Keep our streets safe (don't let the dogs out)

On an Autumn night in 2012 a call was made to police to report that a young man had freaked out in a convenience store and had left without paying for a packet of biscuits.

 

Uniformed police pursued the half naked Roberto Curti through the streets of Sydney CBD and tackled him to the ground. He was handcuffed then electrocuted repeatedly while three bottles of capsicum spray were emptied into his face. He was choked and crushed by the weight of nearly a dozen cops who piled on top of him. He died screaming in the grip of an LSD trip gone very, very bad.

In 2017 at a mid-winter fancy dress party in Melbourne the police responded to information that a partygoer dressed as The Joker was armed with a pistol. They stormed the Inflation Nightclub despite being told by the security staff that the pistol was a toy.

Dale Ewins and his girlfriend Zita were busy doing the wild thing in a dark corner when confronted by eleven heavily armed and armoured policemen. As Dale pulled up his pants and turned to face the officers he was shot, then tasered, punched in the face, forced to the ground and handcuffed.

Dale received bullet wounds to his torso and consequently required eleven surgeries to reconstruct his shoulder and remove half of his bowel. Zita was shot in her thigh and again in her knee.

Byron Bay on a mid-summer night this year a call is made to police by a hostel receptionist to report that a teenage boy is naked, intoxicated and screaming in the dark laneway outside the Nomad's Backpacker hostel. Four police responded. They soaked him with capsicum spray and hit him with a baton before taking him to the ground.

In the video shot by a bystander we see police officers struggling to handcuff the sixteen year old boy while another holds his legs. Another cop stands on his throat and strikes him several time with a baton. The teenager resists feebly and the cop continues to beat him with the weapon, breaking one of his ribs and pulverising his legs and torso. 

How much force can be lawfully used to make an arrest? 

Reasonable force – which is equal to or less than the force that is used against you. You wrestle with me I wrestle you to the ground. You come at me with a bat I can whack you silly with a baton. You pull a knife on me and I can stop your heart with a bullet.

With this in mind it is not necessary for me to point out that the force used here by police is excessive in all these examples, particularly as the cops vastly outnumbered the arrestees in every case. 

I do not write this to pass judgement on the police as individuals nor as an organisation. I will keep that to myself. I would not wish them to publicly judge me either - for in my 30 odd years in the security business I too have hurt people on the street and may hurt more in the future. It can get rough out there folks. 

But consider this, 

If the police had been called and arrived to find me standing on a kid's throat and beating him with an iron bar – what would they have done? They would have arrested me and charged me with assault causing actual bodily harm. I would be tried and convicted on the evidence of bystanders, the video and the boys injuries. As it would be my first offence I might escape jail – but I could go in for as long as five years. If three others had held him down while I flogged him we would all be liable for as much as 7 years. I would certainly lose my security licences and subsequently my livelihood. My standing in the community would go to zero. I might even be obliged to leave town.

Of the eleven police who killed Roberto Curti only one was charged with common assault as his use of the third can of capsicum spray on the dying man was deemed by the Coroner to be unnecessary and excessive. The Sergeant who was the senior officer at the scene of the killing is now an Inspector despite his conduct and lack of leadership being described by the same Coroner as abhorrent.

No police were found to be at fault over the nightclub shooting of Dale and Zita though the police were kind enough to not to press charges against them despite their ludicrous claims that Dale had threatened them with a pistol (Dale had his pants around his ankles and was shot in the back).

So it is unlikely that any action will be taken against the policeman who beat the helpless teenager in Byron Bay. Maybe some further training, counseling, suspension with pay. We shall see.

None of the victims in the cases discussed here were charged with an offence leaving us confused as to why they were set upon in the first place.

I can and have arrested people, and you can too. The Police are bound by the same laws regarding reasonable force that we are. 

So why is it that the Police get away with using excessive force where we will not? 

Not because they are empowered to do so by laws - but because they have special status as employees of the state and members of very powerful unions whose co-operation the state needs to maintain it's monopoly of force.

In an earlier story about the death of Cameron Doomadgee in Police custody I wrote that criminalising common behavior unleashes the forces of the state upon ordinary people who may not deserve it and may not have the strength and resources to withstand it.

We have by default or by design enabled the state to use apparently unlimited force against us even in situations where no crime has been committed. 

So consider please that in all these cases someone has called the Police and unwittingly unleashed upon these people the full violence of the state. Imagine how they feel now. Imagine it was you. 

A well intentioned call to the forces of the state for help can result in the horrifying death or savage beating of an innocent person. Maybe someone you know. Maybe even you. 

So to help keep our streets safe – think twice before letting the dogs out.

Trust not the horse, O Trojans.

In Australia lawmaking has become a political act viewed from a partisan Left vs Right perspective. If a Labor politician proposes a bill it is immediately opposed by those on the Right, and vice versa, regardless of its merits. If the Greens propose a bill there is laughter from both sides. If a cross-bencher propose one then it must be time for lunch.

My libertarian starting point is to oppose the making of a new law because it is a new law.  As each law takes away the freedom of Australian citizens it should be treated with utmost scepticism. The merits of the law must pass my free and fair test. Only then can we begin to debate whether the law is necessary, whether it will be effective, whether it can be enforced, how much enforcing it will cost the taxpayer and whether it is something useful to all citizens rather than just the political tribe of whoever is proposing it.

My libertarianism is a healthy scepticism of lawmaking as the solution to society's evils. As society and technology progresses there will be new laws made and changes to the old ones. But we should not automatically give away our freedoms to enhance the prestige of our tribal leaders and those they owe favours to. Nor should they be used as a weapon against their political opponents or segments of society against which they hold some prejudice.

Some laws are just plain evil as discussed in my last post. Some are ineffectual wastes of our hard earned money. Some laws act as Trojan horses – they are gifted to us for a benign purpose but will kick us in the teeth if we don't pay attention.

One is the Major Sporting Events Act which currently gives the Victorian Police the power to search without giving a reason anyone at and around venues such as stadiums and racetracks.

Designed to eliminate potential terrorist threats at major events, the Act allows police to search you inside or outside the venue – if you refuse they can kick you out or stop you from going in. Refusing their directions will cost you $3000. They can also demand to see your ID and fine you $750 if you don't comply.

Which might all seems well and good if it will help keep some mad bastard from blowing up the Melbourne Cup or the AFL Grand Final.

However,

Victoria's police now want to broaden the scope of this Act to include dance festivals - so that they can surround the event, search young folks for drugs and bar, eject and fine those who do not comply. In other words – so they can shut the damn doofs down.

A classic Trojan horse scenario - a law is passed to combat terrorists but concealed inside it is the means to criminalise our young people for doing what young people do for fun these days.

And while Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville claims that the proposal is all about reducing harm at festivals, if they were serious about harm reduction they would listen to the professionals and allow pill testing which has proven to be effective all over the world.

And where on from there? Well if you can extend the law to reach from the Melbourne Cricket Ground to a bush doof in Lexton, then it is on to the city nightlife precincts where since April the police have increased their use of sniffer dogs in and around Melbourne nightclubs under Operation Safenight.

So aggressive are the police that the High Alert campaign was formed in response to Operation Safenight by a group of concerned harm reduction advocates, health professional and legal practitioners including Nevena Spirovska, a former campaign manager for the Australian Sex Party.

 

So aggressive that just yesterday a man and a woman were shot by police at a 'Saints and Sinners Ball' inside a Melbourne nightclub following a report that the man was armed with a gun. But as you might expect to find at at fancy-dress party on a guy dressed as The Joker – the pistol was a toy. Not a safe night for him or his girlfriend.

If the Anti-Terrorist / Anti-Fun / Super Safety Squad are successful then it won't be long before similar legislation appears in other States.

Then who knows how far the long arm of the law will stretch to keep us safe from ourselves? Perhaps to Melbourne Cup Day at your local pub, to the Australia Day bash at the end of your street, and to your kid's 18^th birthday party at your house.

Be it what it may, I fear the Grecians even when they offer gifts.

Remember you are free.

Cry havok and let slip the dogs of the Potato Marketing Corporation

“...eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government." - Andrew Jackson, 1837.

 

A guy rang me recently looking for employment as a security guard. When I offered him a spot at the annual Nimbin Mardi Grass he promptly declined and told me he was “disgusted by homosexuality”. I laughed and told him it wasn't the Gay Mardi Gras but Mardi Grass as in cannabis, pot, weed etc. There was a long pause followed by a “No way”. He hung up the phone and never forwarded his resume - I guess having decided I was doing the work of the devil and trying to lead him astray.
 
You might go to Nimbin Mardi Grass expecting a libertarian paradise of free love, hash cookies and laughter but no – you will instead find a Police Open Day with the many faces of law enforcement on display – riot police, licensing police, mounted police, drug detection dogs, random breath tests, drug tests and many more flavours of cop all intent on making life as miserable as possible for festival goers. And it works – the event has been in steady decline since the police crashed the party about seven years ago . And cannabis is still illegal.

On my return to the normal world I find there is a new sheriff in the tourist resort town of Byron Bay promising to “clean up Byron” which is cop for for “shut down the night-life in Byron Bay”. Short of stature and chewing gum constantly - he was last seen photographing the cheery crowd of young people outside the Great Northern Hotel on a Saturday night while commenting darkly that “this was no good”. God help us.

Meanwhile in light of recent homicidal attacks on innocent people by various flavours of dick-headed loser in Australia and around the world – politicians and pundits are talking censorship again. Frustrated by their inability to to combat the message of evil they turn their attention to the medium - inferring that some of that evil has rubbed off on it.

Perhaps the time has come to censor the Internet, they gravely intone, and al-Jazeera while we are at it.

While the Prime Minister claims to not understand how a terrorist can be given parole when he knows well the answer - the terrorist in question wasn't one, as he had never actually carried out an act of terror. Turnbull knows this – he was once a lawyer.

As the law-mongers talk minimum sentences and Federal control over State parole boards, the State of NSW hands out M4 assault rifles to riot police and gives all police a licence to kill criminals before they are a threat to others. Both will come in handy next year in Nimbin, or at schoolies in November.

And in Western Australia, a man faces the Supreme Court for the heinous crime of growing too many potatoes.

With no bill of rights to constrain them, Australian politicians will make whatever laws they can get away with to be tough on crime - as being tough on crime, or at least appearing to be, is crucial to winning the next election and keeping their jobs.

With every new law, regardless of its merits, the police and other bureaucrats become more powerful and can intrude further into our lives. We constantly hear of Police being given new powers – we never hear of old ones being taken away.

Instead we hear the sound of our rights being chipped away. For the only right we have in this country is to do that which is not prohibited by laws.

So be suspicious of all new laws, I say. Be suspicious as you would of a lawyer who cannot comprehend the law, a riot cop with an M4, or a man in black from the Potato Marketing Corporation.

And the disgusted security guard I mentioned earlier? Be not suspicious of him. He understands liberty and exercises his freedom to choose where he works and who he works for. His right to be disgusted and express such disgust for anyone, anything and anytime.

He remembers he is free – help keep him that way.

Offend, insult, humiliate (and die)

One hot November day back in 2004 Cameron Doomadgee was arrested on the streets of Palm Island in Queensland. Cameron was drinking beer and full of cheek on a Friday morning, probably looking forward to the weekend as heavy drinkers do. Inside the bucket he carried a mud crab waited patiently for oblivion. Who would have thought it would outlive the man who had caught it?

Sergeant Chris Hurley of the Queensland Police Service was having a tough morning dealing with drunkenness and domestic violence common to the community in which he served.

Sergeant Hurley was in the company of a man named Lloyd - a Police liaison officer on the island. Cameron taunted Lloyd by singing “Who let the dogs out” and had a go at him for helping the Hurley “lock up his own people”. Cameron ended up swearing at both officers for which he was arrested. Offensive language - usually a $100 fine.

A struggle took place at the cop shop and to cut the story short – Cameron was severely beaten by Hurley and died 40 minutes later alone in a cell.

The autopsy report was a ridiculous attempt to cover up the killing. The locals rioted. The police station and barracks, the courthouse and Hurley's house burned when word passed around that Cameron had been “murdered” by the police.

A state of emergency, 28 arrests, a second autopsy, three coronial inquiries, several criminal trials, Supreme Court appeal, a suicide, resignations and incarcerations followed.

In 2006, a coroner found that Cameron was killed as a result of punches by Sergeant Hurley. Four of his ribs were broken and driven into his liver with such force that it tore it apart.

Two legal questions arose from the death. Firstly was the arrest of Cameron lawful and secondly, whether the injuries that killed him were intentionally caused by Sergeant Hurley.

Yes the arrest was lawful and no, Hurley was not guilty of manslaughter.

The years of controversy focused on the second question which was never really resolved to the satisfaction of all. Controversy swirled around the actions of the police, the police union, the state government, the coroner and other agencies as some sought to protect Hurley while others wanted him hanged.

And then there was the issue of race. Cameron Doomadgee was a blackfella and Chris Hurley was white. As a result the case became about Aboriginal deaths in custody – an issue which has haunted Australia for the last 50 years at least.

In all the drama the importance of the first question was overlooked. Perhaps because it was never really disputed that a cop can put you in a cell for offensive language. In fact, in Queensland a magistrate can theoretically put you in one for 6 months.

But it was not race that set these two men on a collision course. It was a law designed to ensure that we all be nice to each other in public.

Criminalising common behaviour unleashes the forces of the law upon ordinary people who may not deserve it and may not have the strength and resources to withstand it. And it can gets rough out on there on streets, in the emergency rooms and the lock-ups. Tempers flare, bones break, bodies bleed. In my time on the front lines I have hurt people too. Some quite badly, though never intentionally. My ribs too have broken by punches and I have broken the ribs of others.

So before tweeting your tribal war-cries and quaffing your pinot noir. Before you go signalling your virtues and superiority to others with your big-hearted concern for the feelings of minorities - you might consider what Cameron Doomadgee's position might have been on offensive behaviour laws as he lay dying in that cell. Ask of his ghost if he and his people felt protected by such laws as his body cavity filled with his own blood. Ask him if it was worth an agonising death that others should not be offended by his conduct. And ask yourself if you have given any real thought to the consequences of such laws at all.

If you really care about people like Cameron Doomadgee – then don't let the dogs out.

And remember you are free.

Police ain't got no gun (you don't have to run)

Be glad that you are free
Free to change your mind
Free to go most anywhere, anytime

No I didn't write those words it was Prince Nelson Rogers formerly the artist formerly known as Prince from the double album 1999 - which was the most exciting thing that happened to my world in1982 (I was still at school). And yes, these lyrics from “Free” were the inspiration for my blog's title.
 
Prince's enthusiastic endorsement of promiscuity, his sexual ambiguity, his flamboyant fashion sense gave him the appearance of a libertine rather than libertarian. But his libertarian credentials were there all along.
 
Soldiers are a marching, they're writing brand new laws
Will we all fight together for the most important cause?
Will we all fight for the right to be free?
 
These simple words are exactly what I'm writing about 35 years later. Maybe society doesn't change as much as we think it has. Maybe I just never grew up.
 
Libertarians are not anarchists. We don't oppose laws or law making. We just believe that lawmaking should be restricted to protecting citizens and our property rather than forcing us to go along with a socio-political or religious agenda.
 
The most exciting track on that fine album for 15 year old me was D.M.S.R or Dance Music Sex Romance – all of which I was looking forward to in this thing called life.
 
I say everybody - screw the masses
We only want to have some fun
I say do whatever you want - wear lingerie to a restaurant
Police ain't got no gun, you don't have to run
 
The last line baffled me a bit - police in America definitely had guns and were willing to use them. What I believe he was saying was simple libertarian creed. As it is not illegal to wear lingerie to a restaurant, the police cannot take action against you so you have nothing to fear from the law.
 
These days it is not unusual to see young women in lingerie on the streets come Saturday night in summer. Lo and behold – no one arrests them or shoots them. So why not in 1982? What were we afraid of?
 
Well sexual assault for a start. Indecent assault at the very least.
 
Prior to the Crimes (Sexual Assault) Amendment Act of 1981 these offences did not exist in NSW. There was only rape – narrowly defined as a forcible penile penetration of a vagina. To get a conviction for rape there needed to be evidence of violence and it certainly helped if the attacker was a stranger and the victim a virgin. The rapist was best protected by the law - not the victim.
 
Since then, NSW legislation has criminalised most sexually abusive behaviours - not limited to penetrative sexual acts between female victims and male offenders. 
Non-penetrative offences were criminalised as indecent assault. Men, women, children and transgenders are now protected by comprehensive sexual assault laws.
 
But it didn't have to go this way. There are many countries in the world where the law dictates what women should wear in public so as not to provoke sexual urges in men. Blaming women for crimes committed against them was common in Australia at that time and still persists today.

So in my wild erratic fancy I would like to think that that Prince had a hand in all this. That his words resonated with someone other than a dance crazy adolescent with big hair. That when the choice came to either criminalise what women wore in public, or criminalise the behaviour that prevented them from doing so, our lawmakers chose the latter. 
 
They remembered that we are free. Don't ever let them forget.

How I became a Libertarian (and maybe you could too)

If a liberal is a conservative who has been arrested, and a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged - then a libertarian might well be a conservative who has been harassed by the police for walking his damn dog.
 

So I'm not Rosa Parkes but hear me out. I was walking my dog on an almost deserted beach mid afternoon and wondering where the hell everyone was when a NSW Police taxpayer funded four wheel drive vehicle drove along the beach and stopped nearby me. My dog had never seen a vehicle of any sort on the beach and ran to greet it in her friendly doggy way. Down goes the window and a uniformed police officer beckoned me over.

There is a serial rapist about and cruelly preying on lone middle-aged men in board shorts, he said - not. Nor did he warn of sharks nor rips nor burqua clad beach babes. The threat to society, he explained, was my good self and my canine accomplice.

“Your dog is too far away from you (he did actually say this that's why it's in quotes) The law states that the dog must be under your direct control which it is not.” His well trained eyes took in my facial expression and classified it as nonplussed so he explained “It might run off into the sand dunes, or get in a fight with another dog. Or something.”

Now I am old and I am wise and I have learned to hold my temper by keeping my mouth firmly shut so I nodded in thanks to the officer for his input and let him go about the business of harassing the one other dog walker on the beach about half a kilometre away.

Well.

At first I assumed that some rich city dickhead had paid a couple of mill for a beach house and found that it fronted a off leash dog beach and started a campaign of complaint to make the dogs go crap somewhere else. Or the Greens dominated Council of Cat Owners had once again escalated the War on Dogs and let slip some dogs of their own.

But no – it turns out that in Byron Bay some brain dead sociopath had encouraged a young woman to pat the dog in the back of his ute.

She did - and the dog bit off her nose .

It turned out that the dog was vicious (duh) and officially a dangerous dog supposed to be muzzled and on a leash in public. Obviously it was neither.

So of course the logical thing to do is to dispatch the Police force to a beach 30 kilometres away and harass anyone throwing a stick into the surf for their dog to retrieve. And not only dispatch the crack troops of the Future Crime Department but those from the elite Future Imaginary Crime Squad who can dream up offences such as Dog Found in Sand Dunes with Intent.

It's called overpolicing. And it's a thing.

Now you may think this trivial. No one was hurt, charged or seriously messed up in any way. But had I told this cop what I thought of him, his job and his Body Mass Index I could well have been arrested right there on the beach. My dog would have objected to this and could well have been shot. 

If you think I'm being dramatic - remember what happened to young Corey Barker at the Ballina cop shop when half a dozen police kicked the crap out of him for mouthing off while in their custody for a charge that was later dropped. Or the Brazilian student who was stomped strangled tear gassed and electrocuted to death having run from Sydney police after unlawfully consuming a packet of biscuits. Or Cameron Doomadgee - beaten to death in police custody in Queensland in 2004 - arrested for calling a police deputy a dog.

 

But this is not a critique of the NSW Police Force. This is about freedom and how we are giving it away like it is a worthless relic from another century.

I this what you want for your tax dollar? Do you want to be caught in a web of laws and regulations, of police and rangers, parking inspectors, speed cameras every time you walk out your door? Do you wish to suffer for every piece of stupid shit done by people you have never laid eyes on? Do you want to be harassed maybe arrested tried convicted beat up or shot because some shiny-bummed bureaucrat sends a knee-jerk memo to a bunch of TAFE educated shift workers? Do you really truly want a bloody nanny?

Not me. Thanks anyway.

No I'm not going to rant.

I just want you to consider that might be going in the wrong direction where it comes to the creation of laws and their enforcement leading to a culture of creeping oppression of Australian citizens. Of you and me. Of us.

Consider that our freedom is something the law and it's forces should be dispatched to protect not destroy.

And don't forget that, for now anyway, you and I are free.