Catching the cops
Few people in Australia tune into NITV, a state-funded indigenous TV channel. On typical days it receives just 0.1 percent of ratings nationally. But on 9 May there was a sudden spike. NITV had just broadcast a video clip filmed with a cell phone of a police car in Perth deliberately mowing down an Aboriginal teenager and causing him to have a seizure. His crime? Someone had reported ‘suspicious activity’ in the area.
The teenager was treated in hospital for his injuries, while the police officer involved has been stood down and is under internal investigation.
A better-than-usual ending? Only because a bystander had filmed the incident and shared it with the right people, says George Newhouse of the National Justice Project, a non-profit legal service in Sydney. ‘We are totally at a loss to understand
