous people in their lives … are the New South Wales police.
“And it’s about time we saw that and it’s about time we recognise and address this fundamental racial bias in our criminal justice system,” he said.
So far this year, 11 Aboriginal people have died in custody or in a police operation in NSW alone.
Chief executive of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal service said the news of two more deaths this week is “gut wrenching”.
“If this is not proof that we are in the midst of a national emergency – I don’t know what is,” NATSILS Executive Officer, Jamie McConnachie said.
“How many more of our people will lose their lives before we see change?”