Kylie Moon & Stuart Munckton, Sydney
On February 14, Thomas "TJ" Hickey, a 17-year-old Indigenous man, was flung from his bike and impaled on a metal fence in the inner-city suburb of Waterloo. He died early the next morning in hospital. Redfern Block spokesperson Lyall Munro said the community is regarding the event as a "death in custody" case.
According to several witnesses, police were chasing TJ when he crashed his bike — something the police deny. There was a warrant out for TJ's arrest, a fact the police initially kept from the media.
Witnesses have also claimed that the police removed him from the fence — the wrong thing to do when someone has been impaled — and searched him instead of immediately trying to stop the blood loss. They say it was an eight-year-old girl that called an ambulance.
TJ was coming from his mother at the Redfern Block. The block, a centre of Indigenous organising since the 1970s, is one of the few inner-city Aboriginal-run housing communities.
There is constant police presence in Redfern. Victoria Dunbar, who has lived in the area for nine years, told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly: "As soon as any young black person leaves the block the police chase them and search them. [Last year] the police put a 7.30pm curfew on most of the young people. The kids couldn't go to basketball or football practice."
On February 16, Munro told Sydney Radio 2UE: "You could interview every Aboriginal kid ... from the block ... and the majority will tell you to your face ... that they've been bashed by the police."
TJ's family have told the media that he was terrified of the police; the result, they say, of his being beaten by police a few weeks before his death.
The day of TJ's death, community members allege police drove up and down the block, taunting people over the death, racially abusing them and inflaming grieving relatives and local youth.
The police presence and patrols increased throughout the day. At around 4pm, the police began to close down streets surrounding the residential block. Local young people began throwing rocks, venting anger built up over years of police brutality and harassment.
Hundreds of riot police with dogs were deployed to take control of the streets. The Aboriginal community, led mostly by youths who had known TJ, mobilised to stop them.
The cops were repeatedly driven back by up to 100, mainly young, blacks armed with bottles, bricks, firecrackers and Molotov cocktails. Despite being vastly outnumbered, the determined youth held the streets for up to nine hours. Forty police were reportedly injured.
For many involved, it would have been the first time that, faced with police harassment, they didn't have to run or suffer through it.
On February 19, the police announced that at least 40 block residents were targeted for arrest. On February 20, they arrested TJ's aunt, Marilyn Cargill, and his 14-year-old girlfriend, the latter for calling police officers "murderers". The courts have refused Cargill bail, preventing her from attending TJ's February 24 funeral. This decision will be challenged in the high court on February 23.
Munro said at a February 16 community meeting, "A brave stance was taken yesterday. They are calling it a riot, but it wasn't a riot. It was a few black kids protecting their rights and the rights of their community — which has been traumatised by the daily police harassment."
The corporate media has been unrelenting in its racist attacks. Both the Murdoch and Fairfax print media, and commercial television stations have focused on "Aboriginal violence", belittling the residents' claims of constant police harassment and violence. The words "drugs, violence, alcohol and poverty" are constantly used to describe the Aboriginal community, as though all these social ills are limited to, and the fault of, Indigenous Australians.
NSW Liberal leader John Brogden was quick to call on the state's Labor government to bulldoze the block. NSW Labor Premier Bob Carr responded by explaining that it's already happening, 70 of 90 houses have already been demolished, and the last three on Eveleigh Street will go within four weeks.
The destruction of the block is a policy aggressively pursued by the state government. According to Peter Shield Real Estate research Redfern is expected to be Sydney's inner-ring property performer over the next few years. "We believe house and apartment prices in Redfern will grow by 10-12% over each of the next three years, and rental returns being strong", Shield concludes.
The block must be defended. It is an important meeting place, and residence of, Aboriginal people. It was one of the first areas handed back to Aboriginal people. It is a National Heritage listed site, and the residents have the right to determine who can live in. It has taken the tragic death of another young Aboriginal man to bring into public debate police racism and violence. That needs to be bulldozed — not community housing.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, February 25, 2004.
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