Aboriginal man 'cooked to death' in prison van

This actually made me sick when I read it. I hope the two guards that were transporting him for four hours across the outback get the punishment that's due.
As a footnote; I wonder what the chances of this happening to a white man would be?

it is sickening.

Happens in UAE with kids too...


Not to "do down" the story from Chocky above, but can you imagine entrusting your bairn to somebody to get them to school and then that happens... Doesn't bear thinking about...

My niece was locked on a school bus in the southern US heat. Thankfully she was OK, but this shit happens more often than you think.

There are so many ways to kill a black man - or woman, or child - over there and get away with it. This happened in Jan 08, and only now do the guards get 'suspended'?

Didn't something like this happen across Europe during the Summer of 2003?

It doesn't sound as if this was an accident. The heat in the back of the van must have been far higher than 47C for him to suffer third degree burns when he fell on the floor.

Some evidence to back this up? Because frankly, that's the biggest load of bullshit I've heard in a long while.


Well if the sun was somehow shining on the floor, it could have been substantially hotter than the actual temperature in there. However the whole thing sounds somewhat unusual.

If the outside temperature was 47C and the floor was made of metal, it would hardly be necessary for the sun to be shining on the floor in order for it to heat up.

Well unless the sun was shining on it, the floor couldn't have been hotter than 47 degrees, which isn't going to give you third degree burns.

So what's your point Hutcho? The guy died as a result of overheating, and (according to the report) he had 3rd degree burns, so whether the sun was shining on the floor, he was subjected to actual physical abuse, or he was intentionally cooked alive is irrelevant. The fact is, he is dead, and he died as a result of negligence, intentional or otherwise at the hands of the two cunts who were driving the van.

Well, I quoted the article saying that 20% of all prisoners were Aboriginal - a good way to take someone’s life away is lock them up. Also in my above statement I pointed out that the 2 responsible for this were still doing to the same job for 18 months after it happened, which I find shocking.
I lived in Oz shortly after the royal commission into police murders, so that is my frame of reference and it's not current I admit. Also, my dad is a racist Australian - another outdated point of reference as we haven’t spoken for many years.
So, maybe it is bullshit, but it's just my perception that a country founded on genocide and with a recent history of police indifference/brutality takes time to change. Maybe the police do spend as much time investigating murders of Aborigines as anyone else.

Locked up after being tried and convicted in a court of law, just like anyone else, and by the sounds of it just like these guards will be. We're not racist bastards who go around arbitrarily imprisoning Aborigines for the fun of it, so please drop the 'All Aussies are racist because someone I know is' bullshit.

There's nothing in the Guardian article to indicate that the guards will be tried in a court of law. It simply says they've been suspended from duty, while this ABC report says that they they've just been transferred to another location. So it looks as if no crime was committed by Australian standards.

Of course not all Aussies are racist, but unfortunately your people are represented by your government and the way it operates reflects on the population as a whole. Too bad.

And our government works similar to that of any other Western country, for example it's prone to incompetence and badly managed prvatisation projects:


http://www.smh.com.au/national/fatalvan-fi...90615-cat6.html

Still no evidence of either Austrlians' or our government's evil plans to "kill a black man - or woman, or child - over there and get away with it", so can we please drop the racist bullshit and call it for what it is - a terrible tragedy caused by incompetence.

Edit: Not saying incompetence excuses it - the people responsible should of course be brought to justice

'Still no evidence' - 'call it for what is is - a terrible tragedy caused by incompetence'. Um, can you not see the problem with that argument? You're expecting people to not regard this as a racist incident based on what? I think i'll retain my right to call it for what it is - the death of a black mab caused by a racist institution that hasn't really changed much since colonial times. Ok?

I absolutely did not say all Aussies are racist, nor do I think that having known many over the years. To say so would be very ignorant. I highlighted the racism in the police force and judicial system of the eighties (with people getting away with murder) and said that shit takes time to change. Will the police investigate deaths of black, Asians and whites equally now? Is 20% of crime really committed by Aborigines, or do they get caught more or get harsher sentences? I obviously don’t know but I just have a bad impression of how the Aboriginal people have been treated.
But to reiterate, I didn’t say all white Aussies are racist, nor do I think that all racist Aussies are white. I said racist white cops got away with murder when, or shortly before, I lived there.

Huh? I showed there have been reports of problems in the way prisoners are transported, seemingly due to how it's been privatised. You're the one calling it a racist incident based on nothing; except perhaps your own prejudices against white Australians?

Ok fair enough, I got the wrong impression from your posts then.

You showed shit; and this has nothing to do with my views on racist white Australians of which there are as many as in any country, but more to do with being realistic.
My country (UK) had issues with institutionalised racism that were basically ignored until the death of Stephen Lawrence, I wonder how many more deaths/murders of aboriginals in Australia will have to happen before people like you pull your heads out of your arses and end your delusions about how totally wonderful and beyond reproach your country is.

This is why we don't have guilty-until-proven-innocent, because anybody can make allegations that can't be disproven. Ie. Because Australia has many nasty racist happenings in its history people such as you automatically assume any bad incident involving Aborigines and white people is because the whites are evil and racist. No matter if incident turns out to be due to simple government incompetence, bad training and negligence of the drivers or whatever, there's no absolute way to prove that the guards in that van weren't evil racists who like cooking people to death or that the whole arrangement is part of some systematic government plan to do the same.

You're no better than the racists you're ranting against, tarring a whole ethnic group and a whole country and system of government as inherently racist and murderous because of one incident, without any evidence to back it up. BTW I never have or would claim that Aust. doesn't have racism, or that it's perfect (did you read my previous post?), but nice strawman to round off an overall dumb and hypocritical argument.

Gentlemen, I think we all agree that racism happens everywhere and that something must be done against it.
But let's stick with a polite and respectful language, please. After all, insulting someone is a display of despise, which is a form of discrimination, and from discrimination to racism it's only one tiny step.

Look, you two do agree on the main point: racism is evil and must not be tolerated. You merely phrased it differently. Don't quarrel about the form, please. It's the central thought that counts and that thought the both of you do share.


You have an excellent memory! That was no prisoner transport but a container full of Asian refugees that tried to get smuggled into GB or out of GB (I don't exactly recollect). When they were finally found by tax inspectors they had died from suffocation. IIRC, they had been crammed so tightly into the little hiding space that the dead bodies stood upright.

I suggest you look up the definition of strawman, it's a term used way too loosely by people whose arguments are ambiguous to the point of becoming meaningless. I suppose having this discussion with an Australian is pretty pointless, have a nice evening.

The strawman was the "wonderful beyond reproach your country is" sentence, a point I wasn't trying to argue at all.


Yes there's no point in continuing this.

This story just reinforces my opinion that one should stay away and avoid the police and other security forces as practically as possible.

Anyway one doesn't have to be a different race to have problems with police/security people.
The following is an account of an epsisode between white people.

My nephew (age 13) was walking along Greenwich High Street London one evening with a friend and a police car pulls up.
The police open the car boot (trunk) and ask the boys what weapon they want. Want for what they ask – the weapon you are going to be nicked with.
One chose a knife and the other a hammer and they got hauled off.
Fortunately just twenty minutes before this event they had been stopped and searched by a different policeman and women and they were found to be clean.

Very soon after my sister arranged an appointment with the Chief Inspector and explained the situation. Nephew got many thousand of pounds compensation.
Not such a happy outcome for this aboriginal guy though.

I was going to respond to Chocky's ridiculous generalisations and his need to jump on the "it's cause you're racist!" bandwagon, but tim has put him in his place nicely. Good work tim.

Indians speak out on Australian attacks (BBC News)

Perhaps a society which accepts that Aborigines can still be treated like animals (otherwise the perpetrators in this case would surely be prosecuted), or which denies that Asians face racial discrimination, hasn't really moved on from the "White Australia policy":


White Australia policy (Wikipedia)


White Australia policy (Wikipedia)

Interesting, especially this quote from the teacher:


Sydney isn't south-central LA but it isn't Munich either - there's a real problem with petty crimes (robberies and assaults) in that city when you go out at night, and particularly bad in some of the western suburbs. It's not surprising that students from overseas end up in those areas as they're cheap (a lot of us 'natives' avoid them) and close to city centres, universities etc. (unlike in the US and UK, many/most Australians live at home when they're at Uni).

Reading the Aussie newspapers, someof the suspects are reported as being of the proverbial 'middle eastern appearance', not always redneck whites. The same alleged attacks by those of 'middle eastern appearance' on white people sparked the anger and hate that caused the Cronulla racist riots 3 odd years ago. The point is things are not always as simple in a multi-ethnic country as 'racist whites beat up on brown/black/etc people'

Ever heard of constructive criticism Hutcho? Read again. I wasn't calling all Australians racist, but you and Timmy aren't prepared to accept that there might be a problem with institutionalised racism in your country.

Here's a few more examples of suspect aboriginal deaths for you to ponder from eniar.org

Chocky, as stated before I'm not claiming Oz doesn't have problems, just that this whole charge of institutionlised racism (a la South Africa back in the day I'm guessing) and the implication of the majority of us having rednecks is bullshit, and probably racist in itself. I've looked quickly at that site (I'm at work) but could only see the current case and the Palm Island one from 2004. This one resulted in a storm of controversy and lots of investigation as you'd expect, the fact that the corner's final conclusion didn't fit that website's preconceived ideas doesn't make us all racists.

White Australia policy (Wikipedia)

Not as additional attacks Tim555, but the experiences of 2 of my good friends when living for about a year in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne, one caucasian English and one fairly whitewashed Indian) haven't been great race-wise. Nothing overt, but they got an impression of certain ethnicities being looked down on (Italians I think it was), and they personally felt like they always got ignored at bars, the locals always got to jump queues and such... for such big cities I was quite surprised! Would you say these were just coincidental then? I've only ever interacted with expat Aussies and never had any bad experiences

@Lorelei No one's deny that that happened but the White Australia policy was abandoned decades ago. The population is now nearly 10% Asian due to the rapid and non-discriminated immigration allowed since then. This even continued during the years that Howard was prime minister.

@TaniMew I can't speak for your friends but I can say I've never been skipped forward in pub/club lines - only seen it happen to chicks who know the bouncers

Having just done a bit of reading about this topic I noticed that the average age of Aborigines is 21, while for white Australians it's 37. So, lots of them do die well before they should. Aborigines are also twice as likely to suffer violent crime than whites, and while it didn’t say so, I think that will mainly be from others in their community fuelled by booze, depression and poverty.

There is no quick solution for this, but over time I hope attitudes will change (of blacks and whites) and the indigenous population will eventually have the same levels of protection, education, employment (including high level careers) and health as everyone else while still maintaining their identity and beliefs.

Like I said before, I wasn't claiming that all Australians are racists, a bit behind the times maybe, but not all racist.

American prisoner died in an outdoor cage in the Arizona desert waiting to be transferred to mental institution.

http://www.stern.de/panorama/:Trag%F6die-U...ual/703953.html

Like BatallionBoy said


Poor woman.

"Aboriginal man 'cooked to death' in prison van "

I suppose all the Australian Racists said ... WELL DONE ::

"White women cooked to death in US prison."

I suppose all the American Racists said WELL DONE.

Makes as much sense .

Thats right your getting the idea!

(now what about my 50€ )

"A senior United Nations human rights official has criticised Australia's measures to fight child abuse and alcoholism in Aboriginal communities. Prof James Anaya said the measures were discriminatory and stigmatised indigenous people."
UN condemns Aboriginal treatment