• CALL-  Sacking/Removal of the Police Officer who admitted a Racial Abuse claim

• We also CALL for an End to Racist Attitudes & Racial Profiling in our Police Service:

We call upon Grant Stevens, Commissioner of South Australia Police to cease the employment contract of the SA Police Officer, who had admitted to racially abusing and threatening a member of the public in 2013.

We ask how is this ‘KEEPING SA SAFE’?

We feel that the officer should be removed from his position as he failed to follow the SAPOL Service Delivery Charter.  This cannot be deemed as ‘polite, courteous and respectful service’. 

The Police Officer’s conduct and behaviour is entirely unsuitable to continue as a member in a position of both power and trust within the community.   

With the Police Officer continuing in his position, it adds weight to the perception that Police Officers feel that they can get away with harassing and abusing Aboriginal people. 

In this latest case of Police misconduct, a South Australian Officer has received little more than a ‘slap on the wrist’, after racially abusing and threatening an Aboriginal man.

The South Australian office of the Police Ombudsman confirms that they received reports from the senior constable’s colleagues to the effect he swore at the Aboriginal man, racially abused him including calling him a ‘black cunt’, and threatened to tie the Aboriginal man to a Police car and drag him around the streets with the siren and lights turned on.

Instead of losing his job for such disgusting behaviour in a position of authority, the Police Officer was asked to undergo a 6 week ‘Cultural Awareness Program’ and no other disciplinary action was taken.

Police Officer’s Deplorable Actions:

South Australian Police Ombudsman Report outlines that the racist incident was made even worse as the Aboriginal man was in a vulnerable position, being heavily intoxicated and being in the process of being detained for psychiatric care, within provisions under the Mental Health Act.

The transcript of the incident within the Police Ombudsman Report:

Aboriginal man: You think I’m a dog, don’t you?

Police Officer: I actually think you’re a black c#nt.

Aboriginal man: You’re going to kill me aren’t you?

Police Officer: If I was going to kill you I would have done that by now.

Aboriginal man: You want to kill me don’t you? Why don’t you just kill me already. Just take that hose and hand me on the tree.

Police Officer: I’d like to tie the hose around your neck, set you on fire, and drag you around the streets attached to our car with lights and sirens on. 

Aboriginal man: (Screaming out towards his neighbours) the police are trying to murder me, the police are going to kill me.

The report outlines that former Police Commissioner, Gary Burns ordered that the Police Officer undertake a cultural awareness program at the Police Academy.  However the Commissioner had a number of options available with dealing with the Police Officer, including terminating his job, suspending his appointment, reducing his salary for a specified period, transferring the officer, or fining him.

The former Police Ombudsman, Sarah Bolt rightly stated the Police Officer was, “…entirely unsuitable to continue as a member of the police force”, and that even his work colleagues were disgusted enough to report his deplorable behaviour.

What is even more troubling is that the current acting Police Ombudsman, Michael Grant stated, “…it does not appear to me that the behaviour of the senior constable in this matter had anything to do with cultural awareness”, adding that he was, “Currently dealing with another complaint from Aboriginal people about the conduct of the same officer, which occurred only a few weeks after the abuse of the Aboriginal man in this case”.

So we CALL for the Sacking/Removal of the Police Officer who admitted this racial abuse claim.

We also CALL for an End to Racist Attitudes & Racial Profiling in our Police Service:

An independent authority to investigate Police Complaints now.
A culture of Police misconduct, coupled with a systemic failure to discipline Police Officers, has led us to conclude that our self-regulating, Police force operate ‘above the law’ when dealing with members of the public.

Our community expresses concern at the notion of “police investigating themselves”.   It’s vital that our community and that anyone making complaints had confidence that their concerns would be properly investigated.

In such an important position of power and authority, we all expect that any Police officer accused of wrongdoing would be subject to the proper investigation process.  Part of that proper process is that any investigation of Police Officers is independent.

South Australia needs an independent authority to investigate complaints of abuse, racism, racial profiling and misconduct by Police now.

Police provide an ‘Initial Contact Receipt’, to anyone who is stopped and searched by Officers.  
They can deny it all they like, but we all know that racialised policing is common in SA.  

Police are commonly being threatening in nature towards our community and hold an “underlying assumption of guilt” towards our mob, subjecting Aboriginal people to unnecessary searches or questioning.  Especially our young mob.

It might not seem like much but it is a humiliating experience being questioned or searched in the street — particularly if it is a ‘pat-down’ search.  Our young people are reluctant to come forward and make an official report of their experiences of racialised policing for fear of repercussions and further Police harassment.

Police need to be held accountable by providing an ‘Initial Contact Receipt’, to anyone who is stopped and searched by Officers.  This would help the Police and the community to collect ‘stop-and-search data’ to highlight and help to identify Officers using excessive and “suspicionless” searches.    

• http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/punishment-for-sa-police-officers-shocking-racial-abuse-of-aboriginal-man-was-cultural-awareness-training/story-fni6uo1m-1227586109318
• http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-29/ombudsman-questions-sanction-given-to-sa-police/6897042
• http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/oct/29/police-abuse-of-aboriginal-man-shows-racism-still-rife-says-warren-mundine?CMP=soc_567
• http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/news/call-to-combat-racial-profiling/news-story/fc998aad33704588f8151c80dd94ec65

 Signed; CALL TO ACTION ADELAIDE and the wider SA COMMUNITY.