Police are not accountable - we should all feel less safe

Media Release: Australians for Native Title & Reconciliation (ANTaR) Qld
14 March 2011

Police are not accountable – we should all feel less safe.
“Queenslanders are shocked that those responsible for the botched investigation into the death of Cameron Doomadgee have not been held accountable and will not be appropriately disciplined” Kitty Carra, President of ANTaR Qld said today.

"It is a stain on Queensland’s reputation and is a very serious issue of accountability," She said.
"The fact that a perfectly healthy man died within two hours of arriving at the police station’ is shocking.”

"We all have the right to expect that the police would have carried out a thorough, impartial and rigorous inquiry. The same level of inquiry which they would have carried out if it had been the police officer who died of massive injuries, not the arrested Aboriginal man."

She said events this week had demonstrated very clearly why everyone should be concerned about what happened seven years ago on a remote island to a man we did not know.

"We should care because a lack of accountability undermines any institution and makes it difficult for those who do the right thing, the ethical thing, to act against those few people who don’t.”

ANTaR Qld member Monique Bond said Palm Island Mayor Alf Lacey spoke yesterday about the right of every Queensland person to receive justice and fair treatment, especially from the Queensland Police Service.
"He said the decision not to discipline the six police officers mentioned by the CMC is wrong and Commissioner Atkinson must act immediately to hold them accountable," said Ms Bond

For more information contact
Monique Bond on 0417 764 653