myAIPM‘I can’t breathe!’ Australia must look in the mirror to see our own deaths in custody
Thalia Anthony | Policing Insight
Professor of Law at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Thalia Anthony says Australia is appalled by racist police violence in the United States, but does not confront discrimination within its own criminal justice system against First Nations people.
I can’t breathe, please! Let me up, please! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! These words are not the words of George Floyd or Eric Garner. They weren’t uttered on the streets of Minneapolis or New York. (merged paragraphs) These are the final words of a 26-year-old Dunghutti man who died in a prison in south-eastern Sydney.
David Dungay Jr was killed when prison officers restrained him, including with handcuffs, and pushed him face down on his bed and on the floor. One officer pushed a knee into his back. All along, Dungay was screaming that he could not breathe and could be heard gasping for air.
Dungay’s death in custody occurred in Long Bay prison during the 2015 Christmas season. It happened a short drive from an elite university, next to affluent, waterside suburbs.
But his horrific death did little to pierce this white bubble of privilege. The media barely blinked. The politicians did not emerge from their holiday retreats. None of the officers involved were disciplined or called to account.
Australia’s glass house
It is comfortable for us in Australia to throw stones at racist police violence in the United States. It is comfortable because we do not see our own glass house.
This is evident in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s comments to 2GB : And so as upsetting and terrible is the murder that took place, and it is shocking … I just think to myself how wonderful a country is Australia.
It is “wonderful” because we do not see the horror inflicted by the criminal justice system on First Nations people.
It is “wonderful” because we do not ever call their deaths in custody “murder”, using instead the euphemisms of “accident” or “natural causes”.
It is “wonderful”, because we have so normalised the passing of First Nations people that we are never shocked when they are killed.
It is “wonderful”, because we have a vocabulary to defend police officers responsible for racist violence, including people doing an “extremely difficult job”.
The official response to the killing of Dungay has wide ripples in the white Australian community and the legal community. His family maintain that the killing of their son, brother and uncle, who was unarmed, was murder. No criminal charges have been brought and the coroner in November 2019 blamed Dungay’s pre-existing health conditions. His comments minimised the responsibility on the part of the officers:
It is most likely that the cause of David’s death was cardiac arrhythmia. It is noted that David had a number of comorbidities, both acute and chronic, which predisposed him to the risk of cardiac arrhythmia … However, the expert evidence also established that prone restraint, and any consequent hypoxia, was a contributing factor although it is not possible to quantify the extent or significance of its contribution.
First Nations people are the most incarcerated in the world
The deaths in custody of First Nations Australians are not hidden. As a nation, we are choosing not to look at them. In 1991, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody documented 99 deaths in custody.
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‘I can’t breathe!’ Australia must look in the mirror to see our own deaths in custody, Thalia Anthony, Policing Insight, 2020
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