Protests called after police ‘whitewash’

March 19, 2011
Issue 
Sam Watson.

Crime and Misconduct Comission (CMC) chair Martin Moynihan said on March 15 that the anti-corruption watchdog would take no further action against police accused of covering-up the death in custody of Palm Island Aboriginal man Mulrunji Doomadgee in November 2004.

In response, Aboriginal community leader Sam Watson said: “The Queensland police service have blood on their hands. This result means that the CMC [Crime and Misconduct Commission] has blood on its hands too.”

Moynihan’s announcement followed the release of a Queensland Police Service report that ruled out misconduct charges against six police officers involved in the cover-up of the killing of Mulrunji by senior-sergeant Chris Hurley in November 2004.

"I'm very angry,” Watson said. “The Doomadgee family on Palm Island, and other families, have lost loved ones over many years from police action. Yet not one single Queensland police officer has ever been convicted.

“This is an absolute white-wash. When government fails the people, we need to rise up and show our outrage.”

Watson and other community leaders have since called for a rally to protest the role of the Queensland police and the CMC outside state parliament at noon on March 23.

“We are calling for a summit on the whole question of Aboriginal deaths in custody. This is still a state owned and controlled by the Queensland police,” Watson said.

Palm Island Mayor Alf Lacey said the decision was a “major setback to the relationship between the Aboriginal community and the system. Of the 339 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody in 1991, how many have been implemented?

“We have now had seven years of expensive inquiries, with no results. They haven't protected the rights of this young man.

“I am really disappointed that there has been no clear outcome after all this time.”

A public row has broken out between the CMC and the Police Service over the outcome of the internal QPS inquiry.

Moynihan said on March 15 that the police service had let the public down, describing its decision that there was no police misconduct “astounding,” said the March 16 Courier-Mail.

Moynihan has called for “legislative change so that the CMC as an oversight body can be given more power to act”.

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