Black deaths in custody must stop!

April 20, 1994
Issue 

By John Nebauer

BRISBANE — Just three days before the release of the Criminal Justice Commission report into the death of Aboriginal dancer Daniel Yock in police custody on November 7, another Aborigine died in police custody here.

Teenage remand prisoner Tony Borey of Stradbroke Island was found hanging in his cell at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre at Wacol on April 2. His was the third Aboriginal death in custody in Queensland this year, and the 16th in the state since the Aboriginal and Islander Deaths in Custody Royal Commission in May 1989.

James Johnson, 22, was found dead in his cell at Lotus Glen, Mareeba, on January 9 after complaining of shoulder and abdominal pains. Thomas Brian Kinna, 32, was found dead in his cell at the Rockhampton Correctional Centre on March 12.

Sam Watson of the Aboriginal Legal Service, who was acting for Borey, was forced to leave the International Green Left Conference when he heard the news. He said, "I couldn't believe that he was dead. I rushed back to Brisbane as soon as I heard the news, and we held an emergency meeting of the board of directors to assess the situation."

The 1989 Royal Commission findings led to 339 recommendations that deal with Aboriginal people in custody. Watson said, "When the recommendations were released in 1989, the Queensland government reacted positively to them".

Yet there has been no real effort on the part of the government to implement the recommendations. Watson said, "After the death of Daniel Yock, petitions with hundreds of signatures were handed to Minister Warner demanding that the government legislate the 339 recommendations. If the government had legislated, this latest death in custody would not have occurred."

Bob Weatherall, who resigned from the government-appointed Overview Committee on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody just prior to the death of Borey, was disgusted with the failure of authorities to seriously implement the royal commission recommendations.

He said, "I am totally dissatisfied with the situation. Through all the inquiries, no one has ever been found responsible for an Aboriginal death in custody.

"This shows that they were ignoring the facts. The underlying issues are not being properly addressed."

The Aboriginal community has been concerned with the mental well-being of prison inmates in the wake of this latest death in custody. Watson said that staff counselling had been made available to those inmates suffering from depression or anxiety since Borey's death.

Tony's family had last spoken to him on March 26 and were deeply concerned about his state of mind. He had been suffering from depression and feelings of worthlessness, and had just spent four months in a psychiatric hospital for drug and alcohol-related problems. His family believed that he had not been properly rehabilitated before being sent back to the remand centre.

The CJC report into the death of Daniel Yock concluding that the arresting officers were not responsible for his death has led to increased harassment of the Aboriginal community by police. Twenty extra officers were placed on stand-by in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley mall for "security reasons" in the wake of the CJC's findings.

Several days after the release of the report, four police vans and eight officers raided a West End hostel. They were supposedly looking for two men in relation to property offences, but the scale of the operation indicated that the raid was designed to harass.

However, the local community responded, with about 50 people coming out into the street, their presence hampering the harassment.

The immediate reaction of the Aboriginal community was to call a community mass meeting which rejected the findings of the CJC report and to call for a national day of action to condemn the whitewash.

The report concluded that Yock died of a heart condition. Although he did have a heart condition, the report ignored the evidence of the Aboriginal youths present, who all said that Daniel was thrown to the ground by police, handcuffed, kicked and left there in a semiconscious state.

In addition, the report admitted that the evidence given by arresting officer Constable Domrow was false, yet said she did not "deliberately falsify" her evidence. In particular, Domrow stated that the reason that the youths were followed from Musgrave Park was that one of them exposed himself.

The report conceded that this was "unlikely". It was conceded that any abusive language which occurred was directed only at the police as a reaction to being followed by a police vehicle, something that is a common occurrence for Aboriginal youths.

The report also conceded that, had there been no police presence, there would have been no trouble.

The report also concluded that it was not possible for police to have assaulted Daniel at all because there was no bruising. This ignored the evidence of the autopsy, which showed that he had several recent abrasions about the head and shoulders.

Daniel was put into the back of a police van, which then proceeded to drive around the West End area for at least 17 minutes, before he was taken to the city police watch-house, which is no more than a five-minute drive from where Daniel was arrested.

The report concluded that Daniel's death could not be attributed to police negligence, despite the evidence to the contrary that was admitted in the report. The CJC chair, Lew Wyvill QC, suggested only that police officer Suzette Domrow should undergo further training in how to handle prisoners in her custody.

The Police Custody Manual instructs officers who have prisoners in their custody who are obviously unwell to immediately provide medical assistance. That was not done for Daniel Yock. Indeed the report indicated that the officers concerned had not read the manual, and were not made aware of instructions.

When the van arrived at the city watch-house Yock was found to have no pulse and was not breathing. A prisoner dies in the back of a van between West End and the Brisbane city watch-house, and the official inquiry concludes that no-one is to blame.

The National Day of Action had been planned for Wednesday, April 20. The Brisbane rally will assemble in Musgrave Park at 9am, and a march into the city will begin at 11am. For more information, phone 221 1448. Rallies in other cities: see pages 30-31.

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