COVID-19 'ignorance' as large crowd attacks police

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About 60 people attacked police who were trying to disperse a crowd of 150 at Charles Creek town camp, gathered at 3am in violation of COVID-19 rules.
 
They were throwing bottles and displaying anti-social behaviour, says a police release.
 
Commissioner Jamie Chalker (pictured) is quoted as saying this conduct towards police and reports of rocks being thrown at a St John ambulance and a taxi “are completely unacceptable.
 
“Frontline responders are leading the way to ensure the safety of people and to save lives.
 
“We have no time for ignorance. We need everyone to bond together.
 
“Mass gatherings go completely against the national messaging and the high importance that everyone is placing around self-quarantine at the moment, ensuring appropriate social distancing,” Commissioner Chalker is quoted.
 
“The sad reality is, the many moves we are making are based on the fact we know there is a vulnerable cohort living in the Northern Territory.
 
“We are taking many steps to ensure that those people have a significant likelihood of surviving COVID-19.
 
“Many are Aboriginal people, and I need leadership in those communities to make sure that there is a higher level of education and awareness.
 
“I’ll certainly be making phone calls to key leaders that I know and have a great working relationship with.
 
“I am tapping into the Aboriginal leadership because there have been many messages being put out particularly through social media, many in language.
 
“It is beyond comprehension that nobody amongst that 150 in particular, or those who are parents or guardians of those juveniles, would have no awareness of COVID-19, nor the strict measures we have moved to.”
 
 
 

10 COMMENTS

  1. I said it before. NT Police could not control the violence and social breakdown that’s going on in this town even before COVID-19 and it will only get worse. Bring in the army now. As it will only become worse.

  2. There is an old saying. Problems are just opportunities for solutions. Maybe we are looking at this virus all wrong? Did someone mention natural selection?

  3. And after the coming tragedy of deaths in communities will come the calls that the Government didn’t do enough. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

  4. It is hard to comprehend as a civilised person in western culture that gathering in a public place with a deadly virus pervading Alice Springs after being directed not to congregate; that a group of Aboriginal people revolt against the Northern Territory Police who are simply protecting everybody in the community.
    Let’s get it straight, some Aboriginal people are so uneducated they still believe in superstition as real. Therefore, their ability to act as a civilised group is diminished to the point whereby force is required to disperse them.
    The end result is that you may die from a virus in Alice Springs because [some] Aboriginal people cannot act in a civilised manner. The days of Aboriginal people being able to act contrary to the good of the broader community is over.
    The Australian People, its economy severely damaged, will no longer fund Aboriginal activists and the Aboriginal industry generally.
    Australia as a result of its economic stimulus of now $200 billion and going up will take decades to reduce [its debt]. We will from this moment on face fiscal constraints not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It’s bad economically and will take decades to repair.
    We may enter a depression as the economy is now closed and may continue for month’s or possibly years.
    That means organisations like Congress and others will not be funded and will disappear as something from a long-gone era.
    We as a community must realise that whatever happens in the Northern Territory, the NT Police must be fully funded and given extra powers to remove recalcitrant people, in particular Aboriginal people, who are anti-social are placed in prisons in desert camps under heavy guard as in Texas and other places in the United States.
    The principle is simple, cut the cancer out of society and society is healthy.
    We have got to this point because some Aboriginal people ignore education, live off the efforts of hard-working mainstream and Aboriginal Australians and we have had enough.
    The recession and or depression we face will bring about change and Aboriginal people better get to school and start working, that is if it is not too late.
    Circumstances may become so bad that Alice Springs may be reduced to an Elliot size town with its former inhabitants dispersed to more civilised areas of Australia.
    So, get behind the NT Police, welcome them wherever they maybe and appreciate their lot in life.
    Without police protecting us our town becomes unliveable.
    God bless our NT police officers, we stand with you at all times.

  5. Something has to be done and fast, to stop Aborigines walking in family groups on the footpaths and parks.
    How can you tell your children they cannot go to the parks when they see other kids doing it?
    This is not a racist comment as I still give water like usually to the old women coming regularly to my gate, but they are not a group: one only comes to the gate and keeps the required distance.

  6. Police should not be on the front line policing Aboriginal people during this pandemic.
    It is unfair to the officers and a wasted effort.
    What can they do to enforce social distancing?
    Jail has been normalised and poses no threat and in any case it has mostly been shut down.
    On the downside police and Aboriginal people need to maintain and build a positive relationship where police are trusted and listened to.
    That relationship is out there on many communities so it is possible.
    Aboriginal people are very open to being persuaded by those they trust.
    There is a role here for the churches, for Congress and Tangentyere.

  7. Those who went through the 1982 and 1990 recession remember the long queues out of the CES Commonwealth Employment Service.
    It was a hard time for Australians but I remember when I was a kid those jolly old Aussie timers from the depression who always were happy and helped each other. “Howya goin” is now a greeting, it came from those great Australians in the depression travelling the nation looking for work.
    “By foot or I might jump a goods train going to Adelaide.”
    So did the sack, which was a hessian bag with some food and provisions given to employees that could not be kept on or employed due to the depression. You were given the sack and gently told to go on your way. The land of milk and honey had turned very sour.
    I feel some have not grasped reality, the nation of Australia and most of the world has closed down.
    We have a new world now, the 27-year run of positive growth, that being not enduring a recession are well and truly gone.
    A tragedy yes, especially for the younger people in society who will now most probably be unemployed for some time. Something not experienced by economic constrain however, it’s now reality and we must get used to it.
    So, we are all in it together and it would be nice if those Aboriginal people who endanger lives especially the sickly and elderly either conform as we all do or leave.
    Reality is police will be the front line and we must support them, as some become recalcitrant to the laws that keep a civilised society.
    We need to move on, yesterday is gone, let us revive Australia which we will, in the meantime act like our forefathers did and smile and help each other where we can.
    A smile does not cost anything.

  8. Yes. Totally agree, David, the army need to act.
    Why aren’t the Central Land Council, Tangentyere and all the other Aboriginal organisations dealing with their camps? They all need to be spoken to severely about what they are not doing.

  9. @ Gongoozler: Your right to comment is respected.
    You have a dim view of Aboriginal people, they are the cause of all the problems in the world (your world).
    Yes, there are problems in that sector.
    Get better informed though how all that came about.
    Such as dispossession and other insignificant historical details like that. Move to better civilised parts of the country?
    Where is that? Murder, domestic violence, drug dealing, shootings, rapes, brawls over loo paper inconsiderate of old people, disabled and trampling of kids.
    That’s Civilised.
    The Coronavirus pandemic could be a leveler for many of us. No good blame shifting. This is a time to work together more than ever to deal with whatever this pandemic causes or throws at us.

  10. @ David: There are a lot of people who have a dim view of Indigenous people in Australia and here in the States, the reasons are obvious as is the anti-social and economic waste.
    I remember hearing these “lets work together” comments on Indigenous issues when I was in Katherine and Alice Springs.
    Meaning, let’s have more government money for nonsense programs and get money for doing nothing.
    People are not simple-minded, we all know Indigenous people cause social and economic conundrums by their lack of education.
    We solved a lot here in the desert in Texas by what the Gongoozler advised.
    As Harry S Truman from Granview Missouri our Great President said: “I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.”

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