White Man’s Manslaughter. Black Man’s Murder. White Man’s Riot. Black Man’s Uprising.
By Chris Graham on August 31, 2016
The violent clashes between police and protestors in Kalgoorlie yesterday followed the charging of a 55-year-old man with manslaughter over the death of a 14-year-old Aboriginal boy, Elijah Doughty. Twelve police officers were injured, dozens of Aboriginal people are expected to be arrested, police vehicles have been damaged, and court house windows were smashed. Media are calling it a riot. But one person’s riot is another person’s uprising, writes Chris Graham.
The smartest thing Palm Islanders ever did was burn the local police station, court house and part of the police barracks to the ground.
That was in Queensland in November 2004, after Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley – the most senior cop on the island, standing six foot six inches tall and weighing 115kg – beat an Aboriginal man to death on the floor of the local watch house.
The victim, Mulrunji Doomadgee, was just over half Hurley’s size.
Mulrunji’s ‘crime’ was to walk past Hurley – who was arresting another Aboriginal man – and swear, while singing, ‘Who let the dogs out’.
Within an hour he was dead.
Mulrunji suffered a ruptured spleen, broken ribs, and his liver was all but cleaved in two, held together by a couple of blood vessels. That’s the sort of fatal injuries you might expect to see in the victim of a plane crash.
Mulrunji Doomadgee, beaten to death by Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley at the Palm Island police station in 2004.
As Mulrunji’s body lay cooling in the morgue, Hurley was drinking beer and sharing a meal with police from the Ethical Standards Command, senior officers who’d been sent to the island specifically to ensure that the police investigation into one of their own was not corrupted.
One of the lead detectives assigned to the case was Hurley’s close friend and neighbour, Senior Constable Darren Robinson.
As tensions grew, and police spread rumours in the media that Mulrunji may have suffered his injuries prior to his arrest, calls for calm from community leaders grew.
And then a forensic pathologist’s report was read out to Palm Islanders at a public meeting six days later. It found that Mulrunji had died after tripping up a single step, and falling onto a flat floor.
Before that report, just one media outlet saw fit to cover the story, another non-descript report about another tragic ‘death in custody’.
Within an hour of the report being read out, the Palm Island police station, court house and Hurley’s home were a smouldering mess.
And suddenly, media were very, very interested in the story. Thousands of stories have been written since. A movie was made. We still read about it today.
History now records the extraordinary attempted cover-up by police, for which, more than a decade later, no-one has ever been held responsible.
We now know that the extent of police injuries during the uprising was a single bruised hip. And we also know that Palm Islanders didn’t fare so well.
Patrick Bramwell, an Aboriginal man who lay next to Mulrunji as he writhed in agony in his cell and comforted him as he died, took his own life two years later.
Mulrunji’s son also suicided, a week before the coronial inquest into his father’s death was to commence.
Dozens of Aboriginal people were arrested and jailed. Most claim to have been assaulted in the process.
Children were held at gunpoint by tactical police dressed in black, wearing masks. They sat scared in their homes with laser targets pointed at their heads.
An entire community of Aboriginal people was terrorised by Queensland’s ‘finest’.
The man who led the uprising, Lex Wotton, spent several years in jail. The morning after his conviction, Queensland Police announced bravery awards for officers who served on the island during the uprising.
Six of the police who received those awards were adversely named in a subsequent Crime and Misconduct Commission report. No real sanctions have ever been imposed against them.
For his part, Hurley went on to defraud Queensland taxpayers of more than $100,000, after being given an ex-gratia payment by the Police Service for property lost in the fire. And that was after he claimed $35,000 from his insurer for the very same property.
After authorities initially decided Hurley had no case to answer, public outrage – driven in large part by outstanding reporting from The Australian newspaper – forced a criminal trial.
Hurley was acquitted. He walked out of court and told media he now accepted responsibility for causing the death of Mulrunji.
Hurley was moved to the Gold Coast, promoted briefly to Acting Inspector, and never lost a cent of pay. Indeed, he took extended leave, on full pay.
The QPS was finally motivated to take action against Hurley when he targeted one of his own. In March this year, Hurley was charged with two counts of assault for pushing a female colleague.
We would almost certainly know none of this if there had been no uprising on Palm Island. The death of Mulrunji Doomadgee would have been yet another quiet cover-up.