Thirty police hurt in Sydney, Australia riot

AAP ^ | 16th February 2004 | AAP

[KangarooJacqui]

Thirty police hurt in riot February 16, 2004 6.10AM AEDT

THIRTY police officers were injured as they were pelted with bricks and Molotov cocktails during an overnight riot in inner-Sydney sparked by a youth's death.

Police reinforcements from across Sydney were called to Redfern after the riot by 100 youths broke out at about 6pm (AEDT) yesterday.

A police spokeswoman said the riot ended early today and four people were in custody, with police still at the scene.

It appears the incident was sparked by the death of a 17-year-old boy who was impaled on a metal fence after falling from his bicycle on Saturday.

Thomas Hickey died in hospital yesterday morning from his injuries.

His mother says her son was pursued by police, but they deny the allegation.

The police spokeswoman said 30 officers were injured but it was not yet clear how many required hospital treatment.

"Thirty police officers were injured to varying degrees," she said.

Reinforcements brought in from across Sydney included police rescue, the dog squad and highway patrol officers.

"I can confirm Molotov cocktails were used and there were bricks and bottles and such," the spokeswoman said.

The four people arrested are yet to be charged.

The spokeswoman said the arrests came during a police sweep of the area and were not directly related to the riot.

Redfern railway station has been reopened after being shut for several hours during the standoff.

AAP

[Huber]

The Ozzies forgot to ban molotov cocktails when they banned guns! Heck, with the strict gun laws in Australia, they shouldn't really even need a police force anymore. I wonder what went wrong.../sarcasm

[archy]

What's going on down there?

Sounds like a bit of advance publicity for the forthcoming Mad Max IV film, "Fury Road"....

[risk]

What were Australians thinking when they decided to disarm the populace? It must be a continual frustration to your fellow patriots. Is any sort of popular initiative working to reverse the situation?

As we often say here, stay safe.

[ARA]

What does that statement mean... You see the report as stated and make that statement about the Aussies... I didn't think that at all... what about the riots in LA....

[the invisib1e hand]

Perps commit offenses and police sometimes chase them. Since when is that police misconduct?

they also chase suspects.

[archy]

(you sure you want to come to this part of the world? The Aboriginies are the supposed "peaceable" race... New Zealand's Maori cause even more trouble!)

Particularly the ones on the *All Blacks* team....

[KangarooJacqui]

Perps commit offenses and police sometimes chase them. Since when is that police misconduct?

they also chase suspects.

Well, the police are sticking to the story that they weren't chasing this guy... he just saw a squad car on a routine patrol and bolted.

The Premier of the State of New South Wales (that's what we call 'em here - not Governors), however, did announce in a press conference early this afternoon that independent official inquiries would be made into police conduct at both the original incident and the riots that ensued.

[KangarooJacqui]

oldfart was replying to Tjeras_Slim's comment about an entirely different story about anarchists, which has NOTHING to do with this story.

The anarchists in question are probably white, and reside in Melbourne, a town in a different state and fully 600 miles away from where the incident this thread is about took place. In other words, the two stories are NOT related.

This is a race-related thing, you're right, ARA. Just like the LA riots post-Rodney King verdict.

[KangarooJacqui]

What were Australians thinking when they decided to disarm the populace? It must be a continual frustration to your fellow patriots. Is any sort of popular initiative working to reverse the situation?

The Port Arthur massacre (Tasmania, 1996) pretty much stunned a lot of people - you know, sort of like 9/11 did for you guys? I could ask the same questions of Americans and the "liberties" that were taken from you in the wake of that episode in history!

As I recall, at the time there was an outcry, but the ban only applies to certain types of weapons (semi- and fully-automatics, amongst others - I'm no gun expert so I can't give full details...) However, contrary to the perception I'm seeing reflected back through certain posts on this thread, it wasn't like they decided NOBODY was going to be allowed ANY firearms. Plenty of people are still armed, there is just much tighter controls than in the US about who gets a gun licence and what sort of firearms they are allowed to keep.

And Australia, for all the images of the outback and the kangaroos and so forth that you guys up there might associate with us, is one of the most urbanised nations on earth. A lot of us have had nothing whatsoever to do with firearms in our entire lives. We are creatures of the suburbs or of the big cities... and as such, the closest we get to a gun is seeing one on a policeman's belt.

I might remind you that I am the widow of a FReeper who was a man who believed patriotism wasn't all about owning a gun (he never had very much to do with them in his lifetime, or in death if anyone was wondering!)

I happen to be a proud Australian who has always believed much the same thing... and unlike the US, where I saw "I shoot and I vote" bumper stickers, showing up on polling day is compulsory in this country, and most of us don't (and didn't) carry firearms. "I vote Conservative, I don't shoot..." and nationally, we're the majority.

[NZerFromHK]

In fact Chicago seems to be pretty peaceful when the issue race-related riots comes up. Detroit (city, not the suburb) and New Orleans are much worse (and Cleveland was). LA seems to be on the edge for quite some time but I heard things have been cooling down ever since it has a new Police Commissioner in 2001 and also presumably because the spectre of 9/11 and terrorism have tamed these things.

Sydney is quite conservative (politically, not socially) on many things, and to be blunt I suspect this type of riot comes up when a group of minority accepts victimized status and blames other people for their woes, and refusing to accept personal responsbilities. They were just making excuses to riot and to "raise their grievances".

And the leader of an Australian state is indeed the Premier. Governor is basically a symbolic post appointed by the Queen, nominated by the state Premier.

[KangarooJacqui]

In fact Chicago seems to be pretty peaceful when the issue race-related riots comes up.

Quite right. I apologise to anyone from Chicago I may have inadvertently offended.

Sydney is quite conservative (politically, not socially) on many things

Sorry but New South Wales (of which Sydney is both the capital and the largest city by FAR) has a Labor Party Government (our equivalent in Australia of the RATS, for our US friends) and has had for quite some time. If they're conservative, why aren't they VOTING that way?

to be blunt I suspect this type of riot comes up when a group of minority accepts victimized status and blames other people for their woes, and refusing to accept personal responsbilities.

Witness, for instance, the New Zealand militant Maori, and the ones who expect handouts just because they got there a couple of hundred years before Captain Cook. To be blunt, this riotous and frankly vile behaviour is Aboriginal separatism rearing its ugly head in one of the inner suburbs of Australia's largest city, where a large proportion of the population are low-income Aboriginals. It's not my fault most of the left-leaning media in this country are too afraid to print the word "Aboriginal" and call it what it is... a race riot.

As I believe I've mentioned before, this sort of thing is frightening. On many levels.

[NZerFromHK]

I was reading Paddy McGuinness's article when he remarked that many bleeding heart liberal measures will never get enacted in Sydney while they are on the rage in Melbourne. I think even though Sydney is dominated by the Labors for quite some time, these is no Labor Left as is Melbourne or Tasmania. The Sydneyside Labor (Labor Right) appears to be on the moderate wing of the Democratic Party (Joe Liberman).

[luvbach1]

they also chase suspects.

Yes they do. And that's also legal.

[luvbach1]

Memo to our friends abroad, the roaring 20s have ended in Chicago.

[KangarooJacqui]

Memo to our somewhat touchy American pals...

I apologised.

Which is more than I can say for some people.

Maybe those roaring twenties will come again. :-P

[KangarooJacqui]

Memo to all who brought up the topic of guns and/or added some keywords to this article which have nothing to do with anything in regards to this article:

Ping to post 49.

I repeat, wherever you got the idea that our current (Conservative) Federal Government "disarmed the populace" and "banned all guns" in Australia, you're wrong. And even if that had been the case, no shots were fired during this incident, so bringing that up is about as relevant to the thread in question as tossing in some reference to kangaroos or the 2000 Olympics.

It's about as helpful as some of the stereotypes I had about America before living there. As in, not very helpful at all.

Give it a break, please.

[risk]

I have plenty to write on the topic, but it's quite simple: Americans overthrew colonial rule because we are a different breed. It started when they tried to disarm us. This is an ancient conflict between tyrants and free peoples. If you are disarmed, you cannot force your government to adhere to those freedoms outlined in the Magna Carta and cited in word if not deed by the documents of the Commonwealth as well as the Republic of the United States of America. If you are disarmed, you will not remain free for long. It's a simple fact of life. No amount of urbanization, modernization, or "enlightenment" will protect you from the natural tendencies of authority to corrupt itself.

"I, (name), do swear as I shall answer to God at the great day of judgement, I have not, nor shall have in my possession any gun, sword, pistol or arm whatever, and never use tartan, plaid, or any part of the highland garb; and if I do so, may I be cursed, may I never see my wife and children, father, mother or relations, and lie without a Christian burial in a strange land, far from the graves of my forefathers and my kindred; may all this come across me if I break my oath." --Oath enforced on the Scottish Jacobite losers by the King's men after the Battle of Culloden Moor

You're welcome to tease us for considering ourselves as patriots only because we shoot, and you're right -- that alone wouldn't make us defenders of liberty, not by far. But in the long run, you will be happy that some of us maintain our guns, our shooting skills, and our willingness to stand against tyrants foreign and domestic.

As Australia starts to disarm, your freedoms may not be lost in this generation, but they may come in the next.

Some negative changes appear to be coming in already, for example The Australia Gun Ban Results Page claims that assaults are up 8.6% and homicides are up 3.2%. Armed robberies are up 44%! Victorian firearms homicides are up 300%, incredibly. This data is evidently from NRA Live. This may be the results of Australia's $500 million program to disarm its populace, destroying over 640,381 personal firearms. Your language of "only" the semi-automatics would suggest that you ought to find out more about this travesty before you defend it.

Today's events in Sydney would not tend to offer support for the continued disarmament of Australian society, or offer us any encouragement for encouraging any populace to reduce its arms. And you'll probably hear this again and again on FR, "Conservatives who don't shoot" are patriots without fangs.

[archy]

they also chase suspects.

Yes they do. And that's also legal.

Couldn't they give the police cheetahs for assistance ratrher than slower and more common police dogs?

[archy]

Memo to our friends abroad, the roaring 20s have ended in Chicago.

Now the home of the third largest Spoanish-speaking population of any city in the world, folowing Mexico City, D.F. and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

[BlackVeil]

But KangaJ is right. Most Australians, in the urban environment, did not have a gun in the first place, so never missed losing the right to have one. The ban on semi-automatics has hit farmers very hard, though. A bolt action rifle is an outdated weapon, it makes it very hard to do necessary work like eliminating feral pests.

A big difference, in Australian society, is that unlike Americans hand guns had little presence. They were rarely owned by ordinary people, only by security personell or criminals. It is very hard to get a pistol licence in Aust, and if you do, the terms are such that one cannot carry it around, it has to be locked up (so why have it?)

But at the moment, hand guns are just totally flourishing on the black market. Criminals in Sydney have them, and a large number of odd people manage to get them. There was a murder a few months ago, where a pharmacist was shot dead by a 13 year old boy who had a pistol! There is also a large number of people - especially in ethnic communities such as the Lebanese - who just decide that they would like to have a hand gun. They go out and buy it illegally for cash. As many of these are working in high risk areas such a taxi driving, and petrol stations on night shift, one can't altogether blame them.