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| NEWS > 16 March 2011 |
Other related articles:
Deptford police officer acquit
Deptford patrolman accused of choking and beating a 19-year-old Philadelphia man during a traffic stop in 2006 has been acquitted of all charges.
Patrolman John Gillespie, 35, had been facing 15 years behind bars on charges of official misconduct, aggravated assault and simple assault charges stemming from the incident last Feb 2.
"It's all over," said a sobbing Gillespie Friday after the verdict was read. "I told you the truth would come out."
Joseph Rao, who was not in the courtroom when the verdict was read, told jurors that he was handcuffed in the back... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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The Age
16 March 2011
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Victoria Police
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Australia: When the police are the wrong people to investigate
Almost 2½ years since 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy was shot by Victoria Police, the public hearing into his death has concluded. While Coroner Jennifer Coate will issue her findings and recommendations on the case in due course, urgent action is required to reform police training and the investigation of police-related deaths if we are to avoid a repetition of this tragic event and enhance integrity and confidence in policing.
Police officers often face difficult situations in which they must protect not only themselves from death or injury, but also the public and the person directly involved. In such situations, Victoria Police does not have a good track record; its members have shot and killed more people than the police of any other state.
The police officers directly involved in the shooting of Tyler are seeking a finding that he committed suicide.
Only 73 seconds elapsed between the police first approaching Tyler and him being shot dead, during which time he was sprayed with capsicum foam twice and answered a phone call. Ten shots were fired, five of which hit the child.
Instead of using inquiries such as this to justify tragic shootings, Victoria Police should focus on how to prevent similar deaths from happening again and how best to train officers to defuse tense situations. If there is such a phenomenon as ''suicide by cop'' then our police need protocols and training to deal with those circumstances in ways that do not result in police fulfilling ''death wishes''. No 15-year-old boy should be shot dead by police and no police officers should be put in the tragic situation where this results.
Separately, it is of huge importance to the community that we know what happened, particularly when a child is shot by agents of the state.
The problem is that we do not have a body that is properly independent of Victoria Police that can investigate these deaths impartially.
In Victoria, police directly involved in a shooting are investigated by the Victoria Police homicide squad - other members of the same police force. Oversight by the ethical standards division of the police, or an audit by the office of police integrity, does not cure the lack of independence of the initial investigation.
Further, unlike members of the public, police who shoot someone are not treated as suspects and are not required to have their police interviews and statements audio or video recorded. Instead, they are given the option to make a written statement - as all officers in Tyler's case chose.
The conflict is clear. The police force responsible for getting to the bottom of what happened is the force that wishes to protect its members from scrutiny. Just after Tyler was shot, the police made public statements that indicated that the four officers directly involved in the shooting had attempted to calm Tyler. Understandably, Victoria Police wishes to protect its members from criticism, but it is not appropriate for the organisation to make premature bold factual assertions about a case when it is also meant to do an impartial investigation of the events.
The problem of bias exists also at the level of investigation. The royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody recognised that, to put it bluntly, police investigators may wish to protect other police from blame or exact scrutiny. The Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission, reporting on the death of Mulrunji (also known as Cameron Doomadgee) on Palm Island in 2004, talked of police being ''handicapped in the performance of their professional duties by their over-identification with fellow officers who were under examination''.
Not only is it commonsense to ensure investigations into police violence are independent, but now it is a matter of law.
Both international human rights law and the Victorian Charter of Human Rights require that deaths in custody or that involve agents of the state are investigated by bodies that are practically, hierarchically and institutionally independent of the police. It's time Victoria started implementing this requirement. We can look to Britain, New Zealand and many provinces in Canada for examples of how it can be done.
There is no indication that Victoria's proposed new anti-corruption commission will be given the power or resources to conduct that role.
It took overwhelming police failures of investigation and three coronial inquiries into the tragic death of Mulrunji, but now Queensland has removed the responsibility for investigations from its police force and put it in the hands of the Coroner who investigates directly.
If there is ever a case that is a catalyst for this kind of reform in Victoria, then surely the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy is it.
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