Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty verdicts against all three defendants.
It was absolutely shambles, to tell you the truth, just absolutely really coming.
Blood on his clothing. The day after the alleged at.
Top on a show a mud bank and it fits through a river. Basically, I think most of the people are used to me are good people. I think a really important question we need to ask is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm Amy maguire and I'm.
Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. And a warning, this series contains the names of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset some listeners.
Welcome to Curtain. For the last few weeks, my co host Amy mguire has been traveled around Australia with the National Justice Projects new initiative called cop Watch. Cop Watch is about training and empowering Aboriginal communities to use modern technology like mobile phones to document instances of harassment by authorities.
This is largely to do with interaction with the police, where often for no good reason, Aboriginal people are targeted by police in an aggressive manner, stopped, searched, manhandled, often
assaulted and threatened for absolutely no good reason. With the ability to become citizen journalists, to combine basic understandings of the law and how to use social media and media techniques, Aboriginal communities can protect themselves from this kind of harassment and abuse and also highlight it to the world in
an effort to stop this continuing. Over the past fortnight, Amy and the team have traveled to Redfern in Sydney, Broken Hill in Outback, New South Wales, Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, and most recently Cowgooli in Western Australia. While they were in Western Australia, it was the one year anniversary of the death of mister Elijah Dougherty, a young Aboriginal boy who was run down and killed by a non Indigenous man who was only convicted, as we've
discussed on this podcast, of a driving offense. He was not convicted of manslaughter despite killing young Elijah. Also joining the team is Sean Harris. He's an advocate campaigning against black debts in custody and he has very personal reasons as to why he's doing this. His niece is missed You, who died at the hands of Western Australian law enforcement
and Western Australian health officials. Amy sat down this week in Calgooli with Sean to talk about what they're doing with cop Watch, the harassment they face as they go about their work, and what Aboriginal people are trying to do to empower one another and overcome the threats, abuse, harassment and often death suffered at the hands of authorities.
I'm sitting here with Sean Harris and we're both in Calgurley. We've been here traveling around the country together on a tour called coop Watch, which is an initiative of the National Justice Project and it's basically about informing Aboriginal communities of their rights when interacting with police. We've gone to Brokenhill, Alice Springs, Redfern and now we're in on the anniversary
of Elijah Dowdy's death. And listeners to this podcast would know about the case of a young teenage boy who was run over by a non Indigenous man who subsequently was acquitted of manslaughter over his death and got a three year sentence for dangerous driving occasionally occasioning death. That sentence has been seen by many in the Aboriginal community in Calgurley as being far too lenient, and generally across the country, Aboriginal people have reacted with anger and seen it as.
The way the.
Justice system and wider Australia treats the lives of Aboriginal children. So it's a very sad day for Seann in particular when we're sitting here in a cal Gurley hotel room and we're doing this interview. But Sewan, I just wanted to start by asking you, I mean, you've seen so much sh in Western Australia, you're from this state. What does it feel being here, particularly today and knowing what we've heard about the way police are dealing with the community here.
Yeah, have I I guess to directly be here today is we've other It's pretty hard to explain. We've come here with myself with a pretty heavy art because of how significant this day is and the last twelve months in particular for this the Calgary people out here and all the more we just came out here to try and support the best that we could, plus to show our respects and be here with the family by buying
as from the family as well. You know, we were trying and stick together and try and bring unity together. I guess you can say it's there's so much that has been going on. You know, I'm still grieving from the loss of my big brother back in nineteen eighty eight from a here was a passenger in a car crossery passed away from there was a a a non
Indigenous driver who pretty much got let off. So where m I'm still twenty nine years without justice for my past my lost brother as well from a car incidents in similar circumstances. I guess you would say the racism in Australia and especially in particularly in Kirwall is so typical and it typifies the fight and the institutional and systemic racism. It's still deeply ingrained as well. It's not
just through the broader community. So as I said before us, with a very heavy heart, they are where are actually here today? Just feel so empty and upset and heartbreaking for the family of this poor young boy. Most certainly as a priority you know, we're all so, we're all still in so much shop, the whole border community, especially the Indigenous community throughout Australia at the the sheer fast known as the West Australian judicial system.
You've seen that personally, haven't you, with your niece in the way police dealt with your own family. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened to your niece three years ago?
Yeah, well, she was a deathing custody back in back up in heaven in the pilborgh three three years ago. Now so as part of that deeply ingrained and unchecked racism that still flourishes throughout the whole state of weststra and the country. Indeed, that that has played a significant part in the sad loss of both my niece and
for young Ms Mister Dody. You know, it's sad to say that that has brought us together and this has has made us any stronger in the fight for both of our campaigns for for some sort of justice, for these four young people to at least be able to rest in peace or some sort of peace, you know. So, yeah, it's up to us to try and keep up the fight because obviously they're not here to be able to
stand up for themselves. So we need to be their voice and as to try and amplify their voice, and as much as we can, I guess you could.
Say, how did police treat your niece?
They treated my these with an extreme deprivation of liberty that robbed her or her basic human rights. She was being she was pretty much begging for her life, she was dying, and all her cries and begs for help fell on institutionally deaf iss mm. And you know, racism in Australia has, in the past and always will play a massively significant role in the deprivation and the oppression of our peoples that's continually inflicted, inflicted so freely on
us on a daily basis. So it's sad to say that constant Indigenous all around Australia are pretty much in a perpetual state of grief because of the because of the system. So it's hard to be able to fight and keep up to sustain the campaign for justice in any sense when there's no chance to grieve. MM. Yet we're still having to mount and start other campaigns for justice seemingly left right and center. It's just non stop.
So a perpetual started grief where we're constantly, constantly unable to actually grieve mm so W We're constantly just hurt and shattered across the nation, across the whole board. And there's no doubt about that that institutional racism, be it through the broader community or well the deeply ingrain racing through the broader community, plus the institutional and systemic racism plays a massive role in in in so many issues out there, and these are not just indigenous issues. All
these issues are community issues. And the only way that the whole of Australia can move forward is by standing up at as one and voicing our probably out as a united front. And I guess you would say.
I've always thought that the way your niece has treated so she was crying out for in pain for three days and was continually ignored by health authorities and police, accused of faking it, accused of being a junkie, all the while she was slowly dying from septicemia. I always thought that her pain really mirrors your pain because ever since she passed away, your family have had to deal with, you know, the authorities ignoring you. You've had to deal
with wider Australia ignoring your own pain. How do you think your family have been able to cope in the wake of so much injustice and the fact that you've really had to campaign all across the country just to get Australia to even begin to care. You've had to go through such extraordinary lengths just to get Australia to understand that your niece was a human being.
Yeah, well, w what privilege plays a a very massive role in in this whole process. It's sad. So it's still so sad to say that the overwhelming majority of the public population and the public message out there are still wrapped in some sort of social bubble and they're in denial over the sad reality and the facts of what's really out there and what's going on on a daily basis. It's not just in one sport every day
around Stoia. It's it's happens everywhere and the fact that it's a lot is still being covered up and what it was praise that that's why, that's the reason why there's no accountability through the system MM and no accountability means that there all these issues and especially death in custody. You know, it are always gonna happen. Mm. This nothing is gonna change if the perpetrators are not held a cannibal, as the system always says to the criminals, you know,
if you do the crime, you've got to do the time. Well, the judicial system will never be equal if the watchers are never kept accountable as well. I'll go back to the racism because racism very obviously is a messive, an extremely big problem throughout the strain society. And the only way that we can address that in this day, I especially, is to stand up as one. So it's very hard.
Just recently, you've had an encounter when we're in Alice Springs with police. Did you feel comfortable talking about how they treated you? We're only in you were only in others for two days. How did the police treat you there?
Yeah? Well, funny thing. I was just actually going to a shop to get a bottle of coke actually, and there were almost every shop in our springs has a bottle shop. So there is a policeman almost at every shop in our springs who constantly harass and are constantly asking the indigenous people, including the elders, all the time and for id just when they have to go into a sleep market, so this is before so I actually went in. I filmed the police as we pulled up
from a safe distance, say twenty odd meters away. The police apparently did not like that very much, so he followed me into a shop and kept threatening that he would could take my phone and my device for filming him, which I kept saying that he couldn't mean he had no rights to and he said, I kept saying that he will take my phone. I said no you won't.
I said no you can't, so he kept I ended up having to tell him that I actually flew into our springs as a part a team with cot Watch team and her purpose was to teach our people was about our rots and filming the police. So that was a bit of a bit of a wake up called bit of surprise for the police to actually hear that
I was part of a cop watch team. He was who just lew in Dalla Springs to try and help teach and educate our people on our rights, you know, And he actually harassed me and followed me around in the shop for a while. Hence we had a bit of a confrontation at the front afterwards, after I left the supermarket with my bottle of coke at that.
So you're criminalized just forgetting a bottle of coke, pretty.
Much, Yeah, that's pretty pretty much so. And he even called for back up. I was actually with someone like a female, other indigenous female, and and the policeman called for backup and actually told the backup to arrest us, which obviously didn't happen. The policeman he actually turned up for backup, and they didn't want to part of it, and they even actually said to my female friend that they were we were allowed to fill in the place.
M But that being said, now, my female friend has already been paid a visit by the police since we have left, and has been threatened and actually charged with or petty really minister trumped up charges you know, because of her. And she actually has been or has been seriously threatened to be put on the band drinkers register as well, which has totally nothing to do with the incident that happened. You know, We've got a video proof
of this police officer as well. So I am actually wanted to make a complaint about this, but as soon as time they permit, you know, we but yeah, I'm not being said that that just typifies the the the institutional racism that still flourishes in our springs.
Do you think it would have happened to a white person going in to buy a coke?
Yeah? No, definitely not. From all everything I've been hearing about our springs with the intervention, you know that the white people don't ever ever get harassed nice for ID at any liquor store or any liquor outlet. It's just constantly black people, and only black people. There's maybe half percent a white person will actually get ups for ID, and there's some glorifying that a half percent.
I must say, do you trust police after everything that you've gone through, but also what happened to your niece and what we've seen here in Cargoley.
It's sad to say I really do not trust place. There is no absolutely no place in community relationship. It's at at all in the gross majority the the of of austrain population, indigenous population. There's no efforts, especially in Karagali, there is totally no efforts, a real effort on the part of the system to try and to make police and citizens relationships simply because I don't wanna mm the the level of racism here is is it's it's outstanding. It it's so sad to say, I I wanna say,
it's so unbelievable, it's I'm from Wa Sa. Sadly it's it's not unbelievable at all. The unbelievable thing about it is that it's still happening. It's still happening so fairly and uncounted. Where is the accountability? You know that they just keep continuing to try and provoke the people into being aggressiveness and it's and it's not our it's not
our race in general. We're a happy people. Where are coined people and we have been for us hundreds thousand years, so to p to be able to to have to be continually pressed and such rotten and sickening racism being slung at us on a on a daily basis, you know, and us we're continually expected to just take no notes. Mm. That is part of the psychological warfare where the system is still trying to break us all down mentally and physically,
you know, just trying to break our spirits. And it's just another sly way of them pushing their wide Australia policy and a part of Australia, they're finding more covert ways to inflict that kind of side on our people and ethnic cleansing, and they're extending the their racial, racially biased laws not just against the Indigenous people, but to the broader community now as well, which is why the broader community is starting to, I guess, get more frustrated
with the system because they're finally starting to be subjected to the laws that we've always been subjected to. The police are just expanding thetter actual laws to the whole broader community because they're getting away with it with us black people. So now they're just yeah, they're just moving on.
And I still feel the broader community they still view police as protectives. They don't believe Aboriginal people even did you think, what do you think we need? Oh well, I don't think the owners should be on Aboriginal people anyway. But how can Australians actually understand that this is a real threat. I mean, we saw the video footage of your niece's last hours was actually released to the public, and yet we're still having to fight to actually get
people to believe us against the police. It's like white Astralia's closer to the police than they'll ever be too understanding Aboriginal people because so many Australians don't have direct contact with Aboriginal people.
Yeah, it well was. It's still very sad to hear that a lot these days. A lot of white people who are a lot of white city folk, they see an original and they asks an Aboriginal for Indigenous if the original, you know, they have not even seen one yet and they're thirty forty fifty years old. That is so that really is unbeluetable. That's and yet these people have to hide to have opinions on Indigenous and they're they're always never wrong, and they're always factually right when
they're when in natural fact, they're not. Just the white privilege and the institutional arrogance as well. It's not just the racism that's dead being rained through the whole community. It's just the arrogance and the the do you European hierarchies and classes? You know, we didn't have classes and hierarchies, and until they came and invaded and started murdering and messaging us. And that's the Western world system. It's not our system. We work as community and we always have since forever.
So and just finally, like when you talk about the fact that you know we're all fighting similar struggles and we have links all across the country. This podcast is really detailing a really bad injustice that happened in my hometown of Rock campdon in nine ninety one, and the man who was wrongfully convicted over the murder of an Aboriginal woman who there's never justice over her death. He's still inside. Do you have any messages of support for him?
Considering you know those messages of unity, how do you recommend we keep going and we continue fighting.
Yeah? Also hard on this case is obviously say it's distressing as well to know of them, to try and keep track of as much as possible. You know, this also typifies the system. All I can say is that there is support there, and there is help we are trying. We're all spread safein. Is the thing as well, or all the people who are trying to do this and that for the community and trying to enforce change, we're all spread safein. It makes it hard to actually being together.
And as well as this country being so massive and all our people being so oppressed, it makes it harder to actually cross country to help and support all of our peoples across the country, you know, But yeah, I guess trying not to give up. We all have to keep fighting it and say very hard it seriously does. It's so hard to even get up out of it and think, how are we gonna s start this day after? You know, when every day is almost as bad as
in the next. I guess it's just in our blood's a that's just who we are to try and help who we can mm and even if we have nothing, that's just what we do, how we look after each other as a communion, and that's the way we've worked since for us since just as our elders, elders and accesss. Did you know, we can't change that out the drop of a hat, because that's who we are. It's it's built in. Say yeah, the help and support is there.
It's just that a lot of time, it's so frustrating that we don't see that help and support as much, but it is there. Yeah, so please don't give up. We like I'm saying, we're all spread safin, but we all help each other out when we can, and we are only getting stronger. Boy, as a whole community, as a national front in the whole community sense australog Yes, thank you so much.
Our thanks to Sean for all the work he's been doing over the last few years, the work he continues to do, and for taking the time to sit down to speak with Amy and Curtain. Think about what you've just heard in that interview with Sean. Here is a human rights campaigner, an advocate trying to prevent black deaths in custody, whose own brother was tragically taken, whose own niece died at the hands of Western Australian police and
the Western Australian health system. Nobody has been accountable for those deaths, and Sean is not trying to help just his family but all Aboriginal people around the country. But imagine the stress at places on people and on communities that their family members are murdered by the state and yet they're the ones that have to travel the country trying to get justice. Imagine the psychological toll this takes.
This is why it's vital that projects like ours Curtain, where we're highlighting what is being done to Aboriginal people. The injustices right around the country are not only supported, but that the individuals like sean on the ground who
are doing the hard work are supported too. What you heard in this podcast today was the fact that a young man who's going about his work, who's trying to teach people about human rights, is still targeted by law enforcement, harassed and threatened even though he is doing absolutely nothing wrong. Why is it a crime to buy a bottle of coke in this country and it's only that for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Sadly, the burden on changing
this cannot be left solely to the Aboriginal community. This will continue to happen. The deaths nearly four hundred in just the last twenty five years in custody, and the constant harassment of Aboriginal people on a daily basis in every town and city in this country will continue until
non Indigenous people decide to join the fight. Aboriginal people and their communities need to be supported, empowered, and given the resources to fight back, to stand up for their rights, and to be able to live the peaceful, safe existence that they deserve and always had done until these law enforcement officials were forced upon them. It's unacceptable in twenty seventeen that a black professional man can't go into a shop and buy a coke without being threatened and harassed
and verbaled by a police officer. Whether that changes is not down to Sean. Shawn's done nothing wrong. He's sacrificing his own time, money and resources, his own mental and physical strength to help the wider community. So it's about time Nonindigenous people stand up, whether it's Kevin Henry in Queensland, Miss dw and Young Elijah in Wa, mister Briscoe in the Northern Territory, an Aboriginal Entirestraate island, of people all over this country on a daily basis dying, being beaten,
harassed and killed by police and the state. This will not end until you take action and you provide the support that First Nations people vitally need. We'll be back next week for another episode of Curtin with more information about Kevin Henry's case, the latest details, and more information about what's happening around the country. Until then, I urge you to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and join the
effort by helping us with our Patreon account. All that information is available across social media and on our website www dot Curtin, the podcast dot com