Did Victoria Police use excessive force and violence during an incident involving four young people in Flemington, Melbourne, on the night of 28 November 2007?

Tamar Hopkins, Principal Solicitor, Flemington & Kensington Community Legal Centre, writes:

Witnesses, including community workers, mothers and children, report being shocked at the level of force used by police in the recent incident. Young people involved required medical treatment at hospital.

Witnesses have said that the young people were doing nothing wrong and that the young men were targeted because they were African. The first person who was allegedly assaulted by police had just jumped out of his boss’s car after being driven home from work.  Police have accused the young person of throwing a rock at a police car in an earlier incident. But there appears to be no evidence to link this young person to the event. Police have since reported that the young people involved on Wednesday night will be charged with indecent language. Police dispatched 10 units and 21 officers to the incident after two cars on patrol asked for assistance.

During the incident, police are reported to have used pepper spray. Pepper spray causes severe pain for hours following its use and can induce asthma attaches and other serious physical responses. Its use can not be taken lightly. In the Legal Centre’s opinion, the use pepper spray and physical restraints, including the use of excessive force, is not justified to control language offences. Police are required to use force only when necessary and justified.

The number of police cars called in an incident involving language offences was extraordinary — contrast it, for example, with the report in the media of an event on 29 November 2007 where one police car was called to a fight in Box Hill involving 11 people where a young person was reported to have been stabbed to death and another seriously injured.

Following the arrest of the young people at Flemington, parents, community members and youth workers went to the Moonee Ponds Police Station seeking their release and the names of the police who allegedly attacked them. Police are reported to have been reluctant to give out names.

The African community in Flemington is deeply distressed and concerned by the excessive and violent policing of their community and their young people. A mother whose son was not even present reported keeping her son at home today for fear he would be targeted by police if he went out. People experience constant harassment and it affects their lives, safety, right to privacy and dignity and equal treatment before the law. African-Australians are viewed by some police as suspects, not people with rights.

The Flemington & Kensington Community Legal Centre has made 19 complaints to the Office of Police (OPI) Integrity about police violence and racism over the past two years.

The African community has been subjected to many other incidents where police have failed to exercise a duty of care and protect their rights. In a recent incident at Highpoint Shopping Centre on 13 October, while mothers and children were celebrating a festival at the end of Ramadan, police apparently escalated an incident which started as a popcorn fight between two girls at a family event into a display of police violence and aggression.

Witnesses also report police using spray against African mothers and children, including an incident where a mother and her two children who were sprayed while they were eating at Nandos. During the same incident police allegedly told a 10-year-old African child she was a “black c— ” and pushed her on the head.

The community are meeting over the next few days to discuss their responses.