Stanley Russell: why did NSW police shoot an Aboriginal man dead in a Sydney house?
There are bullet holes in Pam Saha’s laundry wall. There’s also a bullet mark in the floor and, nearby, what appears to be a bloodstain. There’s another reddish stain, with the pattern of a boot in it, visible in flaking paint on thefloor. None were there before NSW police arrived 10 days ago.
The officers came to Saha’s house in north-western Sydney to arrest her nephew Stanley Russell, and ended up shooting him dead. The circumstances surrounding it are now the subject of an internal investigation.
Inside the two-storey brick and weatherboard home large holes have been cut from the plasterboard walls, presumably by the forensic investigators who spent hours inside after the shooting, collecting evidence.
Saha says on the morning of 9 November a police officer came to the front door of the Seven Hills home and ushered her outside. She saw four officers enter via the back door. Then she heard several gunshots.
Saha lives in the small public housing townhouse with her children and grand-children. She’s been there for 17 years. The place is in need of repairs. On the day Guardian Australia visits, a contractor arrives to do a routine check on the smoke alarm in the kitchen. There’s a large hole in the kitchen roof caused by years of water damage from a leaking upstairs shower. A smoke alarm check seems the least of her concerns. She tells him to come back tomorrow.
“I just need a fresh start,” Saha says. Her son Lesley adds: “She needs a proper house, three bedrooms. She just sits here all day thinking over what happened, it’s no good for anyone.”
NSW police came to arrest 46year-old Gomeroi man Stanley Russell on an outstanding warrant. A police spokesperson said there was a “physical confrontation” at the house. They said Russell had a knife and an axe and “confronted” the four officers, who “let out a number of shots”.
Acting assistant police commissioner Julie Boon told reporters at the scene that Russell “collapsed” after being shot and could not be revived.
Stanley’s parents, Ted and Helen Russell, said they found out about the shooting when they recognised Pam’s house on the news.
“We have heard the police who went to Pam’s house say they had an arrest warrant for Stanley. There is a very big difference between an arrest warrant and shooting a man,” they said in a statement.
“It is terribly painful for us to learn suddenly that we will never see Stanley’s smile again. His children will suffer from never seeing him again.
“There are many questions about the killing of our son Stanley by police that we will seek to have answered through the coronial inquest. We will keep going in our struggle for justice, to ensure that deaths in custody must stop.”
NSW police have been asked whether body-worn camera footage of the incident had been captured, whether all officers involved had activated those cameras, and whether the Russell family would be able to view it.
They were also asked whether the officers involved had attempted to use other “non-lethal” options prior to shooting Russell, such as OC spray or Tasers.
NSW police said they could not comment as the matter was subject to a critical incident review.
On the night of the shooting, Pam and her friend Vivian Morgan spent the night at a stranger’s house nearby. The woman, they say, offered them a place to rest as they waited for investigators to bring Stanley’s body out of the house, at about 1am.
Saha says she was offered a motel room for a few nights by the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) but she declined.
“I don’t want to leave my nephew behind, that’s the problem,” she says. But she knows it will be better for everyone if they move now.
“We need a fresh start, and a new house,” she says.
“I dream about coppers coming to my house and everything. I see coppers in my house. Even last night, I got up at three o clock in the morning.”
Is she frightened of the police?
“Now I am, yeah.”
Pam and Vivian say they keep going over the events of that night in their minds, trying to think of ways it could have been different. They both say they don’t like being alone with those thoughts, especially at night.
“If the police would have come out and asked me: “come in here, and calm your nephew down”, I could have, but they never asked,” Pam says.
Morgan adds: “We asked about Tasers and why they didn’t use Tasers, but they don’t wanna answer us. They won’t even answer me about the videocam.”
Meanwhile, Guardian Australia has asked NSW Police whether it is standard practice to leave bullet holes in walls in a shooting investigation and whether those caught up in police operations or shootings such as these were provided with repairs, offered an explanation of the process, or support afterwards.
NSW Police said “the matter is subject to a Critical Incident investigation and as such we are unable to provide any further information.”
NSW Police minister David Elliott also declined to respond to detailed questions about the incident or clarify what responsibility, if any, the NSW government has to assist the victims of a police shooting.
A DCJ spokesperson says a local liaison officer contacted Pam shortly after the incident. The family would have to officially request a transfer, the spokesperson says, but concedes the family might need assistance with the process.
“The Department of Communities and Justice has offered temporary accommodation and the Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) offered to undertake repairs when the family is ready,” the spokesperson says. “DCJ will consider an application for a transfer to a different property if the family formally requests this.”
For now, Saha and her family are waiting – for answers, for a new house, for the funeral, for the coroner’s report and for an inquest.