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Black deaths in custody
WAITING FOR JUSTICE
By Debra Wirth
The long-awaited final report of the Royal Commission into
Aboriginal Deaths in Custody will be available in two weeks. The
question waiting to be answered is: are the recommendations of
the report on the fatal police shooting of David Gundy an
indication of what is to come, or will the final report again
whitewash Australia's appalling human rights record in relation
to Aboriginal people?
The commission's report of the inquiry into the shooting death of
David Gundy during a raid on his home in 1989 recommends that
criminal or internal police charges should be considered against
the Special Weapons Operations Section officers who led the raid.
It also recommends that Gundy's widow and other family members be
compensated for his loss and the trauma suffered.
The report, by Commissioner J.H. Wooten, says that ``to this day
police have refused to recognise the shortcomings in the training
and methods of SWOS, the unlawfulness of their raid, or the
patent untruth on which it is based. Instead they have sought to
denigrate and blame David Gundy for what happened, although he
was in truth a law-abiding, hard-working family man. The killing
of this man was followed by an assassination of his character.''
These are the strongest statements to have come out of the royal
commission since it began. The case was certainly very clear cut:
an innocent man shot in his bedroom during an illegal police
raid.
Yet in other cases of Aboriginal deaths in police custody, the
commission appears to have preferred to accept the evidence of
police - even when this was contradicted by other witnesses, and
other circumstances cast suspicion on the circumstances of the
deaths.
The cases of John Pat, who died in the Roebourne lock-up in
northern Western Australia in 1983, and Eddie Murray, who died in
the Wee Waa police station in north-eastern New South Wales in
1981, are among the most well-known cases in which many people
believed that the police were directly responsible for their
deaths. No police officers were charged in relation to Murray's
death. Five cops indicted for the manslaughter of Pat were
acquitted in May 1984.
Aborigines are 15 times more likely to be imprisoned than the
rest of the population, according to ``Aborigines in Prisons and
Non-Custodial Corrections'', a report by the royal commission
released last year. The highest level of over-representation was
in WA, where the figure was 26.3 times more likely.
Between 1982 and 1989, the number of Aboriginal prisoners
nationally jumped by 31.9%, from 9826 to 12,964. Non-payment of
fines accounted for 39.5% of Aboriginal prison admissions.
A recent press release by the Committee to Defend Black Rights
puts the situation of detention and deaths of Aboriginal people
in police custody like this: ``As a minority group in Australia,
we find ourselves an involuntary majority in prisons and police
cells throughout the country. Our people have been victims of the
Australian colonial legal system that has claimed tens of
thousands of our people's lives, bludgeoned to death, shot,
hanged, beheaded, raped, robbed by cops, colonists and
executioners. Still today, the thud of the boot against dark
flesh resounds in police stations across the country ...''
Several of the reports prepared by the commission lead one to the
conclusion that racism dominates not only in the jails, prisons
and police force. It is inherent in the whole system. Grinding
poverty, appalling housing and living standards, unemployment,
continual police and state harassment - this is the everyday
reality which results in so many Aborigines being jailed.
This reality is the upshot of years of government policy which
has systematically denied Aboriginal people the right to run
their own lives. From the official policy of genocide to
assimilation, the last 203 years have brought cultural
devastation for Aboriginal people. One of the most brutal aspects
of the assimilationist years was the policy of taking Aboriginal
babies and young children from their parents.
Glenn Allan Clark was born in 1962 at Queenstown, Tasmania. When
he was four years old, his mother, Dawn, left Glenn's father, who
was violent towards her, and with his five sisters and brothers
went to live with Dawn's parents on Bruny Island.
The Child Welfare authorities had apparently been concerned about
the welfare of the children from the time that Glenn was one year
old, but had offered no assistance. Yet within a month of her
leaving the man who had been treating them badly, the authorities
took Dawn's children away from her, saying they were neglected.
The department offered her no contact with her children and
treated her as if she had nothing to offer them.
The behaviour of four-year-old Glenn, as a result of being torn
from his mother, became so destructive that the staff at a
``receiving home'' threatened to resign if he was not removed.
Glenn was then put into a Salvation Army home, where he was
semi-adopted by the superintendent and his wife. When the
superintendent retired, however, Glenn again became distressed.
The response was to dose him heavily with tranquillisers and
anti-depressants. The superintendent believed the treatment was
an experiment by the Mental Health Commission on children with
``behavioural problems''. Each further deterioration of behaviour
was met by increased dosages over the next two-and-a-half years.
Glenn's behaviour improved markedly only when the treatment was
finally stopped.
When Glenn was 16, he was turned out of the Salvation Army home.
Frequent brushes with the police followed, and he spent three of
the next eight years behind bars. On March 27, 1986, at the Royal
Hospital in Hobart, Glenn Allan Clark was pronounced dead.
According to police, he was found earlier hanging in a cell in
Glenorchy Police Station by means of a jumper tied to the cell
bars.
The commission's report of the inquiry into the death of Glenn
Allan Clark, while critical of the police involved, concluded
that he ``took his own life and no other party was involved''.
death, he was seen by no-one other than police officers. All the
evidence in the report about how he was treated and how he
reacted is that of police.
Glenn was arrested for being drunk and disorderly and was
detained on that charge and on an outstanding money warrant. He
had not been in custody long when he was apparently discovered by
two of the police on duty tearing the pillow case in his cell to
shreds and tying the strips to the cell bars. The two police
decided that Glenn might be suicidal, so they removed all the
bedding from the cell, believing that they were removing the
danger of suicide.
The criticism of the police revolves around whether they did all
they could to prevent Glenn from suiciding, if in fact that is
what happened. From their evidence in the report, it becomes
clear that they did not. The policemen who said they saw Glenn
shredding the pillow case failed to adequately raise the alarm
with the senior officer as to the danger of suicide. Neither did
they maintain a continuous watch over Glenn. At the time Glenn
supposedly hung himself, the police station, according to those
on duty, was completely unattended.
The report implies that the police involved, and those carrying
out the initial internal examination, were responsible for only
mild negligence. Commissioner Wooten says in the report that
three attitudes can be seen to be running through the thinking of
senior officers in this case. These were: 1. that if a death is
deemed a suicide, there are no suspicious circumstances and no
investigation is required; 2. an inability to conceive that
police might be at fault; and 3. an extraordinary ``club''
atmosphere among cops.
These are among the strongest criticisms of the police contained
in the report of the inquiry into the death. It does not
recommend that any charges be considered. Presuming that the
account given by the police at Glenorchy Station is correct,
Glenn's death might have been averted if greater precaution had
been taken.
Like this one, most of the commission's reports, are prefaced
with accounts and descriptions of the lives of those who died in
custody. This is particularly relevant to the deaths which were
deemed suicides.
But while the histories certainly give the victims more of an
identity than if only the circumstances of their deaths were
dealt with, the impression is also gained that in some cases the
description of the people's lives and personalities is used to
reinforce the verdicts of suicide. The inquiries seem to set out
to discover why the people were suicidal, rather than treating
their deaths as a possibly suspicious event.
The observation that death might have been avoided had police or
other authorities been more diligent is a recurring theme in the
reports. One extreme example is the report on Fay Lena Yarrie,
who died as a result of injuries sustained while in police
custody on December 15, 1988.
Fay Yarrie was apprehended by police for drunkenness after being
detained by an off-duty police officer outside a hotel in
Brisbane's Fortitude Valley. She was placed in a cell with two
other women, one of whom had earlier been observed behaving
aggressively toward other inmates. The cell was the furthest from
the charge counter at the Brisbane City Watch-house.
They were left unattended and unobserved for at least 40 minutes.
When the cell was inspected, Fay Yarrie was discovered lying on
the floor unconscious, her face covered in blood. No police
attended despite evidence from witnesses that Fay Yarrie and
another of the women in the cell were calling out for help. Fay
Yarrie died that evening in hospital. Noreen Jumbo, the other of
the women in the cell that day, pleaded guilty to a charge of
manslaughter in the Supreme Court in Brisbane on November 10,
1989.
As with the Glenn Allan Clark case, the police interviewed for
this inquiry completely removed themselves from the incident. The
impression received is that they thought it unnecessary to carry
out any medical inquiry since the cause of death had been
established. However, other evidence to the commission
contradicted the police and could be grounds for believing the
police were more involved in the death than was found.
Two Aboriginal girls, who witnessed the off-duty policeman
apprehending Fay Yarrie outside the hotel, said they saw him
violently assaulting her. One of them said she saw the policeman
hold Fay Yarrie by the hair, instead of the wrist as he claimed.
The witness said the policeman pulled Fay Yarrie down to the
footpath with the result that her head hit the concrete three or
four times. The other girl said she saw the policeman twist Fay
Yarrie 's arm and kick her in the stomach and the back.
The evidence of these two witnesses is completely disregarded by
the report. It states that the girls were probably too much under
the influence of alcohol and other drugs, which they admitted
taking, to remember what happened.
There were other witnesses at the hotel and later in the watch-
house who gave evidence which contradicted that of the police.
The report either discredits this evidence or does not treat it
as important to the case. As in the Glenn Allan Clark case, the
only evidence which is taken seriously is that of the police.
Often the only evidence available concerning the death of an
Aboriginal person comes from the police. This was the case in the
death of Monty Charles Salt, who died in police custody even
though he had not been arrested and was not facing any charges.
Monty Salt was taken into custody at Laura in far north
Queensland on June 27, 1987, because he was ill. Until a post-
mortem was conducted, it was assumed that he was suffering
delirium tremens as a result of a recent bout of heavy drinking.
Having concluded that Monty Salt was suffering from the DTs and
in urgent need of medical attention, a police officer took him
into custody under the provisions of Sections 26 and 27 of the
Mental Health Services Act 1974-1984.
As a result of medical advice obtained from the Royal Flying
Doctor Service and other sources, the officer oversaw the
administration of Valium, put Monty Salt on a mattress in the
back of a police vehicle and proceeded to drive over a rough and
dusty road towards Cooktown. The officer had arranged to meet
Cooktown police halfway, and they were to take Monty Salt to the
Cooktown Hospital. However, he died in transit. It was later
discovered that the amount of Valium given to him was far in
excess of that prescribed.
Although medical opinion and the results of the post-mortem did
not find that the Valium had contributed to Monty Salt's death,
and in fact he had died of pneumonia, the case certainly brings
into question the qualification of police to take into custody
seriously ill people. In this case, there were also questions as
to whether Monty Salt should have been transported in the manner
he was. One can't help but suspect he would have been treated
differently if he hadn't been an Aboriginal stockman perceived to
have been suffering from drinking too heavily.
There is no doubt that racism is the underlying theme in
relations between Aboriginal people and the police. Although the
stated objective of the royal commission was to get closer to the
truth of Aboriginal deaths in custody, it had clear limitations.
While the commission was often critical of individual police and
prison officers and the system in which they worked, the
commission is part of that same system. Many people lost faith in
the commission when it published its interim findings in December
1988, believing that that report cleared the names of people who
should have been charged with murder.
Unless the final report hands down strong recommendations that
are fully implemented by federal and state governments,
Aboriginal people will still be waiting, as they have for two
centuries, for justice.
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Reprinted from Green Left, weekly progressive newspaper. May
be reproduced with acknowledgment but without charge by
movement publications and organisations.