'Nothing new mate': African victims of police brutality told to share footage online
Footage showing police violently arresting a Sudanese-Australian man after a chemist robbery.
Victims of police brutality should share footage of any such incidents on social media to ensure those responsible were held to account, according to the head of a community legal service in Melbourne.
Denis Nelthorpe, chief executive at West Justice in Werribee in the city's outer west, says his staff are directing African youth who say they've been victim of violent police attacks to seek out CCTV or smartphone footage from their friends and share it online instead of making a formal complaint to Victoria Police.
“A complaint system dealing with police brutality needs to be sufficiently robust and able to withstand scrutiny and you can’t say that about the way the current police accountability mechanisms work," Mr Nelthorpe said.
"People are being forced to find other ways to hold the powerful to account and one way to do that with great impact is to share footage in the community and let them judge that accordingly.”
His comments come after CCTV vision of a 2016 arrest in the back of a Preston chemist shop was discovered by The Age as part of an ongoing investigation into the Victoria Police complaint system. The investigation has included other disturbing CCTV vision and cases.
The footage shows a young Sudanese-born Melbourne man, who had robbed a chemist after suffering a psychotic episode, being punched and kicked in the head by two police officers after he was detained in the rear of the shop.
Ahmed Hassan said he felt sick to his stomach as he watched the footage of the man being repeatedly punched, beaten with a baton and kicked in the head while he lay handcuffed on the chemist floor.
Mr Hassan, a 21-year-old with Somali heritage and director of the not-for-profit group Youth Activating Youth and leader on a Victoria Police taskforce aimed at tackling crime by young African-Australians, said he believed the incident was just the tip of the iceberg.
Since the footage was made public, Mr Hassan said he's been inundated by young Africans telling him: “This is nothing new mate, happens all the time.”
African community leaders Ahmed Hassan, right, and Richard Deng.
Photo: Joe Armao, Fairfax Media.Mr Nelthorpe seemed to back up Mr Hassan's view, saying in another case reported to his legal centre last year, the lawyer said he had seen footage of an African teenage boy handcuffed on the ground outside of the Ecoville Community Park in Tarneit.
The teenager was lying on his stomach being pinned down by police while another officer kneed him in the head, chipping his teeth.
"This happened in front of a group of upset and angry young African kids so when they see this type of behaviour they're not likely to develop huge respect for police," he said.
Mr Nelthorpe said while he believed it was a minority group of police who were engaging in this type of brutality, the officers who were, were not being dealt with appropriately by the police hierarchy.
“There is no proper mechanism which removes officer who aren’t appropriate for the job,” he said.
“I’m not saying police management don’t want to take action against officers doing the wrong thing, but the system in place is not sufficiently robust enough that we could encourage people to make a complaint."
Mr Hassan said the case was one of many that showed that the police complaints system was broken and required an independant body to investigate misconduct.
"It's disgraceful conduct once again from Victoria police,” Mr Hassan said. “For such a long time welfare workers and our young people have told us of instances of Africans being treated harshly in police custody and of young people being brutally assaulted while by being arrested. This is just further proof of their claims.”
Mr Hassan said while the Sudanese man deserved to be punished for robbing the chemist and attacking bystanders, he did not deserve to be bashed while he lay defenceless on the ground.
“He should be arrested if he was putting others in danger or committing crime,” he said. “But what he didn’t deserve was to be kicked and brutally assaulted by police officers who are supposed to protect people. "
Mr Hassan said it was incidents such as these which further fuelled the dangerous mentality of “us versus them,” adding tension to the already strained relationship between African youth and police.
"It makes you lose hope in the system," he said. "The thing is there are so many good police officers who are law-abiding citizens, but all it takes is something like this to undo any trust the community have in them.
"Where do you turn when the very people meant to protect you behave like this. Who do you turn to for help and protection?"