Tweet

Dr Tracy Westerman AM

28 Aug, 10 tweets, 2 min read

Scott Morrison’s comments regarding the George Floyd murder
“As upsetting & terrible is the murder that took place & it is shocking. I just think to myself how wonderful a country is Australia”
A thread of just some of Australia’s George Floyd moments.Warning: its horrific 1/10

Ms Dhu died in custody of septicemia & pneumonia for $2k in unpaid fines. A victim of DV. Taken to hospital 2xs but sepsis not detected & sent back to custody. Inquest found she was subjected to “inhumane” treatment by police incl being called a “fucking junkie”. No charges. 2/10

Mr Ward, respected elder, blew over the limit. Put in a police van & transported 4hrs without A/C. Was literally cooked alive,no charges. If you left your dog in a car & it was cooked alive, you would be charged. The AG decided there was no 'reasonable prospect of conviction'3/10

JFW lost consciousness after being held on his stomach during a citizens arrest by a retired police officer; Ms Mandijarra lay dead on the floor of a watch house cell for up to 4 hours before it was noticed she was dead. No charges. 4/10

LV went into respiratory failure while being held down, handcuffed, injected with sedative.Tanya Day arrested for being drunk in public; died in custody as police failed to conduct required checks & didn’t see her sustain the head injury that caused her death.Both No charges 5/10

Black women are 10xs more likely to be locked up for public drunkenness.David Dungay; guards rushed his cell to stop him eating biscuits,dragged him to another cell,held him face down & injected with a sedative. Before he died he said 12x’s he “could not breathe”. No charges 6/10

& let’s not forget John Pat a 16 yr old boy beaten to death by police in front of witnesses in a pub. His autopsy revealed a fractured skull, haemorrhage & swelling, bruising & tearing of the brain. Pat sustained massive blows to the head. All Officers acquitted. 7/10

Cam Doomadgee died in police cell; locked up for being drunk.Died from massive internal injuries incl broken ribs, rupt spleen, liver cleaved in 2. The pathologist compared injuries to plane crash victims.Police acquitted&compensated. QLD Police marched in protest at charges 8/10

Just some of the horrific cases of black death in custody in Australia. 50% had not been convicted but detained in custody by police; 40% asked for medical help &didn’t get it. 25% inc in last yr of judges not giving bail to black ppl; 30% charged with “good order”offences 9/10

Australia is the worlds highest incarcerator of black ppl. We remain in complete denial of this fact & the horrific reality of black deaths in police custody. Black Austs locked up at 2.3xs the rate of black Americans. Its why we need to keep saying loudly #BlackLivesMatter 10/10

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @TracyWesterman

Dr Tracy Westerman AM

@TracyWesterman

3 Sep

*Trigger warning on abuse
The long term & entrenched impacts of psychological & emotional domestic violence & abuse & its devastating impacts on victims is so badly understood. In many of the worst abusive rships, physical violence is minor or barely present 1/15

In Australia 1 woman a week is killed by an intimate partner. These statistics worryingly tell us it’s not the predator lurking down back alleys women should fear, but the men they fall in love with. The criminalisation of coercive control is such a critical step 2/15

As the family of Hannah Clarke said after she was burnt alive by her ex husband along with her three beautiful children; “Hannah never thought it was abuse because he never hit her”. However, the family had long seen many red flags 3/15

Read 15 tweets

Dr Tracy Westerman AM

@TracyWesterman

22 Jul

#RaiseTheAge Why does incarceration increase rather than decrease the odds of future criminality? Well, it’s predominantly about the stage of development.
First kids this age don’t fully understand consequences of behaviours in the same way as adults 1/14

They’re rigid in their understanding of right & wrong & driven by an external fear of punishment. Criminalise kids at that stage of development & you risk their moral reasoning ability stagnating at that level. What this means is they learn how to avoid punishment 2/14

(e.g., by becoming better at evading law enforcement; or telling better lies) rather than developing a greater sense of moral reasoning based on an internal working model of right & wrong. Second; attachment matters.
3/14

Read 14 tweets

Dr Tracy Westerman AM

@TracyWesterman

16 Jul

2yrs ago, I wrote this Opinion Piece. Indigenous suicides are escalating; all of the funding is quarantined by a handful of 'experts' who have failed to advance the science of suicide prevention in a way that is objective or measurable 1/14
indigenousx.com.au/aboriginal-sui…

We have enormous amounts of funding injected into this area; yet our Indigenous youth are dying by suicide at EIGHT times the rate of non-Indigenous children and it is only right that we ask why this level of funding has had little to no impact. 2/14

As a country facing this growing tragedy, we still have no nationally accepted evidence-based programs across the spectrum of early intervention and prevention activities. This needs to be our first priority. 3/14

Read 14 tweets

Dr Tracy Westerman AM

@TracyWesterman

10 Jul

I wrote this for the Australian in reaction to the Fed Govts claims they put $134M into 'Indigenous suicide prevention'. This crudely translates to $250K per death by suicide of an Indigenous person; throw state & other funding in, you are close to $1M per suicide death 1/22

Yet as a country facing this growing tragedy of Indigenous child suicides, we have NO nationally accepted evidence based programs across the spectrum of early int'vn & prevention. Staggeringly, funded programs are NOT required to show they are reducing MH or suicide risk 2/22

Given this: can Govt claim they are funding suicide PREVENTION? If you are not measuring risk, you can't claim prevention. Its that simple
More importantly we are failing to gather ANY evidence of what is working to reduce suicides to inform future program & treatment focus3/22

Read 22 tweets

Dr Tracy Westerman AM

@TracyWesterman

3 Jul

Mr Ward respected elder, blew over the limit. Put in a police van & transported 4hrs without A/C. Was literally cooked alive. No charges. If you left your dog in a car & it was cooked alive you would be charged criminality. The AG decided there was no prospect of conviction 1/10

Ms Dhu died in custody of septicemia & pneumonia. Arrested for $2k in unpaid fines. A victim of Domestic Violence. Taken to hospital 2xs but sepsis not detected & she was sent back to custody. Inquest found she was subjected to “inhumane” treatment by police. No charges 2/10

Cam Doomadgee died in a police cell; locked up for being drunk. Died from massive internal injuries incl broken ribs, ruptured spleen, liver cleaved in 2 across his spine. The pathologist compared his injuries to those of plane crash victims. Police acquitted & compensated 3/10

Read 10 tweets

Dr Tracy Westerman AM

@TracyWesterman

25 Jun

1/6
Flight/fight/freeze are common responses to trauma. The ability to activate all three mechanisms is why people both survive & heal from traumatic events. Much of this ability is genetic & biological (or what we inherit as a stress response mechanism).

2/6 Post trauma occurs when cognitions become altered such that the mind tells the body to see threat everywhere (imagined rather than real). Essentially there’s a “misfiring”; ensuring the flight/fight response is activated regardless of threat. Over time this becomes normalised

3/5 Freeze is an essential “holding pattern” that occurs when traumatic events take a while for the brain to process or “catch up” with what is occurring

Read 6 tweets

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!