home | news l

Police defend Redfern riot strategies

By 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.

Source: ABC

Further information: redfern riots

|| click to go to the top of this page