NSW police commissioner put on the spot
By Danny Fairfax
SYDNEY — More than 100 people attended a public meeting with NSW Police Commissioner Peter Ryan at Ashfield Town Hall on January 27.
The meeting was organised by the Ethnic Communities Council of NSW and was attended by members of the Parents and Citizens Federation, Justice for Young People and Resistance, as well as Ashfield councillors and members of state parliament.
Ryan informed the audience of police initiatives supposedly to bring the police force closer to the community. He also unveiled the new police methods of describing suspects to minimise references to their ethnicity.
However, things went awry when Ryan was questioned on matters of police brutality, racism and harassment of young people.
The discussion procedure was extremely undemocratic: no statements from the audience were allowed, only questions; no second questions were allowed; and questioners were selected first from the front rows, where all the politicians were seated.
After the politicians had massaged Ryan's ego, two people, one the mother of a young person attacked by police while washing his car and the other the brother of a man attacked by police outside Star Casino last year, asked for explanations for these incidents. They were ruled out of order.
When Resistance activist Ryan Liddell asked the commissioner (who had emphasised his opposition to racism) to explain why 95% of young Aboriginal people have had violent contact with police and why Aboriginal men are 11 times more likely to be incarcerated than white men, Ryan could answer only, "I don't know".