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The Redfern riot: January 14, 2004

Rioters set fire to a train station and pelted police officers with gasoline bombs in an Aborigine neighborhood here during a nine-hour street battle that began after a teenager died, reportedly while being chased by officers.

The rioting in the district, Redfern, left 40 officers injured and highlighted continuing tensions between Aborigines and the authorities.

The unrest followed the death of a 17-year-old Aborigine, Thomas Hickey, who was impaled on a fence when he fell from his bicycle. His mother said officers were chasing the youth, which the police deny.

• International award winners to visit Redfern
  March 2005 -International guest speakers at the Globalise Justice Asia-Pacific conference in Sydney this weekend will be visiting the Redfern Block at the invitation of the family of 17-year-old T J Hickey, whose controversial death during an alleged police pursuit sparked riots in Redfern on February 14, 2004.
• Redfern inquest findings a sham
  August 25, 2004 - Family and friends were angry and in tears on August 14 after hearing the NSW coroner’s findings on the death of the 17-year-old son of Gail Hickey. Coroner John Abernathy described the February 14 fatality in Redfern as a “freak accident”, and exonerated the police who were pursuing him at the time.
  • Police cleared in Hickey death
  • Redfern, rioting and police - EDITORIAL
  • Stopping the next riot before it starts - EDITORIAL
  • The Block's still seething
  • Wrong path leads to fiery requiem
• Aussie cops cleared after riot-sparking death
  August 17 2004 - Agence France Presse - A coroner has cleared Australian police of causing the death of an Aboriginal teenager which sparked one of the country's worst race riots.
  • Australian police cleared over Aboriginal riot - Reuters
  • Australian Police Cleared - Sky News (UK)
  • Sydney death 'not police's fault' - BBC
• Redfern NSW Parliament Interim Report (PDF, 2.5mb)
• Australian parliamentary report rubberstamps police buildup in Redfern
  9 August 2004 - World Socialist - A parliamentary committee report into the issues raised by death of 17-year-old Aboriginal youth Thomas “TJ” Hickey in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern amounts to a crude political cover up for the New South Wales Labor government.
• Call to monitor Redfern violence
  August 3, 2004 - An inquiry into February's Redfern riot has recommended violence against police in the area be strictly recorded to help determine police numbers and a minimum experience requirement for officers stationed there. It also says a controversial needle and syringe van should be moved out of the Block, and calls for stronger government commitment to closer consultation with community leaders over the area's redevelopment.
  • Second Redfern Riot Possible
• Dozens arrested during police swoop on the Block's drug-dealing houses
  July 31, 2004 - More than 200 police descended on the Block at Redfern yesterday, hauling out heroin dealers in raids on established drug houses which would be "bricked up". The action was followed by tough talk. Redfern's police commander, Superintendent Dennis Smith, said the raids could mark the beginning of the end of organised dealing on the Block.
• Brits back Aborigines
  30 July 2004 - The Voice - A BBC documentary highlighting the plight of Aborigines has stirred the hearts of black Britons and jogged memories of frustration for David Akinsanya.
• There’s 67 percent poor people—we need our own government”
  28 July 2004 - World Socialist - Among those present when a coronial inquest into the death of 17-year-old youth TJ Hickey concluded on July 16 was Bowie Hickey, 51, TJ’s second cousin, and “aunt” in traditional Aboriginal custom. The Aboriginal boy’s death in February ignited a violent confrontation between police and Aborigines in the Sydney suburb of Redfern. Bowie has lived in Redfern for 35 years. She spoke to the World Socialist Web Site, describing how TJ had moved in with her only a week before he died
• The Young Man From Kamilaroi
  July 28 2004 - On St. Valentines Day, 14 February 2004, the Young Man from Kamilaroi, the 17 year old son of Gail Hickey became impaled upon a metal fence at the back of 1 Philip Street, Waterloo. He died the next morning of his horrific injuries. There is embedded within a Coronial Inquest the sure evidence of Power. There is the Power of the Coroner and the Power of the Laws that provide that Power. There is, of course, also the Power of the Police in their control of what is presented to the Coroner - The Brief of Evidence.
• The root cause of TJ Hickey's death
  July 17, 2004 - Editorial, The Sydney Morning Herald - The State Coroner, John Abernethy, has delayed his verdict on the Hickey death, sensibly acknowledging that "rushed justice is no justice". The evidence, however, has so far persuaded his counsel, Elizabeth Fullerton, SC, that police did not contribute directly or indirectly to TJ's death. Who or what, then, was responsible?
• TJ's mother urges police charges
  17 July 2004 - Two officers who "chased" Thomas "TJ" Hickey should be charged under the Police Service Act with giving untrue statements and wrongfully pursuing the boy, counsel for TJ's mother has urged the NSW State Coroner.
  • More police plan for Redfern
  • Don't let me die: TJ's desperate plea
  • No adviser for TJ's mother
  • Conflicting police reports emerge at Hickey inquest
• Officer mistook TJ's body for clothing
  July 6, 2004 - One of the first police officers to see teenager Thomas "TJ" Hickey impaled on a fence in Redfern said he originally thought the slumped body was hung clothing. Constable Alan Rimell told the inquest into the 17-year-old's death that when he first saw TJ's body slumped over the fence "like a rag doll", he thought it was a jacket and a backpack.
  • TJ not chased, followed, court told
  • Redfern rioters to elude charges
• Police admit: we were following TJ
  July 6, 2004 - For five months police have insisted they had nothing to do with the horrific death of Aboriginal teenager Thomas "TJ" Hickey. Yesterday they admitted officers in a caged truck had been "following him" moments before the 17-year-old lost control of his bicycle and became impaled on a fence on February 14.
  • Coroner's inquest into death of TJ Hickey
  • TJ truth surrounded by police
• Hounded out of Australia for speaking the truth about Aborigines
  June 22, 2004 - Blink (UK) - A black filmmaker who made a television documentary on Aborigines has been hounded out of Australia after receiving death threats BBC journalist David Akinsanya was forced to leave Australia ahead of schedule following a newspaper interview he gave to at Sydney newspaper criticising Australians their treatment of Aborigines.
• Redfern, 90 days after the eruption
  May 16, 2004 - On a hot Sunday night three months ago, the inner-Sydney suburb of Redfern erupted in fury for nine long hours. It wasn't the first time and it probably won't be the last. But the raw intensity of the February 15 riot, its graphic portrayal in the media and its synonymity with the death of 17-year-old Thomas "TJ" Hickey guaranteed it would not be swept under the carpet.
  • Carr blamed for failing Redfern youth on drugs
  • Police ill-equipped to handle Redfern riot
  • Police get riot blame
  • More riots in Redfern, inquiry told
  • Police defend Redfern riot strategies
• TJ Hickey and the plight of young Aboriginal Australians
  6 May 2004 - World Socialist Web Site - Less than three months after the death of seventeen-year-old Aboriginal boy Thomas “TJ” Hickey on February 14 this year, the Australian media has virtually buried the issue. To the extent it is even referred to, it is portrayed as a tragic and unfortunate accident, with no wider social significance.
• Aborigines to demand royal commission into youth policing
  March 24, 2004 - Aboriginal groups will march on NSW Parliament House today to call for a national royal commission into the policing of indigenous youth. They also want a NSW royal commission into the death of 17-year-old Thomas Hickey, who died last month after falling off his bike and becoming impaled on a metal fence.
  • TJ's mother makes plea for justice
  • Police hold Redfern in 'state of siege', Pilger tells rally
  • Demonstrators go out, demolishers go in
  • Tell the World
  • Notice to the Australian Government and the People of Australia
• Redfern meeting denounces racist police violence
  March 10, 2004 - “The views of the Aboriginal community in general, and residents of the Redfern Block in particular, have fallen on deaf ears since the death of TJ [Thomas Hickey]", Redfern Aboriginal leader Lyall Munro told a meeting of 100 people at the South Sydney Leagues Club, organised by the Socialist Alliance, on March 4.
  • Redfern Block community defiant
• Lyall Munro - Spokesman for the Hickey family and the Redfern 'Block' community
  9 March 2004 - Mr Munro on behalf of the Hickey family and the "Block" community of Redfern today called on the Aboriginal community and their supporters across Australia to unite and support the demand for a National Royal Commission to examine police mistreatment of Aboriginal youth Australia-wide.
• Journalist sacked over Redfern report
  March 5, 2004 - A US journalist who made up the source for a disparaging quote about Aborigines in a report on last month's Redfern riots has been sacked by his paper.
  • Le Net épie l'éthique de la presse - Libération
• Church helps soothe Australia's Aborigines
  4 March 2004 - Ekklesia (UK) - The race riots in Australia's biggest city, Sydney, have focused attention on the role of the Church in helping to heal the country's fractured indigenous community reports the BBC. Dozens of police officers were injured in last month's confrontation in the inner-city district of Redfern. The violence was sparked by the death of an Aboriginal teenager, which is the subject of three investigations.
• Church helps soothe Australia's Aborigines
  March 4, 2004 - BBC - The race riots in Australia's biggest city, Sydney, have focused attention on the role of the Church in helping to heal the country's fractured indigenous community.
• Racist police email blasted as 'filth and disgust'
  March 4, 2004 - Senior NSW police apologised today for an email containing racist slurs against Aboriginal people which was found circulating in stations in the state's west. The contents of the email, found in four regional stations including the troubled towns of Bourke and Dubbo, were described as "filth and disgust" by Deputy Commissioner David Madden.
• The Redfern Block vs developer greed
  March 3, 2004 - The attacks on Redfern are occurring in the context of a big push for more inner-city private redevelopment. Housing prices have been escalating in the inner-city for more than a decade. The creeping privatisation of public housing has been contributing to the fragmentation of long-standing communities.
• Why Australia is not all cuddly koalas
  February 29, 2004 - Aljazeera - Little J says the best thing about the Redfern race riots is that they were beamed around the world on satellite television. "They saw us," he said. "People around the world, who just think about Australia as a nice place with kangaroos and beaches and sport - now, they know the Aboriginal people are angry. And if they think we are going to lay down and do nothing, just because the police tell us to, they have got another thing coming."
• Australien: Wut und Verzweiflung in Redfern
  28 February 2004 - Neues Deutschland (Germany) - Thomas TJ Hickey wurde am Dienstag dieser Woche in seiner Heimatstadt Walgett im australischen Outback zu Grabe getragen. Der 17-Jährige war zehn Tage zuvor in Sydneys Aborigine-Stadtteil Redfern zu Tode gekommen. Hickeys Familie und die Aborigines in Redfern sind überzeugt, dass der Junge von der Polizei in den Tod getrieben wurde. Auf der Flucht vor der Polizei sei TJ Hickey von seinem roten Mountainbike in einen Zaun gestürzt und von den eisernen Spitzen aufgespießt worden. Wenige Stunden später starb er in einem Krankenhaus in Sydney an den Folgen seiner Verletzungen.
• Different treatment may have led to riot, says PM
  February 27, 2004 - Prime Minister John Howard has suggested that the Redfern riot was partly the result of a policy of treating the indigenous community differently to the rest of Australia. Mr Howard said the riot arose from a combination of factors including a "total breakdown in family authority within Aboriginal communities".
  • Redfern leader says PM out of touch
  • PM accused of racism over Hickey
• iot in the Block
  25 February 2004 - Jungle World (Germany) - Kindermörder« und »Killer« – die Sprechchöre der rund hundert Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen brachten die Stimmung innerhalb der Aborigine-Community von Redfern über die örtliche Polizei auf den Punkt. Am vorletzten Sonntag lieferte sich die wütende Menge in dem Innenstadtviertel Sydneys eine Straßenschlacht mit der Polizei, die die Lage in der australischen Metropole erst nach neun Stunden wieder unter Kontrolle bekam.
• List of demands in relation to the enquires into the death of TJ Hickey
  February 24, 2004 - Handed to police on the day of TJ's funeral - by The Block Community & supporters.
• TJ Hickey remembered
  February 24, 2004 - A funeral has been held in northern NSW for the Aboriginal teenager Thomas Hickey, whose death sparked Sydney's Redfern riot. The young man's family had appealed to mourners to remain calm and the funeral in the town of Walgett went ahead peacefully.
• An Aboriginal Boy Dies, Chased by Cops: This Week in Redfern
  February 22, 2004 - Counterpunch (USA) - There is a boy dead in a city morgue. A teenager. Thomas "TJ" Hickey. Dead at 17. How do you write about death? About riots? About an issue no-one in power seems to want resolved?
• 'If you oppress people long enough, things will erupt. Riots will happen'
  February 22, 2004 - The Observer (UK) - David Fickling reports from Sydney's downtrodden Aboriginal quarter, where the death of a teenager has sparked Australia's worst race violence.
• Amanda Vanstone: The political quick fix is not the solution to Aboriginal problems
  February 20, 2004 - The problems facing indigenous Australia are many and varied. And they are very long term. They did not happen overnight and they will not be solved quickly. There is no magic wand. I don't say that to thwart the hopes of indigenous Australians who want improvements and want them soon. Nor do I say it as an excuse for turning a blind eye to current events.
• Australia's Enduring Shame
  February 19, 2004 - New Statesman (UK) - John Pilger: Australia, like white South Africa, has a deeply racist history of dispossession and cruelty, buttressed by "the law". But even history is a battleground, in which "revisionists" - the likes of Keith Windschuttle, a self-publishing and much-publicised "new historian" - can suggest that Tasmanian Aborigines lacked humanity and compassion. Not anywhere in the world with indigenous populations, not in North America, New Zealand, even South Africa, could you get away with such a slur.
• Brennpunkt Redfern: Australien: Die Straßenschlachten in Sydney sind beendet, die Probleme bleiben
  19 February 2004 - Junge Welt (Germany) - Das Verhältnis zwischen der weißen Mehrheit und Australiens Ureinwohnern, den Aborigines, ist nach wie vor gespannt. Auch sechs Jahre nach der öffentlichen Entschuldigung von Regierung und Parlament für die Gewaltakte und Diskrimierungen der Vergangenheit warten die Angehörigen der Minderheit noch immer auf Gerechtigkeit und eine Behandlung als »normale Staatsbürger«.
• Fred Chaney: The lessons of Redfern
  February 19, 2004 - The warning signs about Redfern were already apparent in the early 1980s. What had seemed a good idea at the time was not producing the kind of outcomes we had anticipated. All of us, white and black, who were involved over that period should feel a sense of personal responsibility for not asking some of the hard questions or being sufficiently critical of our own well-meaning efforts, and those of successive governments.
• No easy answer to the Block's plight
  February 19, 2004 - Bring in the bulldozers is the solution that John Brogden favours for the problem that is the Block ... For the moment, redevelopment of Redfern, and of the Block in particular, has to be done in a way that is sensitive to its political and historical significance. It cannot be as simple as kicking out the residents, bulldozing the place and allowing developers to take over. Besides, the last thing that Sydney needs is yet another enclave of bland yuppiedom
• Aden Ridgeway: Boiling point after a decade of tension
  February 18, 2004 - I do not excuse the events of that night. But they come as no surprise to me or any person who is familiar with the volatile dynamics of Redfern, and the wider issues of indigenous politics in this country.
• 'Violence damages the Aboriginal cause': The Australian papers respond to the clashes
  February 18, 2004 - The Guardian (UK)
• Disregarded and dispossessed
  February 17, 2004 - Guardian (UK) - The message given out by government is perfectly clear: comfortably-off white Australians who feel their culture is being threatened by the country's modest refugee intake must have their views respected, even to the point of driving children to depression and self-harm in outback concentration camps. However, poor black Australians who feel their culture has been destroyed by 200 years of dispossession should just buck their ideas up and get over it.
• 'Alcohol, heat, grief triggered the riot'
  February 17,2004 - The Premier, Bob Carr, and the Police Commissioner, Ken Moroney, have blamed alcohol, grief over a boy's death and the unrelenting heat for the Redfern Aboriginal riot and announced three inquiries into the rampage.
  • Ongoing tensions helped fuel riot, academic says
  • No excuses can exonerate Redfern riot
• Chased or not, TJ had reasons to run
  February 17,2004 - Within a few days of his arrival, say his mother, aunt Virginia and uncle Michael West, he was beaten up in a mistaken identity arrest by a group of police in the Block, a claim police would not comment on yesterday.
  • Back on Eveleigh Street it's still us versus them
  • Despair the reality for a race lost in the alien space of Redfern
  • Violence blamed on 'softly-softly' approach
  • Rage, boredom and peer pressure fuel Redfern's youthful violence
  • School system has let down many boys like TJ
• Black leaders lay the blame on politicians
  February 17, 2004 - Indigenous leaders yesterday accused state and federal governments of failing to tackle the problems faced by young Aborigines living in the suburb they called a "national embarrassment".
• Race, riots and an Australian national disgrace
  February 17, 2004 - Independent (UK) - Editorial: There will be no substantial improvement as long as white Australians and the country's political leaders refuse to recognise the state of race relations fort the national disgrace it is. The best that could come out of the 2004 Redfern riot is that it could give an impetus to change.
• Aussie riot fuelled by long history of repression
  February 17, 2004 - Independent (UK) -- Politicians and community leaders have appealed for calm after an unparalleled night of rioting in inner-city Sydney.
• Eleven years later, and promises have done little for the people living in the Block
  February 17, 2004 - Guardian (UK) - In December 1992 the then Australian prime minister, Paul Keating, made a startling speech in which he promised a future of renewal for Aboriginal Australia. Standing five minutes' walk away from the site of the weekend's riots in Redfern, he admitted that the country had failed the Aboriginal people.
• Aborigines riot over boy's death
  February 17, 2004 - Telegraph (UK) and more - Peace was restored yesterday to an inner-city area of Sydney set ablaze by rioters in some of the worst racial violence for a decade.
  • Uneasy calm follows Sydney riots - BBC
  • Australia's lost generation - BBC
  • Aboriginal Leader Warns of More Violence - Reuters
  • Australian riot throws the spotlight on Aboriginal despair - AP
  • Aborigines' deep anger - AFP
  • Sydney mourns Aboriginal teen - BBC
  • Redfern, Sydney szégyenfoltja - Népszabadság Online
  • Les émeutes du quartier aborigène de Sydney ébranlent toute l'Australie - Le Monde
  • Emeutes après la mort d'un jeune en Australie - Libération
• chwere Ausschreitungen in Sydney
  16 February 2004 -indymedia (Germany) - Bei heftigen Straßenkämpfen nach dem Tod eines 17-jährigen Aborigine in einer Vorstadt von Sydney sind 40 Polizisten verletzt worden. Aufgebrachte Jugendliche setzten in der Nacht zum Montag einen Vorstadtbahnhof in Brand, schlugen Fensterscheiben ein und bewarfen Polizisten mit Steinen und Brandsätzen. Auslöser war der Tod des 17-jährigen Thomas Hickey, der am Sonntag beim Sturz von seinem Fahrrad ums Leben kam. Seine Mutter erklärte, der Junge sei von Polizisten verfolgt worden. Die Polizei wies dies zurück.
• Lack of Accountability on Redfern Embarrasses Nation
  February 16, 2004 - ATSIC - The problems have long been documented — it is now well past the time for state and federal governments to act to make a real difference to this and other communities in turmoil.
• The politics of Redfern's Block
  February 16 , 2004 - There are now to be several inquiries into Thomas Hickey's death, and into the subsequent riot that surrounded it, but today the politics of dealing with the social issues of the Block took centre stage, with New South Wales Premier, Bob Carr, saying that he had full confidence in how the police dealt with the events of last night. Meanwhile NSW Opposition leader, John Brogden, has suggested clearing the area out altogether.
• Exclusive interview with the block residents
  February 16 2004 - "Remember in the paper and that when they said about one hundred and fifty Blacks pelted police with stones and bottles and that there? Well when they chased the young fella into the house there was a baby laying on the bed. The police stepped all over the baby. That's why they fuckin' bottled them fuckin' coppers. They do everything the wrong way. Bringing the riot squad down after ten year old boys, you know what I mean, that's wrong."
  Mother angry over son's death
  16 February , 2004 - I was terrified and that. Wild and that. I wanted to go up to the police station and smash the police station up, that's how wild I was. My 17-year old boy was just coming down to get money off his mother and then these dogs here, fucking end up killing my son. How does a fucking 17-year old boy end up on the fucking fence?
• "They're lucky they haven't got a guerrilla war happening"
  February 16 2004 - We've got to let our frustrations out and that's the only way we see fit to. They're lucky they haven't got a guerrilla war happening. Aboriginal people are peaceful people but (if) they push our buttons, mate we will go to the point where if they're going to shed blood so will we."
• Aborigines' Protest in Sydney Leaves 40 Injured
  February 16, 2004 - AP and more - Rioters set fire to a train station and pelted police officers with gasoline bombs in an Aborigine neighborhood here during a nine-hour street battle on Monday that began after a teenager died, reportedly while being chased by officers.
  • Uroligheder i Sydney - DR Nyheder
  • Australia's simmering racial tensions - CNN
  • Sydney riots over Aborigine death - BBC
  • Sydney police investigate Aboriginal death - The Times
  • Riots in Sydney - Channel Four News
  • Dead boy sparks race riots - The Sun
• Redfern riots a 'tragedy for all': Mick Mundine
  February 16,2004 - I suppose it's got a history you know. It's been very bad between our people and the police because they really gave our people a really hard time in the early '70s, '80s, they were really very vicious in them days.
• Racist police raid on Redfern
  January 17, 2002 - More than 40 police stormed the predominantly Aboriginal Eveleigh Street, Redfern, in a military style raid on the night of January 14.
• G'bye to g'days
  March 25, 2002 - The country's 400,000 Aborigines are often demonised as drunks and drug addicts staggering around the Redfern slums in central Sydney, or stigmatised as welfare fatcats riding around the outback in Toyota Landcruisers.
• Aborigine fury as 'false image' sells Olympics
  September 17, 2000 - Few of the Olympic officials or volunteers are indigenous, and Aborigines are rarely seen in Sydney's central business district. The city's small Aborigine community keeps a low profile in the dilapidated inner city suburb of Redfern, far from any Olympic sporting venue.
• Flame of Freedom burns in Victoria Park
  August 23, 2000 - Since it's inception, the Australian government has had an ignominious reputation when indigenous people are concerned. It is becoming clear to the white population of this country that we do indeed have a lot to answer for.
• Fixed Race
  21 August, 1999 - Sydney has a large Aboriginal ghetto, Redfern, just a five-minute limo drive away from the centre. It is easily distinguished from the rest of the city by an oppressive police presence.
• Australian Launch of the International Year for the World's Indigenous People
  10 December 1992 - Speech given by the then Prime Minister of Australia, Paul Keating, at Redfern Park in Sydney. "We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me? "
  
  

Related external documents:

• Inquiry into issues relating to Redfern and Waterloo, (PDF, 5.7mb)
• Tabled Document: Strikeforce Coburn Report (PDF 3-part doc)

Related external links:

• Issues relating to Redfern/Waterloo
  Current Parliamentary Inquiry. Conducted by the Social Issues (Legislative Council Committee). This Inquiry was referred by the House on 26 February 2004. The Committee is required to table an interim report by 31 July 2004 and a final report by 30 November 2004.
• The Redfern Block community website
  'This site is being constantly reweaved as more energy is shared'
  • Petition for an Independent inquiry
• Redfern Aboriginal Warriors Website (RAWW)
• Redfern Church Mouse
  7 March2004 - Catholic Telecommunications - Sadly the recent violent confrontation between NSW police and Sydney's Redfern aboriginal community is being paralleled in St Vincent's Catholic parish, with the increasingly ugly standoff between parish priest Fr Gerry Prindiville of the Neocatechumenate Movement, and the largely aboriginal community that had long been held together by the legendary former parish priest Fr Ted Kennedy. The conflict has caused violence both to the Eucharist and to the integrity of the shared faith on which the community is built. This site, which tells one side of the story, should be looked at in conjunction with Cardinal Pell's vision for the role of the Neocatechumenal Way in the renewal of the Archdiocese.

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