Caught between black and blue: senior Queensland police officer reveals the racism that broke him
Sgt Richard Monaei signed his resignation letter with his name, rank and badge number.
After 26 years in the Queensland police service, officer 4010379 emailed his formal notice direct to the commissioner last month. He wrote that attempting to address racism in the organisation “has broken me”.
Monaei, who has cultural ties to the Kaurareg, Gudang and Meriam people, was the first identified Indigenous person to make it through the harrowing selection course for the state’s elite tactical unit, the special emergency response team (Sert).
In policing circles, the men who make it through the commando-style entrance test are revered as the strongest and the toughest in the QPS. They don’t break easily.
“What that meant for me, as a person of colour, was that I was seen as equal,” Monaei says.
“It wasn’t until I moved into project management that it became really apparent to me, as an Indigenous man, the level of value and interest the QPS has towards First Nations people.”
Parts of Monaei’s resignation letter were read aloud at the commission of inquiry into police responses to domestic and family violence in October. Guardian Australia has permission from Monaei, and the inquiry, to identify him as the author.
“I no longer feel that the QPS affords a working environment that is culturally safe for me to bring my true, authentic self to work as a recognised Indigenous person and person of colour,” he said in the letter.
“Whilst my experiences have accumulated over the course of my service, there has always been a genuine sense of fear and reprisal by coming forward and speaking up about my experiences of racism.”
‘Caught between black and blue’
Indigenous officers, people of colour and police from multicultural backgrounds have told Guardian Australia they have been profoundly affected by the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in Australia and the US, and the behaviour of colleagues in its aftermath.
The deaths of George Floyd in the US and Kumanjayi Walker in the Northern Territory community of Yuendumu elicited strong pro-police reactions on social media. One serving officer recalls seeing dozens of her colleagues post material that was “just plain racist”.
“We were caught between black and blue. It felt like you were either on the blue team or the black team,” she says.
“These are people I worked with, was friends with on Facebook. And it makes you question whether you’re safe in your own organisation.
“And if you raise how all of this makes you feel, some officers will take that as a personal attack. Talking about racism within the police service is always twisted to become a very personal accusation against every cop.”
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Earlier this month, the commission of inquiry heard dozens of examples of racist comments and racism by members of the QPS. One of those mentioned was a senior constable who ran a private Facebook page for police called “the 504s”. (504 is Queensland police radio shorthand for a mentally ill person, and the term is commonly used by officers as a slur.)
In the group last year, the senior constable posted a picture of a darkskinned baby sleeping with its arms behind its back, captioned: “How cute. Baby dreaming about being arrested like his father.”
Monaei says he also scrolled through a private police Facebook page, Defend the Blue, which was set up about the time of the Black Lives Matter movement and has since been investigated for racist, sexist and homophobic content.
“I saw work colleagues, people I know, of all ranks up to commissioned officer level,” he says.
“The comments made, I thought, it made me feel more unsafe to be a person of colour, to be an Indigenous person in the organisation, to know these were fellow police officers on this platform making comments like that.
“I had to stop looking at it after a period of time, because it wasn’t making me feel any better.”
Awakened to racism in the force
Indigenous officers “walk two worlds” and survive through a process of “code switching” – the need to behave differently in situations, particularly to be seen to fit in with police culture – Monaei says.
“For me, every day within the organisation was living a life of survival,” he says.
After leaving Sert, Monaei worked in the Queensland police service First Nations and multicultural affairs unit, and later as the coordinator of police liaison officers (PLOs) – non-sworn officers who work as links between police and diverse cultural communities. In those roles, he became more acutely aware of systemic racism in the QPS.
While looking after PLOs during Covid lockdowns, he recalls one officer saying “we should open up the roads into [an Indigenous community in far north Queensland] and let Covid go in and kill the whole bloody lot of them”.
In his resignation letter, Monaei says racism is evident in the daily experiences of PLOs.
“PLOs know that they are the most devalued and unsupported cohort in the QPS.
“The QPS is dismissive of the fact that some of them are cultural leaders, traditional custodians, academics, and some hold high dignitary roles culturally and professionally across their communities.
“I have borne and taken carriage of PLO, Indigenous and POC afflictions relating to micro- and macro-aggressions of racism, for a long time and it has broken me.”
The police commissioner, Katarina Carroll, was asked about Monaei’s resignation letter at the inquiry.
“I would have to look into everything that he said, there is a lot in those statements,” she said.
“I’ve known [him] for a long period of time. I think the world of him, and when I got this I was upset, I suppose, because I do know him very, very well.”
Time to speak frankly
It was Monaei who instigated a meeting in 2020 – inspired by the BLM movement – where several Indigenous and multicultural officers spoke to Carroll and her deputies about their experiences of racism “on a daily basis”.
One of the attendees, in an email sent to Carroll afterwards, told how colleagues had previously turned against her for calling out racism and misconduct, leaving her “so distressed that I literally became mute and didn’t speak for four days”.
“I could never have imagined that a few years later the very issue that silenced me would be the same issue that would help me find my voice with you all,” she wrote.
“I walked out of that room yesterday proud to be a Queensland police officer.”
Three weeks later, after the death of an Indigenous woman in a Brisbane watch house sparked new BLM protests, Carroll told reporters at a press conference: “We are in no way racist.”
The comments were not well received by some Indigenous officers. In hindsight, Carroll told the inquiry, “saying it in that manner would have upset … people in the organisation” who had recently related their experiences.
Monaei says a separate inquiry into racism in the QPS is needed. He says he sent his resignation directly to the commissioner because of that 2020 meeting to discuss racism.
“I sat with her and her deputies in 2020 to … speak frankly about our instances of racism,” Monaei says.
“You fast forward to 2022 and I’ve resigned because of racism. I’ve resigned because of the lack of action that has been taken to address racism.
“The amount of times I’ve spoken to her about ensuring there’s effective engagement and yet we’re still getting it wrong.”