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Redfern, 90 days after the eruption

By John Kidman and Daniel Dasey

16 May 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.

Four separate inquiries into the rampage and the events preceding it were announced by the State Government within days.

Police not involved in quelling the uprising were charged with finding and arresting those responsible. And the City of Sydney moved quickly to recommend expansion of its $7 million Redfern-Waterloo project, with a new community safety plan targeting drug and alcohol addiction, unemployment and family care. Promises were made in high places and commitments made.

On the eve of the public phase of one of those inquiries, a leading police officer, Sergeant Paul Huxtable, has broken ranks to deliver a jarring insight into the depth of Redfern's neglect and the no-win job of keeping its peace. Despite political assurances to the contrary, the suburb's notorious Block is beyond conventional police control, Huxtable argues. With almost 300 street robberies - many of them frighteningly violent - in the first three months of 2004, Redfern deserves its reputation as Australia's bag snatch capital, he says.

And at least as far as his front-line colleagues are concerned, nothing has emerged during the past 90 days to give them hope that things are about to change.

The place is no safer now than it was before the riot, Huxtable says. And if a riot were to recur? He believes police would encounter many of the same difficulties that resulted in 39 officers injured and 34 people arrested.

"One thing that people have to understand is that February 15 wasn't just something that appeared out of the blue," he told The Sun-Herald ahead of his appearance before NSW Parliament's Redfern/Waterloo hearings, startingthis week.

"Redfern police have been subjected to extreme and unprovoked acts of violence on an almost weekly basis for as long as I have been there. Last year, there was a riot down there and a police officer was struck in the head and ended up spending the night in hospital.

"We talk about people pegging missiles at us but someone throwing a house brick at your head . . . that a police officer hasn't been killed is amazing."

He says the list of work-related injuries suffered by officers patrolling the Block and its surrounds in recent years has been "horrendous".

"We're talking about fractured skulls, about an officer almost entirely losing his hearing in one ear, one poor bloke currently getting around with a metal plate in his head, fractured jaws, multiple concussions . . . "

Aboriginal Housing Corporation spokesman Mick Mundine believes there has been an improvement in communication between residents of the Block and the police since February 15. But his observation is a qualified one.

He says some are talking to local police officers again. But there are those who are "so negative that they'll have resentment for the police for the rest of their lives".

The corporation has proposed a $6 million redevelopment of the Block, bordering Vine, Louis and Caroline streets.

"The relationship [with police] has calmed but it's treated warily," says local elder Kevin Smith. "The police have withdrawn from their harassment tactics in a lot of ways and are directing their efforts towards those instigators that create problems."

Bev Baker is an Eveleigh Street resident and former NSW Parents and Citizens Association president. She says the Block is "certainly much quieter" these days.

"The in-your-face drug exchange has gone underground," she says. "It hasn't stopped, it's simply no longer in your face. Some of the more extreme-behavioured people have been moved on . . . but police-community relations are very strained still."

It's that undiminished undercurrent of tension that represents a clear and present danger, Huxtable believes. Officers are still routinely sworn at, spat on or had objects hurled at them in anger, he says. "On average, it happens probably three times a week. Just about every time I've gone down to the Block I've copped abuse. It's the usual sort of stuff, like being called a dog or whatever. . . . and not in retaliation for anything. It's just a standard response."

It's not so much that cop-resident relations have relaxed after the riot's fury, as the reality that rank-and-file police now have little choice but to back down at the first signs of confrontation, Huxtable says.

While senior police and politicians have talked tough about stopping further violence at the Block before it gets out of hand, the reality is very different. "Forget about policies or procedures or laws, it's sometimes a matter of personal survival," Huxtable says.

"It would be fair to describe the place as a no-stay zone. If a large group of people come out and use extreme violence, what are your options? You've got perhaps one: to run for your life."

Even so, Huxtable claims that very little even in the way of short-term practical assistance from the Government or his own organisation has been forthcoming.

In the days following the riot, Police Minister John Watkins offered Commissioner Ken Moroney his unreserved support and gratitude for courageous action by police.

Yet at latest count, Redfern Local Area Command is about 30 officers short of its authorised strength and junior uniformed staff are being forced to undertake complex investigative duties performed in other commands by experienced detectives. Some new safety equipment has been provided since February but is on loan only and an estimated half of the patrol's ranks are yet to undergo any advanced safety training.

At the same time, figures show Redfern has experienced a 50 per cent rise in robberies without a weapon in the past 12 months. So many, Huxtable says, that "we can't provide a deterrent and we can't properly investigate the offences once they occur".

Opposition police spokesman Peter Debnam says the direction of NSW Police under the Carr Government is still media management as opposed to effective policing strategies on the ground. "We don't have effective deterrents in place to stop assaults on police and effective strategies in place to protect frontline officers or members of the community," he says. "The community will be horrified when they hear the truth behind the story of Redfern and I don't believe anything has changed."

From her unique perspective as a resident, Baker agrees.

"In terms of the lot of the people in the area, nothing has changed," she echoes. "There's been no improvement in the housing. There's more closing down, boarding up, locking out - not rebuilding, improving and empowering."

Huxtable worked in Redfern for 3 years. He tells the story of a family of five children under the age of 14 whose eldest daughter is already the veteran of an abortion and addicted to heroin.

"As a copper confronted by it, you're powerless," he says. "Everyone knows where these kids are going to end up. They live in a vermin-infested house and are allowed to wander the streets day and night, but is there any forced intervention?

"It would appear to me that Redfern police are the only agency, government or otherwise, which is being held accountable."

He claims all three government departments of health, education and community services have a record of failed intervention. "But when the children concerned start stealing to support their heroin habits, everyone starts jumping up and down about the crime.

"There are some people at Redfern who have had 15 or 20 notifications [about their children] from DOCS alone. They probably should have received 50 but if you put in 20 and nothing happens, why put in 21?"

The NSW Coroner, the Ombudsman and a police Critical Incident Team are separately examining the circumstances of the death of TJ Hickey on the day the rioting began, as well as the police response to the melee.

Although Huxtable has not been involved in those proceedings, he has vowed to speak his mind before the state's upper house, which begins its hearings on Tuesday.

And he will continue the fight for safer conditions for police and the Redfern community should he be elected to the presidency of the NSW Police Association, which holds its bi-annual elections later this month.

Smith hopes the inquiry will result in change for the better, but Baker isn't optimistic. "Everybody knows what the problems are," she says. "It's about addressing them."

TJ's grieving mother Gail Hickey insists that it's the police who hold the key to peace in Redfern.

"If they stop coming around and harassing the kids, that will stop further riots," she told The Sun-Herald.

"The other day a 13 or 14-year-old boy was walking by alone. When the cops got close they grabbed him by the arm and the people went off at them. He was just minding his own business. I said 'Are they looking for another riot?' "

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Carr blamed for failing Redfern youth on drugs

May 17, 2004 - The NSW government had failed Redfern's young Aboriginal people by not addressing the area's heroin trade worth up to $50 million a year, a senior police officer said today.

Redfern officer Sergeant Paul Huxtable said the drug trade had destroyed the Aboriginal community in inner-Sydney Redfern, leaving its younger members without any chance of a real future.

In a submission to a NSW parliamentary inquiry into February's Redfern riots, Sgt Huxtable says racism and other socio-economic issues exist in the troubled area know as The Block.

But the main problem for young people was the huge heroin trade which operated in and around The Block, while alcohol had ruined the lives of older Aboriginal people, he said.

"(Heroin's) just absolutely decimated (the community)," he said.

"You've got pre-teens that are heroin addicts, and the high number of street robberies that Redfern experiences, all to get money to support their habit."

Sgt Huxtable said young Aboriginal people had been completely let down by the NSW government, which had failed to step in and address the area's problems.

Police in the Redfern local area command continued to fight for greater police numbers and a special operational support group to provide the expertise required to deal with the problems, he said.

The inquiry, which will open public hearings tomorrow, was convened after the Redfern riots of February 15.

The riots were sparked by the death of teenager Thomas "TJ" Hickey, who community members believed was being chased by police when he came off his bicycle and was impaled on a steel fence.

Police have denied they were chasing him.

NSW Premier Bob Carr said today he agreed with Sgt Huxtable's view that drugs were fuelling the problems at Redfern.

"I think the problem at Redfern is the corrosive, awful problem of heroin dependency rather than racism," Mr Carr said.

"It's heroin and grog that's undermining the community in Redfern."

But Mr Carr denied Sgt Huxtable's claims that the area continued to be underpoliced.

"We boosted the police presence there," he said.

"Nonetheless, the police will get the resources they need there. It's about backing the police with the support of other government agencies and getting the outcomes."

Source: AAP

Police ill-equipped to handle Redfern riot

By Sean Nicholls

19 May 2004 - The senior police officer in charge during the Redfern riot has said that officers were untrained and unprepared for the situation that confronted them when the Block erupted.

Assistant Commissioner Bob Waites said communication was so poor he had no idea how serious the situation was until he arrived at 1.30am - even though he had been given telephone updates by the Redfern police commander for several hours beforehand.

"There was a very obvious lack of understanding of that sort of situation from the officers who were on the ground," Mr Waites told a parliamentary inquiry yesterday. "They hadn't been trained for it, they hadn't been prepared for it."

The upper house inquiry is looking into issues relating to Redfern and Waterloo following February's riot, which involved 200 police and 100 youths. Forty police officers were injured during a nine-hour rampage near the Eveleigh Street Block at Redfern.

The rioting followed the death of an Aboriginal boy, Thomas "TJ" Hickey, who was impaled on a fence after falling from his bicycle at high speed the previous day. Local residents said police had been pursuing the boy; the police deny this.

The inquiry got off to a bad start after its chairwoman, the Labor MP Jan Burnswoods, ejected the media following an outburst from the Liberal MP Greg Pearce, who alleged political interference in the process.

When it reconvened, the director-general of the Premier's Department, Col Gellatly, painted a bleak picture of Redfern and Waterloo.

Mr Gellatly said the area was characterised by "an eroded public domain, poor infrastructure, high levels of crime, unemployment, poor housing, family breakdown, drug and alcohol dependence and poor health".

The NSW Council of Social Service's director, Gary Moore, said it had been suggested that Redfern had become a "dumping ground" for young, inexperienced police, a charge the Deputy Police Commissioner, Dave Madden, denied.

During his evidence, Mr Waites said "mixed messages" on the night from the Redfern Local Area Commander, Superintendent Dennis Smith, and other officers at the station had affected his decision-making.

Superintendent Smith had assured him as late as 11.30pm that "everything was under control", despite a police call for specialist riot equipment and extra police two hours earlier. It was only when he became aware of a request for more police at 1.15am that he chose to leave home and attend the scene.

Mr Waites said that had he known the true situation he might not have attended in person, but directed from the police operations centre, the usual procedure.

Earlier, Mr Madden told the inquiry he had "full confidence" in the Redfern police and Superintendent Smith.

Mr Waites said yesterday that the first indication he had about the situation was at 5.50pm on the day of the riot when he spoke to Superintendent Smith, who told him there were youths throwing rocks at police.

The Opposition police spokesman, Peter Debnam, said the evidence showed "a clear failure of operational strategies".

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Police get riot blame

By Vincent Morello

May 20, 2004 - In a heated exchange yesterday, Aboriginal activist Lyall Munro Jr told a NSW parliamentary inquiry that police were to blame for the death in February of teenager Thomas "TJ" Hickey and the ensuing riots in Redfern's crime-ridden area known as the Block.

Mr Munro claimed police now made 40 to 50 daily patrols of the area in the wake of the riots, and used excessive force towards young people. "If you pull up any young Aborigine, they'll say they hate police," he said.

Accusations and expletives flew when upper house member Greg Pearce accused Mr Munro of harassing two police officers earlier in the day and helping to incite the riots in February.

Mr Munro rejected a claim by a senior police officer, Sergeant Paul Huxtable, in a submission to the inquiry into Redfern's social problems, that $50 million worth of heroin changed hands around the Block annually.

He also denied police claims that the February riots were about protecting a local drug trade.

"It was a group of young people who were traumatised by the death of their young brother and being tormented by police from the Redfern police station," he said.

Source: The Australian

More riots in Redfern, inquiry told

25 May 2004 - Redfern would erupt in more riots because of a culture of intimidation among police and government services neglecting the needs of Aboriginal residents in the inner Sydney suburb, a NSW parliamentary inquiry was told today.

The chief executive of the Metropolitan Aboriginal Land Council (MALC) Paul Coe told the inquiry into February's Redfern riot that policing in the area had not changed since the 1970s.

"The police culture in itself, in the 80s, 90s and 70s and I think it's still the same today, is based on a culture of intimidation and fear," he said.

Mr Coe said this meant that more trouble in the area was inevitable.

"There's going to be many more riots whether we like it or not," he said.

MALC chairman Rob Welsh said the Government's Redfern/Waterloo partnership project had failed to listen to or address the concerns of local Aborigines and appeared more concerned with Russian immigrants in the area.

Mr Welsh said project head Michael Ramsey "had his own agenda".

"He didn't want to deal with the issues we were concerned about which actually led up to the riot," he said.

Mr Coe also said the Department of Community Services was "a well meaning organisation but their ability to deliver to people on the ground appears to be lacking".

The inquiry also heard that the MALC spent $20,000 on advertising at an Anthony Mundine boxing match.

But Mr Welsh said this was justified because of the exposure it gave the council and because 1400 Aboriginal people who would not otherwise have been able to see the match received free tickets.

Source: The Australian

Police defend Redfern riot strategies

Reporter: Michael Vincent

25 May , 2004 - ELEANOR HALL: To police matters in NSW now, and in Sydney, the officer in charge of the inner city suburb of Redfern has defended his handling of the nine hour riot there in February.

At a Parliamentary inquiry today, Superintendent Dennis Smith, said that his officers had no intelligence to indicate the riot would take place, and that when it did take hold they tried several strategies to end it, including negotiation.

Last week, the inquiry heard from Mr Smith's superior officer who said he wasn't told riot lines had been formed until he arrived on the scene more than halfway through the incident.

But today Mr Smith denied he'd misled his boss about the seriousness of the situation

Michael Vincent has been at the hearings and joins us now.

Michael, there's been a lot of speculation about Redfern police's operations on that night. How did Superintendent Smith respond today?

MICHAEL VINCENT: Well Superintendent Smith has described his command as unpredictable and volatile. He said he has young officers, but there was no revolving door for his staff.

There has been many criticisms of the operations in Redfern, and the area known specifically as 'The Block', which is run by the Aboriginal Housing Company.

ELEANOR HALL: Was he asked whether heroin or racism had anything to do with the riot?

MICHAEL VINCENT: No, surprisingly, no he wasn't asked that. That's been at the heart of the discussions as to what led to the riot itself. He did say heroin, well, he said robberies and drugs, specifically heroin were a major problem in the area. But he didn't say that that was the reason for the riot on the night.

As for what happened in the lead-up to the riot, he said that his officers had been in the field on the Saturday and on the Sunday, the night that Thomas Hickey, the 17-year-old died on the Sunday morning in the early hours.

There was obviously a great deal of feeling in the community about that. But he said his officers had no idea that the riot was going to take place, and that basically even posters going up on the Block, calling police child killers, he said he denied his officers ever saw them.

He just described the riot as a very unfortunate incident, and Superintendent Smith did not concede that there was anything wrong with his tactics on the night.

DENNIS SMITH: Police tactics on the night are quite defendable, we were very well aware, and it is often overlooked that there were a lot of aboriginal children at the forefront of the riot.

The tactics that police deployed in the night were very conscious of that. Yes it's distressing that the police were injured. However, we believe that we were limited in a lot of our activities because of the issues of the young children being at the forefront of the riot.

There were no Aboriginal children injured, physically injured during that riot. There were some timeliness issues about getting additional resources, both police and equipment onsite, and that will no doubt come from the Coburn (phonetic) Report. And with emergency management you live and learn.

ELEANOR HALL: The Redfern Local Area Commander Superintendent Dennis Smith at the inquiry this morning.

Michael, it seems surprising, that he is suggesting that there was no indication of a riot, given that a young boy had been killed earlier.

MICHAEL VINCENT: That's correct. I mean…

ELEANOR HALL: I should say the young boy had died…

MICHAEL VINCENT: Absolutely. The inquiry, the coroner's inquiry is due to be held next month into how the boy actually died.

Today the police officer in charge on the night, Dennis Smith, defended, obviously as you heard there, how he handled the riot and his communication specifically with his superior commander, who as you described in the lead, didn't actually know police riot lines had been formed until well into the riot itself.

He said that he'd been talking to his commander on the Saturday and on the Sunday, and that basically he believed that he had briefed him well. That's basically what we've heard this morning.

ELEANOR HALL: Michael thanks very much. Michael Vincent down at the Parliamentary inquiry into the Redfern riot in Sydney.

Further information: redfern riots

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