Australia: No charges against police for killing Aboriginal prisoner : Melbourne Indymedia

In a blatant whitewash, two agencies of the Beattie Labor government in the Australian state of Queensland simultaneously ruled last week that no charges will be laid against a police sergeant who bashed and killed an innocent Aboriginal man on Palm Island, near the northern city of Townsville, two years ago. The decision has caused outrage on Palm Island and throughout indigenous communities across the country.

The Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Leanne Clare announced on December 14 that Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley would not be placed on trial for the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee, 36, at the island’s police station. The Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC), which monitors the state’s police, immediately echoed her decision, saying no disciplinary action would be taken against Hurley either.

The announcements came less than three months after Acting State Coroner Christine Clements ruled on September 27 that Hurley “caused the fatal injuries” suffered by Mulrunji (his tribal name) and “callously” left him to die in agony in a police cell after arresting him on unwarranted “public nuisance” charges on November 19, 2004.

In her detailed 35-page report, Clements found that Hurley “hit Mulrunji whilst he was on the floor a number of times”. An Aboriginal witness saw Hurley “bending over” the prostrate Mulrunji, with Hurley’s “elbow going up and down three times,” and Hurley saying, “Have you had enough, Mr Doomadgee? Do you want more, Mr Doomadgee? Do you want more?...

“After this occurred, I find there was no further resistance, or indeed any speech or response from Mulrunji. I conclude that these actions of Senior Sergeant Hurley caused the fatal injuries.”

On the basis of expert medical evidence, Clements specifically rejected the police suggestion that Mulrunji’s shocking injuries—his liver was broken in two, his spleen ruptured and four ribs broken—were caused when the two men initially fell to the floor together. “All the expert evidence also concurred that a fall together, side-by-side, of the two men onto a flat surface was unlikely to have caused the injury that occurred.”

Doctors concluded that the severe injury must have been inflicted by a “compressive force of very considerable magnitude to the right lower rib cage with the rest of the body otherwise immobilised”. This meant blows struck by a fist, knee or elbow.

Clements ruled that Doomadgee was dragged away inert and deposited in a cell, without any attempt to check on his state of health. “Mulrunji cried out for help from the cell after being fatally injured, and no help came. The images from the cell video tape of Mulrunji, writhing in pain as he lay dying on the cell floor, were shocking and terribly distressing.”

The coroner further found that Mulrunji’s arrest had been “completely unjustified”; police made no attempt to resuscitate him when he was found in the cell with no pulse; Mulrunji’s family were misled and “sent away” when they came to the police station to inquire; and the initial police investigations of the death, by officers who personally knew Hurley, were “reprehensible” and “obviously lacking in transparency, objectivity and independence”. Clements also rejected Hurley’s denial that he punched Mulrunji as “untruthful”.

Yet, the DPP and the CMC claimed that no evidence existed to sustain any charges against Hurley—not for murder, manslaughter or even assault, not for the “callous” failure to check on his well-being, not for the “reprehensible” cover-up attempt, and not for perjury.

DPP Clare claimed the death was simply a “terrible accident”. There was no evidence to go to a jury that Hurley was criminally responsible for it. In fact, Clare directly contradicted the coroner’s findings, saying that Mulrunji died from internal injuries caused when he and Hurley fell together through the open door of the police station.

Clare also defied the medical evidence, claiming that autopsy results showed neither kicks nor punches caused Mulrunji’s death. “On the evidence, the fall is the only satisfactory explanation for the injuries identified by the doctors,’’ Clare said.

The DPP came to her remarkable conclusions without conducting any hearings or listening to any testimony. Instead, she said she had “pursued further lines of inquiry and received additional evidence,” but refused to explain or elaborate.

Based on her decision, the CMC announced that it had “reached the inevitable conclusion that no disciplinary action before the Misconduct Tribunal or by the Queensland Police Service (QPS) can be taken against the police officer in relation to the cause of death or in relation to the charges of assault or perjury mentioned in the DPP’s media statement today”.

Beattie defends ruling
It soon became apparent that the state government and police approved and knew of Clare’s ruling in advance. Police reinforcements were on hand in Townsville to suppress any protests in the city or on the nearby island by furious Aboriginal people.

Premier Peter Beattie quickly backed the DPP announcement and urged people to accept the “umpire’s decision”. With typical hypocrisy, Beattie claimed that his government could not interfere with the ruling and that indeed it would be politically impermissible and “dictatorial” to do so.

This is from a government that, just five months ago, overruled the DPP’s decision to accept an offer from former Bundaberg Hospital surgeon Dr Jayant Patel to conditionally return to Australia from the US to face manslaughter and medical malpractice charges. Patel’s trial could have harmed the government’s chances in the September state election, in which the deteriorating hospital system was a major issue.

Clare is a political appointee, whom the Beattie government reappointed to another three-year term just last month, despite the failure of two other highly political prosecutions that she undertook on the government’s behalf. One was the anti-democratic jailing of right-wing One Nation Party founders Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge on fraud charges that were later thrown out by the state Supreme Court. The other was the jailing of former chief magistrate Di Fingleton, whose conviction the Australian High Court declared to be without foundation.

In the lead-up to Clare’s announcement, Beattie and his ministers made it plain that they backed the police to the hilt. Beattie defended Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson’s decision not to suspend Hurley and lauded the police as “one of the best police services in the world”.

This stance reinforced what the Labor government did after Mulrunji’s killing triggered a riot on Palm Island, in which an angry crowd marched to the courthouse and police station and set them alight.

Beattie backed the police in declaring an emergency, and at least 80 officers, including the paramilitary Special Emergency Response Team (SERT), sealed off the island. They shut down roads and launched early morning raids on homes. Police in full battle armour and wielding semi-automatic weapons bashed down doors, used stun guns, pointed shotguns at people and confronted children.

This week, it was belatedly reported that the police also requested the army to send in troops and Black Hawk helicopters. Such a request for military intervention must have come from the Beattie government itself. It is a clear warning of the manner in which the Howard government’s recently boosted military call-out powers can be invoked to put down civil unrest, even though it seems that Beattie’s request was denied on this occasion.

At least seven Palm Island residents face trial next year, in stark contrast to the exoneration of Hurley and his fellow officers, who are now seeking compensation for stress in putting down the Palm Island riot.

The fury among indigenous people was voiced by an unnamed woman outside the media conference where Clare unveiled her decision. Aboriginal people were barred from the room. “Now him and all those other officers will get a bloody compensation package for stress. What happens to our brothers and sisters that resisted against 216 years of oppression? And then they had the cheek to insult our intelligence and kick us out of the decision like we’re mongrel dogs.”

Aboriginal lawyer Noel Pearson said the decision “has probably kept every indigenous person in this state restless with visceral anger and despair at the state of the justice system here in Queensland”. He accused Clare of “driving indigenous people to depths of despair” and called for her NSW or Victorian counterparts to undertake a review.

Various Labor and Aboriginal figures joined Pearson in seeking to deflect the anger away from the Beattie government by blaming the DPP or police. Parliamentary speaker Mike Reynolds, whose electorate includes Palm Island, said he believed the case should have gone to a jury and police had not learned from the 1990s royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody.

In fact, the Hawke federal government’s 1987-1991 royal commission, which reviewed 99 deaths of indigenous prisoners that occurred between 1980 and 1991, effectively gave a green light for further killings. Not one charge of homicide resulted and another 145 indigenous prisoners died over the ensuing decade.

Despite this historical record, Sam Watson, an indigenous spokesman for the so-called Socialist Alliance, a collection of ex-radicals, said: “Leanne Clare has taken the relationship between Aboriginal people and the criminal justice system to an all-time low.”

Three months ago, Watson told ABC radio the coroner’s verdict had “absolutely restored the faith and confidence that Aboriginal people had in justice system,” describing it as “a massive step forward for reconciliation right across the state and right across the nation”. Watson also promoted illusions in Labor, pleading with Beattie and the police to accept the coroner’s report.

From Hawke to Beattie, Labor has been central to the ongoing repression of Aboriginal people, who are up to 30 times more likely to be locked up than non-indigenous people, and the maintenance of the deep-seated poverty and social deprivation that underpin this appalling disparity.

At the same time, the brazen Palm Island whitewash sets a precedent for use against all working class victims of police brutality, not only indigenous people. On December 16, Murdoch’s Australian front-page headline depicted the DPP’s decision as a “white justice ruling”. While the ruling is certainly a racist one, it is above all an attack on the working class, sanctioning police violence amid conditions of deepening social inequality and political disaffection.

See Also:
Australian coroner: Police killed Aboriginal prisoner on Palm Island
[10 October 2006]
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/palm-o10.shtml
Wadeye: a case study of the Australian government's Aboriginal agenda
[24 August 2006]
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/aug2006/wade-a24.shtml
Australia: Palm Island's dark history of Aboriginal repression--Part Two
[2 March 2005]
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/pal2-m02.shtml
Australia: Palm Island's dark history of Aboriginal repression--Part One
[1 March 2005]
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/pal1-m01.shtml

http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/palm-d19.shtml

Funny
by How hypocrites don't see themselves as such Tuesday December 19, 2006 at 10:17 PM

It's great to read all the 'civil libertarians' here at MIM clamouring for this guy to receive a fair trial.

And then to be sent straight to jail, because they've already made their minds up.

And if he were acquitted at trial, it would be hailed as a 'whitewash' and the white fella's justice system would once again be seen to be discriminating against indigenous folk.

Nothing short of a conviction, regardless of the admissible evidence, will satisfy this lynch mob.

Rabid, shrill and prejudiced zealots.

If it were anyone else they would get charged for the killing of a person guilty or not - not get their ass kissed and licked now would they?

Why isn't the arsehole being tried by media like everyone else anyways?

Because this bloke is a corporate suck govt stooge killer cop that's why.

Killer cops have no right let me tell you not to be charged and tried by a jury of his peers like everyone else would have been.

Let alone keep his job so he can do it again!

What is good for everyone else who has killed someone should be good enough for Aboriginal killer Chris Hurley.

But my poor retarded fool, not everyone who kills another person is charged with an offence. Homicide is the killing of a human. Homicide may be unlawful, lawful or justified. The mere fact that a person kills another is not, ipso facto, sufficient for that person to be charged.

The rules under which a coroner operates are different from those of a criminal court. For example, coroners can receive heresay evidence and make a determination on that basis. Juries in criminal trials cannot.

It is impossible to articulate an informed opinion on this particular case without reading the entire written decision of the Queensland DPP, so I will avoid doing so - unlike others who allow their prejudices to form their opinions.

Best to leave these decisions to those who ARE acquainted with all the facts and able to make decisions according to the evidence and not to their personal prejudices.

I know it's sometimes difficult to accept that those with a superior intellect may actually know more than you on a particular issue. But judging from your writing style, including spelling and grammar, you are not that smart. Possibly bordering on possessing some form of mental deficiency?

Please let those who know best control things on your behalf. We have always done it well and wil continue to do so.

You have nothing to worry about.

Now go and have a Bex, a cup of tea and a good lie down.

With the greatest respect your worship.

You just have to ignore my learned friends Ignorance on purpose!

Where there is 'evidence' of it!

In this case the there is enough evidence submitted by the coroner to charge the Aboriginal Killer Chris Hurley with the offence he obviously committed.

After he is charged with the offence like everyone else who has been found to have been involved in a killing it is for the Jury of his/her peers to decide and for uninformed imbeciles to move to the back of the bus!

Typical. A policeman murders another aborigine and gets away with it. Then the media focus on aborigines being savages in their anger at injustice. Perhaps if the police were not above the law, then we could not be so afraid of them.

I understand that the Queensland DPP may ask the NSW DPP to review the file.

I hope she does that.

And the clamouring mob accepts the decision.

As Major Hochstetter of Hogan's Heroes would say, "This man deserves a fair trial. After which, of course, he will be shot".

Sounds just like Goose Watcher.

Remember, Jericho; any attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses here at MIM are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance.

The decision of the Queensland DPP not to charge Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley is to be independently reviewed after the State Attorney General stepped into this saga today.

An independent review will once and for all put to bed whether Hurley should be charged with any criminal offence.

If the review finds that charges should have been laid, they should be. And immediately.

If it confirms the original decision, those clamouring for mob justice ought to accept the independent review's findings.

But we know that won't happen. The mob will expect charges to be laid if the review so finds. But they will dismiss the review as irrelevant and biased if its findings are not in accordance with their own pre-determined stance.

They expect the other side to abide by the umpire's decision, but refuse to so commit themselves.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between the two.

Hypocritical, ill-informed and prejudiced swill.

a short and sweet comment about the palm island incident.

I was absoloutely positively outraged and bewildered with rage the minute i found out that Sgt Hurley is going to be charged with manslaughter over something that was out of his control.

The fact is, that cameron doomadgee was playing up and causing a stink in palm island the night of his arrest and subsequent death. hurley had nothing to do with it. if doomadgee wasnt full of alcohol and god knows what else, he may have saved his own life and the good name and reputation of a fine police officer who was only doing his job for this beautiful state and country of ours.

i believe the comment of this witness who claims he witnessed sgt hurley assaulting doomadgee is a purgered statement only designed to discredit the queensland police.

queensland police are very excellent at their job. i am sure they're might be a few who are a bit laid back, but they do the right thing always, it is the opposite that sgt hurley did anything that was criminal or immoral.

i dont know the facts, so i cant make a decision one way or the other, all I know is, that the stink that the aboriginal association is causing is unfair, and utterly insulting to anyone intelligent, because that is how it works with people who want to have control or hold over people who are decent people.

fact of the matter is, doomadgee shouldnt have been drinking in a public place, shouldnt have been causing a public nuisance, and shouldn't have verbally assulted a police officer.

"fact of the matter is, doomadgee shouldnt have been drinking in a public place, shouldnt have been causing a public nuisance, and shouldn't have verbally assulted a police officer."
Exactly! And he diserves to DIE for doing so. Police powers are in no way unjustified. In my experience, many police officers are (in the best case) people with a medium education (the smart educated ones become lawyers or judges) and have a burning desire to proove tha they're alpha males. Only in the last 2-3 weeks I have seen 3 (three) police cars jumping over the strip in the middle of the road, intimidating motorists and driving like maniacs the wrong way on a one-way street, none of them having their sirens on (probably cause they were trying not to disturb the neighbourhood). They're not just hoons with guns, they are the angels that guard you while you sleep. By the way, if you want to become a cop you have to take an intelligence test and if you score over 80 or 90% then they fail you! cool, ha?
coming back to the matter at hand, if an aboriginen would kick a drunken cop until he was dead, probably the cop's mates would murder him then and there. how would you feel if your father (after drinking) would be hit until dead by some copper? the police charges were not even criminal, isn't the death penalty a bit much? ok then, let's hang anyone that does over 20km/h over the limit and let's shoot everyone that does not stop at a traffic light.
imho the people on the island had all the right to do what they did, everybody in australia jumped 10-feet-high when the muslim leader said something about meat and women, but when someone's husband, friend, father or grandfather is hit until dead let's just invite his friends to do an inquiry and get it over with, right?
and if anyone has a problem with the quality of my writing, let me see you writing in anything else but english and then you may have a case.

excuse me 'informed one' dont be so up yourself, and dont talk like your above everyone else. the truth is you probably dont have superior intelect, so dont act like you do.

Just a few things:

The article is a bit misleading but this might be due to the misleading quality of many news reports. It said:

"In her detailed 35-page report, Clements found that Hurley “hit Mulrunji whilst he was on the floor a number of times”. An Aboriginal witness saw Hurley “bending over” the prostrate Mulrunji, with Hurley’s “elbow going up and down three times,” and Hurley saying, “Have you had enough, Mr Doomadgee? Do you want more, Mr Doomadgee? Do you want more?... "

This failed to mention that the witness said that the punches were to the head and were followed by kicks. Medical evidence ruled out kicks. This left the punches as a possibility. The coroner said it was open to her to rule that the punches were to the body to explain the fatal liver injury because she believed that the witness didn't have a good view.

It also said:

"On the basis of expert medical evidence, Clements specifically rejected the police suggestion that Mulrunji’s shocking injuries—his liver was broken in two, his spleen ruptured and four ribs broken—were caused when the two men initially fell to the floor together. “All the expert evidence also concurred that a fall together, side-by-side, of the two men onto a flat surface was unlikely to have caused the injury that occurred.” "

This failed to mention that the three medical experts were unanimous that if 115kg Hurley had fallen on top that would explain the injuries. The quote is based on her decision that the men fell side by side rather than on top like the police witness believed that he observed and Hurley has indicated that he accepts happened.

Also, contrary to the impression given by media generally, it needs to be clarified that Coroners do not make decisions about charging or not charging. They run an inquiry and are not a second DPP. They take in any evidence they find and try to work out what happened. If they think there could be a potential Criminal Law issue they refer things to the DPP. If someone said that an alien arrived and strangled Mulrunji they are entitled to include that in their report and form a conclusion based on that fact. Their concern is not guilt or innocence but simply an attempt to get some idea of what happened and gather evidence.

Contrast this with the evidence that can be used in court. For a fair trial the evidence allowed in court is more restrictive.

The DPP is the actual decision maker as to whether or not there is sufficient evidence to warrant a trial. They look at evidence that can be used in court and make their decision. They are concerned with whether or not a case can be made against someone.

Although not widely emphasised in the media it is worth noting that in this case the DPP reportedly got advice from retired Supreme Court Judge Thomas. This indicates it was a careful decision. It is also worth noting that Thomas retired recently and had recent criminal law experience as a judge. He also has broad life experience having had a public school education and worked a total of 12 months as a builder's labourer. This contrasts with the elite background typical of the judiciary and would assist him to make sound assessments when issues like scuffles are involved.

The above factors indicating the merits of the DPP decision probably explains why the CMC later made an identical decision (something not emphasised in the media). In response to a complaint (second bite at Hurley) they had to consider whether or not there is sufficient evidence that Hurley caused the death to proceed to a disciplinary tribunal. Their concurrance with the earlier decision by the DPP affirms the soundness of the DPP decision. This is not surprising given the care with which it was made and the calibre of advice that was taken into account in making it.

Finally, since the article and previous comments, aboriginal activist Jessie Street's son, Sir Lawrence Street, headed a review of the DPP decision. He worked as a Barrister practicising extensively in Maritime, Commercial, Banking and Insolvency Law before entering the Equity Division of the NSW Supreme Court. This deals with probate/deceased estate matters, commercial matters, admiralty matters, and protective matters. The Common Law division deals with Criminal Law. He was then appointed Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court. Since his retirement in 1988 he has worked as a mediator in commercial matters. Street quickly advised that there was sufficient evidence to proceed to Criminal trial.

Hurley has now been charged and is facing the stigma and stress of a trial for manslaughter. A verdict will probably be produced within about a year.