Town camp drunks attack police, ignore COVID rules

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“It is unacceptable that groups continue to defy physical distancing directions and take up valuable police
 
resources by consuming liquor in restricted areas, causing disturbances, threatening police and damaging property.
 
“Police officers are there to keep people safe, and have been working tirelessly with other agencies to protect vulnerable people in our community as part of the COVID-19 response.”
 
The displeasure of Police Commander Bradley Currie (pictured) is palpable after “a large group of intoxicated people surrounded and threatened police” at the Hidden Valley Town Camp when “rocks were thrown at the police vehicle, causing damage.
 
“It is unacceptable that groups continue to defy physical distancing directions and take up valuable police resources by consuming liquor in restricted areas, causing disturbances, threatening police and damaging property,” says Commander Currie.
 
“Unfortunately, what is very clear is that those involved last night are some of our most vulnerable.
 
“It is concerning that people are continuing to ignore guidelines, and if this ignorance continues the risk will continue to rise as we navigate our way through the prevention and response to COVID-19.
 
“We need leadership within our community so we can work together to stop this behaviour.”
 
Commander Currie says police are continuing to investigate the incident to identify offenders.
 
 
 

15 COMMENTS

  1. Corona Virus has emptied Treasury. This means costs imposed on Australia by remote area crimes will be last on the list to be considered.
    After all the economy is funded by people who work and produce income tax.
    So there will be less police and constrained budgets.
    Saudis have tent jails in their deserts and they are really harsh places.
    The days of using police as punching bags are OVER!

  2. It’s time these Myalls are dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
    All the money all the services, all the legal aid, cut it right now.
    They are a disgrace to civilised Australia and an embarrassment to all the good solid Aboriginal people of this town.

  3. Why does government allow these drunks free in community?
    They bash us and take our basic cards?
    Police try to help but must be sick of getting abuse and taking us to hospital.
    They ask me to be a woman police. No way, too much violence in community.

  4. Nothing but praise for the police and 131444 Policelink service who attended to my call last night in Larapinta.
    Yesterday was obviously payday and this group started drinking right after 2pm when the bottle shops opened.

  5. It says something about our decision makers that this kind of event is normal and happens more and more.
    The lack of consequences and outrage shows they are OK with this kind of behaviour.

  6. This article could come across as racist and ignorant coverage of the plight of some of the most vulnerable people.
    The First Nations people are still trying to recover and heal from colonisation, climate change, a virus and Alice Springs people who don’t have a safe home are as vulnerable as anyone.
    “Australia” struggles to trust these people and during a virus, we can all learn how to ask for help and to offer help when we can including everyone!
    There is a group effort needed to talk about and organise together to help vulnerable people including wonderful First Nations people. Anyone who is in need, especially when people are drunk.
    Where is the context in this article? What nonsense is written here holding people responsible for being homeless, dispossessed, and afraid and drinking?
    Many people are drinking across the world and much much worse at the moment.
    It is good that the vulnerability of these people is acknowledged in this writing, however who are these people? Who do they have to help them? Why are they drinking (yes, a question which requires understanding rather than judgement)?
    Where are they able to feel safe and more relaxed?
    What are they asking for and who is responding to them?
    Whom do they trust to help them?
    Trust is vital.
    Help by listening to these people. By finding people they trust to bring what they need, to communicate respectfully with them.
    How can they communicate? Can they access a phone, a meal? A bed? Water? How can they safely be transported to where they might feel better off?
    Remember, lots of people drink and some people are very triggered by the sight of a police uniform, or any government person for that matter.
    These people need people whom they trust. Please find the right people to help them and don’t waste money on police who can make the situation worse if they are not particularly known to and trusted by people who are indeed vulnerable to the virus.
    The racism and the ongoing stress put on their finding safety, continuity, access to country and culture.
    Please help these people.

  7. Try and look at this through another person’s eyes.
    When I was 10 years old I was walking along Bloomfield Street going home from the pool with two of my family members, who were only 13 and 11 years old.
    A man tried to run us over. After that, back home, I was trying to understand what just went on.
    As a kid it made me angry at 10, and that was 2000.
    Is Alice ever going to change?
    All these new police coming here from another place with their views of us.
    Try and take a look from our eyes. I used to work at a bottle shop you didn’t have to be blind to see who they target. Not all drunks are black.

  8. Janine Paradiso: We don’t have time for the touchy feely slow as you go responses. It simply does not work.
    Most of us are sick to death of the apologists.
    The more we apologise the worse the situation gets. You need to live in the now, 16/4/2020 and the world is in massive crisis.
    I feel for the front line health care workers and police who have to risk their own safety and health dealing situations that result from a lawless selfish minority.

  9. Janine Paradiso: This article is not about dealing with climate change, being homeless or accessing a phone or a bed.
    This article is about the following unacceptable actions: “Surrounded and threatened police” and “rocks were thrown at the police vehicle, causing damage”.
    If these actions are acceptable to you perhaps the community of Alice Springs does not benefit from having you among us (assuming you are even a local).

  10. Pretty simple really, act like a feral and be treated like one. Regardless of colour or religious beliefs.
    Respect and be respected.
    Don’t blame the police, they are doing the job we want them to do.

  11. You will never know what it’s like to grow up watching everywhere else change except this place.
    Stick to Darwin mate, always people there with the view it’s never changed.
    New people come with the same old views. Like I said, try to be in someone else’s shoes for once instead of in mummy’s and daddy’s.

  12. @ Janine Paradiso: No, I went to school and TAFE when Aboriginal kids did not go to school and when they did, wrecked the class.
    Many are now in jail, dead by alcohol abuse or crippled living in squalor in community.
    They did not have parents making them go to school like mine. Australians, especially new migrants, over east see us as a backward people who are like cavemen.
    Do NOT apologise for me.
    I am a Wiradjuri woman with Arrente family in Alice Springs but Australian at heart.
    Do NOT apologise for these drunks who attack me and my family.
    I call the police and they are good.
    No more apologies.
    It is not honest to blame white society for those Indigenous who will not educate themselves.

  13. Welcome back, Janine.
    I have seen you and read your words many times over the last 20 years.
    Although when I read them this time I was unsure if I should be content to just roll my eyes or get angry or simply scroll on past.
    You have come here many times before and told all the locals where they have gone wrong, how everything we have tried is wrong, and we have simply failed to ask the right questions.
    You personally, are obviously fairly new to town but once again have the answers by using terms like First Nations, the vulnerable, and any other paternalistic term you can think of.
    You will discover that the people you are talking about really don’t care about the sympathy or empathy you express here.
    You have been here so many times before in many different guises, telling the locals who live here how they should have been more empathetic in the first place, and how kindness will win the day, generational trauma etc etc.
    My people were killed by Germans, Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese, but I don’t teach my kids to hate them, nor to I get reminded that I should be traumatised when I see them.
    I don’t use it as an excuse to be an ass**$e when told I need to modify my behaviour.
    Before you run back to where you came from blaming everybody else for stopping your ideas from changing this part of the world, you need to understand we have heard it all before, and until we grow the balls to start dealing with these people with every power the law can provide, it will not stay the same, it will continue the downward spiral.
    Your approach has been tried and has made things worse.
    These are some bad people, empowered by the veil you put on them of vulnerability, knowing this gives them protection by the lawyers who are funded to defend their abhorrent behaviour time and time again, combined with the judges who are more interested in reducing incarceration rates than making the punishment fit the crime.
    They can choose to live their lives in a traditional manner as over 51% of the NT is Aboriginal owned.
    Instead they come into town at these town camps, and get on the grog, creating havoc for the residents who call the police.
    Unfortunately the police know that doing what needs to be done could land them in all sorts of strife due to the overly cautious approach they are forced to work under.
    They have become powerless punching bags because you and your previous incarnations have convinced the power brokers that they are just naughty kids that are too stupid to take responsibility for themselves.
    Triggered by the sight of a uniform? What a load of PC rubbish.
    Most criminals would be triggered, and so they should be, because it used to be that they would be taken to task and be made to think about their actions.
    Strange how the moms and kids at these town camps are happy to call the police, and they are not triggered by them.
    Do you realise we have some amazing Aboriginal officers?
    Nowadays they are treated as fragile clients, who have no issue bashing the crap out of their own women and kids, undoing all the good work the real TOs and long term Aboriginal families of this area have put In.
    Open your eyes and get down from your PC horse and understand that empowering these people does not mean they will bloom into a beautiful flower.
    Some many turn into weeds that need to be dealt with to save the whole garden from ruin.

  14. @ Tracy Larkin: I agree, Tracy has hit the nail on the head. I can tell you as an Aboriginal woman police work in community is not only dangerous on duty but also off duty.
    I take my hat off to the police all over Australia who are abused more than any other occupation I know of.
    I wonder what this Coronavirus will do to police budgets and if those NT Police resources slowly recede from remote areas. We really need them more than ever. Next time you pass a NT Police Officer say Thank You!

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