By Chris Martin
Eleven years ago John Pat, a 16-year-old Aboriginal man from Roebourne, WA, died of a brain haemorrhage in a police cell.
John's short life and brutal death became a focus for black anger, fired by the acquittal of the five police charged with his manslaughter.
Fifty-seven witnesses testified to seeing these police, off-duty and drunk, provoke a fight with friends of John's outside a pub. As John tried to intervene, he was bashed and kicked repeatedly, dragged to the police station when he couldn't walk and beaten again.
Although the extent of his injuries was obvious, no medical assistance was sought. John was left to die.
All of those arrested that night were systematically bashed. John was beaten so savagely that as well as head injuries he also suffered broken ribs and a torn aorta. He would not have survived without major surgery.
None of this evidence swayed the all-white jury that freed the police, but it set off a series of protests that was to force the opening of a Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
These protests will continue this week as people gather around the country to commemorate the death of John Pat and all Aboriginals who have died at police hands.
Sydney's Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee is calling for a big turnout to protest the continued failure of governments to act on the royal commission's findings.
The committee points out that, despite the commission's call for “Governments ... [to] enforce the principle that imprisonment be utilised only as a sanction of last resort”, the number of Aboriginal people jailed has increased by 36.5% Australia-wide and 97.6% in NSW -- with an increase of 168% for Aboriginal women in that state. Aboriginal people remain 15 times more likely to be imprisoned than other Australians.
Since the royal commission concluded its hearings, there have been a further 60 deaths in custody. Aboriginal people are rightly asking: “Where is the justice?”
For more information, or to help out, call the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee on 264 9895, or visit its new office at Room 34, Level 1, Trades Hall, 4 Goulburn St, Sydney.
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