Thread by @TracyWesterman

1 of my most engaged tweets of 2021!
Scott Morrison comments re George Floyd’s murder
“As upsetting & terrible is the murder that took place & its shocking. I just think how wonderful a country is Aust”
A sample of some of Austs George Floyd moments.Warning: its horrific. 1/16

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. 2/16

Mr Ward, respected elder, blew over the limit. Transported 4hrs without air conditioning. Was literally cooked alive. No charges laid.
If you left your dog in a car & it was cooked alive, you would be criminally charged. The AG decided no 'reasonable prospect of conviction'.3/16

JFW lost consciousness after being held on his stomach during a citizens arrest by a retired police officer & died. No charges.
Ms Mandijarra lay dead on the floor of a police watch house cell for up to 4 hours before it was noticed she was dead. No charges. 4/16

LV went into respiratory failure while being held down, handcuffed, injected with sedative. No charges.
VW, locked up for shoplifting, denied bail.Found dead 3 days later in lockup. She was heard crying for help before being found dead.Her cries ignored. No charges
5/16

Ms Day arrested for being drunk in public,not being a public nuisance,or aggressive, just being intoxicated in public. She died in custody when police failed to conduct mandated checks& didn’t see her sustain the head injury that caused her death captured on CCTV. No charges 6/16

On the same day Ms Day was arrested the SAME police took a heavily intoxicated non-Aboriginal woman safely home.

Black women are TEN times more likely to be LOCKED UP for public drunkenness than white women 7/16

David Dungay; guards rushed his cell to stop him from eating biscuits, he was dragged into another cell, held face down & injected with a sedative. Before he died he said TWELVE times that he “could not breathe”. All captured on camera. No charges laid.
8/16

& let’s not forget John Pat a 16 yr old boy beaten to death by police in front of witnesses. His autopsy revealed a fractured skull, brain haemorrhage & swelling, bruising & tearing of the brain. Pat sustained massive blows to the head. All Officers were acquitted. 9/16

Cam Doomadgee died in a police cell after being locked up for singing too loudly. He died from massive internal injuries incl broken ribs, ruptured spleen; his liver cleaved in two.
The pathologist compared his injuries to a plane crash victim.10/16

Police were not only acquitted but were compensated.
QLD Police marched in protest at charges being laid in the lead up to the trial of fellow officers. 11/16

Just some of the horrific cases of black deaths in custody in Aust. 50% had not been convicted but were detained in custody by police; 40% asked for medical help & didn’t receive it. 12/16

Australia is the worlds highest incarcerator of black ppl. Black Australians are locked up at 2.3 times the rate of black Americans. Adults are incarcerated at 19 times the rate & for kids its 24 times the rate of white ppl.
13/16

Theres been a 25% increase in the last yr of judges not giving bail to black ppl.
For kids, it’s much worse. 87% are in custody on remand & we have no national data on WHY kids are in prison! 14/16

We remain in denial of over policing, racial profiling & the racial empathy gap that feeds the black deaths in custody. This means “blackness” continues to be viewed as explanatory of crime by default & programs therefore fail to address causal factors of incarceration
15/16

Its why we need to keep saying loudly #BlackLivesMatter & why I am also a strong advocate of #RaiseTheAge

My Opinion Piece provides a roadmap of what needs to be done

indigenousx.com.au/we-must-raise-… 16/16