Vol. 71/No. 29      August 6, 2007

Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley had been charged with one count each of manslaughter and assault for the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island in November 2004. Doomadgee died from his liver being split in two when it was compressed on his spine. He suffered four broken ribs.

Following an autopsy in 2004, which exonerated the cops, angry residents of Palm Island burned the police station, barracks, and courthouse to the ground. Palm Island is an Aboriginal community of about 4,000, in north Queensland. Protests took place in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane on June 22 against the decision to acquit Hurley.

“It’s just like they have been given a license to kill,” Lex Wotton, one of those charged with rioting on Palm Island in 2004, told Channel 7 news. He called the verdict “a green light for men in police uniform to go out and commit murder.”

During the trial, Guy Lampe, the pathologist who conducted the two autopsies on Doomadgee, said that the split liver that killed him was likely caused by a knee being forced into his abdomen.

Hurley admitted in the trial that he “must have come into contact” with Doomadgee, causing the injuries that killed him. On three occasions he had told investigating police he had fallen beside Doomadgee and not on top of him.

Hurley has now been reinstated on active duty.

Over the last two and half years, Doomadgee’s family and local Aborigines have led a campaign of protest actions calling for justice. The campaign put pressure on the Queensland state government to review the initial decision not to press charges against Hurley.

“This has not ended the way we wanted it to,” said Gracelyn Smallwood, an Aboriginal activist, after the verdict. “But it has been a win on our slow climb up the Everest of justice.”

Less than a week after Hurley’s acquittal, Alan Lee-Choo, a 44-year-old Aboriginal stockman, died in the back of a police van less than half an hour after being detained over the alleged theft of a horse.

The day after Hurley’s acquittal, Australian prime minister John Howard announced that cops and troops would be sent into Northern Territory indigenous communities to enforce bans on alcohol and pornography, mandatory medical checks for all Aboriginal children, and restrictions on welfare. The government justified these attacks against Aborigines by claiming they are part of a plan to stop child sex abuse.
 
 
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