On September 7, 2019 Joyce Clarke was shot by police as she walked down a suburban street in Geraldton. She was carrying a large bread knife in one hand and small pink scissors in the other. Hours earlier, she told her family she was going to die.
At 6.30pm that night, her prediction came true. It took the police officer charged with her murder 16 seconds to arrive at the scene and fire the shot that ended her 29-year life. Last Friday, the officer was found not guilty of murder.
Aboriginal women in Australia have been described as “the most incarcerated group of people in the world“. Over 475 Aboriginal people have died in custody since the end of the 1991 royal commission. In NSW, the number of Aboriginal people charged by police increased by 67% between 2010 and 2020. Western Australia has the highest rates of incarceration and deaths in custody of Aboriginal people in the country.
Clarke’s trial was shrouded in secrecy. A suppression order was placed on the officer’s name due to safety concerns for his family. The media was allowed in, but the public was refused entry to the court.
This isn’t the first time the WA Supreme Court has suppressed information over those charged with murdering Aboriginal people. In 2016, the same court issued a suppression order over the name of the Kalgoorlie man who killed Elijah Doughty, a 14-year-old Indigenous boy. The man was eventually given a road traffic conviction.
There were no Aboriginal people on that jury and there were none in the murder trial for Clarke.
Clarke’s family, including her sister Bernie Clarke, maintained their steady presence through the trial, although it was hard for them to hear the final details of her life. During a demonstration of how a taser works, defence barrister Linda Black began laughing loudly. She later told the jury that Clarke was a “walking time bomb” and a person who “needed to be taken down”. In her opening address, Black said the case had “nothing to do with race”.
Seven days before her death, Clarke had called 000 because she wanted to end her life. This was known by Senior Constable Barker on the day she died. He had approached her with his hand out, wanting to “communicate”, when the constable responsible for her death appeared and shot her.
Barker, who was only a few metres away from Clarke, was clear in his evidence that Clarke had not moved in a threatening way. Other officers gave similar evidence that she had not moved when shot — evidence that contrasted with that of a civilian witness who, at some distance, claimed Clarke, arms in the air, had lunged at the officers before being shot.
There’s no doubt Clarke was in a bad way. She had recently been released from the overcrowded Bandyup prison for stealing a mobile phone she believed was possessed by spirits. The prison is known for its appalling conditions, with reports of abuse of Aboriginal women.
Just two weeks after her release from Bandyup, Clarke was admitted to Geraldton hospital following a suicide attempt. She was discharged, and less than a week later was admitted to St John of God Hospital in Perth for mental health issues.
Anne Jones, whom Clarke called mum, asked a nurse not to release her due to concerns she wasn’t well enough to leave. Clarke was discharged because there was no evidence she was still experiencing psychosis.
She left the hospital on Friday, September 13, taking a bus back to Geraldton to stay with relatives. The next Tuesday, in a state of distress, she went to the Wajarri Aboriginal community organisation. She called a relative, warning she was going to die.
A relative called the police to try to get her taken back into the hospital. That was when police arrived — a total of three police cars and eight officers.
The jury took just a few hours to hand down the not guilty verdict, accepting the defence argument that the officer had acted in self-defence. Aboriginal women have long been seen as angry, violent and unworthy of legal protection.
Clarke’s family were distraught. Aboriginal elders began crying outside the court in disbelief that so little had changed. Although police told the defence not to exit the court’s front door, defence lawyer Linda Black did so, telling the family — surrounded by a police barricade — that her client was “sorry” but did what had to be done.
For anyone seeking help, Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue is 1300 22 4636. In an emergency, call 000.
Our colonial settler state is still governed by martial law, with ‘justice’ carried out by an armed paramilitary force, fully protected from crimes against humanity.
And in a few years, if Tudge has his way, none of this will be remembered, because it doesn’t fit the ‘western civilisation’ narrative of history.
So many of these tragic deaths of people with mental health issues could possibly be prevented if we Australians were prepared to pay more tax and insist that spending on mental health was given a much higher priority.
However, we are not going to see any such reform while we have a neo-liberal economic system where it is ‘every man for himself’ and the welfare of those in need is mainly the responsibility of charitable organizations.
Agree. People were surprised that suicide and other mental health problems did not skyrocket when lockdowns started. The generally agreed reason was that when desperate people were given more money to live on, they became less desperate.
This is such a harrowing story that nonetheless needs to be told.
Worse though is the fact that this story is one of many, where Aboriginal people are continuing to be subjected to treatment/murder, which would be unacceptable to the larger community, if enacted on white people.
I was shocked to the core, reading of the defense lawyer’s completely inappropriate words that Ms Clarke, “had to be taken down” – as though she was reading a script in a B-grade Hollywood movie.
Shame on the WA Supreme Court, Shame on the WA policeman for his disgraceful action, and most of all Shame on the WA McGowan government for allowing this behaviour of its Police officers to continue apparently unabated (I realise the shooting occurred under the previous Liberal Party government, but it appears nothing has changed, to date, in respect of poor treatment of Indigenous people in that particular State – along with others).
And Morrison stated last year that the BLM movement had no place in Australia?
We need to do much better than this. This is a shameful episode.
Police still are poorly trained and/or are part of an organisation that is ill-equipped to be part of a justice system for indigenous Australians.
Then an all-white jury was unlikely to adequately take the victim into account. And the behaviour of the defence barrister was inappropriate to the extent it approached contempt-of-court.
A justice system that only serves part of the community doesn’t serve justice at all. Whether that be indigenous Australians, or younger, older, women, poor or whatever, the system must be changed so that it is a servant of the entire community.
Why don’t police call for medical assistance/support when a distressed citizen is causing ‘concern’ to others (the ‘concern’ being wanting to assist the distressed person).? Poor police attitude and abysmal training displayed in clear view.
Yes, I don’t understand why police are still dispatched in these types of situations. Why isn’t there a crack force of highly-trained psychs and medical officers (with appropriate protections) to talk the victims down? Rather than trigger happy cops. Our police force here in WA is turning into the Victorian one of shoot first ask questions later model.
The Vic Police did revise improve its attitude and performance after a very similar incident that took place in the centre of a significant regional city with many witnesses including First Nations, recent immigrants and other locals.