Indigenous deaths in custody haunt Australia

” It’s a pain you ca n’t describe”, Raylene Nixon says quietly.

It’s “pain in your soul,” according to the saying,” It’s something that you feel deeper than a broken soul.”

She watched the death of her son in real time as he gasped for air and pleaded for support in a barren place in Australia in 2021.

One officer may become heard yelling” Choke him out,” while another film captures Steven Nixon- McKellar in a chokehold.

Moments afterwards, the 27- year- aged Indian man lost consciousness. Due to the obstruction of his throat caused by spit, doctors were unable to revive him.

Mr Nixon- McKellar is one of 562 Aboriginal Australians to death in police prison since 1991- the time a monument investigation, intended to turn the tide on the issue, released hundreds of recommendations.

But few of those ideas have been implemented, reports suggest, and Indigenous individuals continue to die at alarming levels in prison tissue, authorities vans, or during imprisonment.

According to federal statistics, last year was the most devastating time ever recorded.

Police activists insist that each death is carefully examined and that officials are using the necessary power when in potentially life-threatening circumstances.

But critics say there is a” culture of impunity” in which “police are investigating police” in cases alleging excessive force. They point out that there has never been a policeman or changes officer’s conviction for an Aboriginal death in their treatment.

” We’re sending a message to society about what is and is n’t acceptable behaviour”, criminologist Amanda Porter says.

” And in Australia at the moment- it’s empty time”.

Following an unnamed tip to Queensland police suggesting that Mr. Nixon-McClark had been driving a stolen car, he died during his intended arrest.

The officials involved have argued that he was “fighting” them at the scene, which makes it difficult to use a gun or pepper mist, and that they were using the neck hold, which is now prohibited.

However, Ms. Nixon wonders if their actions may have changed if her child had been light.

She tells the BBC,” The only thing they knew about him was his complexion color.”

The results from a sheriff’s inquiry into his dying will soon be made public.

His situation shares similarities with the 2015 death of David Dungay Jr. in a Sydney prison, a landmark event that has been compared to George Floyd’s suicide in the US.

Like Mr Floyd, Mr Dungay also repeatedly yelled” I ca n’t breathe” in his final moments.

When six soldiers entered his mobile wearing a riot shield to restrain him, the 26-year-old, who was diabetic, was trying to eat a bag of cakes. He was sedated by five of them after putting him face downward on a pillow.

” You’re the one who brought this on yourself Dungay”, one agent may be heard saying in images of the event. ” If you’re talking you may breathe”, another adds.

Corrective Services New South Wales has maintained that there was no criminal negligence in the suicide, and an inner exploration revealed no such thing.

A prosecutor did get that “agitation as a result of the use of power” was a contributing issue, along with Mr Dungay’s post- existing health conditions- but declined to take the case to prosecutors.

Mr. Dungay’s family has spearheaded a year-long campaign to charge the officers involved. The NSW Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions received a petition requesting more than 110 000 signatures. The office did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are overrepresented in Australia’s criminal justice system, which is a significant factor in the number of Indigenous deaths in custody.

That was one of the main findings of the inquiry from 1991, and it has onlygotten worse.

Today Indigenous people comprise 33 % of Australia’s prisoners, though they are just 3.8 % of the national population. Socio- economic disadvantage and “over- policing” are central to the disparity, numerous investigations have heard.

First Nations people have always been disproportionately segregated and controlled in Australia, according to Thalia Anthony, a law professor at the University of Technology Sydney.

She and others argue this has injected racist stereotypes into policing, leading to Indigenous Australians being treated as “deviant, drug addicted, or alcoholics” and paid undue attention.

In Queensland and the Northern Territory, reviews are currently being conducted to address allegations of widespread racism in both forces.

Western Australia Police has introduced strategies to address institutional racism, and Victoria Police’s chief commissioner recently offered an unreserved apology to Aboriginal families for “undetected, unchecked and unpunished” systemic discrimination.

Some services have been developed by federal and state governments to lower the rate of Indigenous incarceration. Canberra most recently made the commitment to funding community-led initiatives designed to address the root causes of discrimination and disadvantage.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney told the BBC,” Too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are being robbed of their futures by a system that has let them down.”

Experts have welcomed these initiatives, but many also advocate for extensive changes to bail conditions and the decriminalization of minor offenses, which they claim are the result of problems like homelessness.

Ms Burney said that state governments, which oversee local laws and policing, hold “most of the levers”.

And voter sentiment is one factor in why states frequently” create new offences, increasing sentences, and building more jails” despite falling crime rates, adds Prof. Luke McNamara from the University of New South Wales.

He refers to the conflict between the two theories as” an unresolved paradox” unfolding in real-time.

David Dungay Jr’s mother, Leetona, has now taken his case to the United Nations, filing a motion against state and federal governments for violating her son’s right to life. In the upcoming weeks, it will be decided.

She hopes it will prompt Australia to confront its record of” systemic failures” in incarceration and to confront its record.

” I want to get justice for David”, Ms Dungay tells the BBC. ” It was murder. No one made an effort to assist my son.

But if you ask Corina Rich,” no- one gets justice”.

In 2021, her son Brandon was killed after a protracted fight with police at his grandmother’s property in rural New South Wales.

Two police officers had been called to resolve a domestic dispute. In the end, Mr. Rich was pepper sprayed, stripped of his clothes, and pinged down as a result of their attempts to arrest him.

When he lost consciousness, police say they immediately tried to resuscitate him and failed. However, they did n’t wear body cameras, which is why the final moments of the 29-year-old were almost entirely based on the officers ‘ accounts.

NSW Police said that “remedial action” was taken against both for the camera violation.

A coroner last month discovered that Mr. Rich had died from physical exertion and stress, but it was not known whether the police had used force as a cause or not.

For Ms Rich, questions remain, and she relives that day on repeat- often in violent nightmares.

” I’m in my son’s position, when he’s dying on the ground. I do n’t have a life any more. Your whole world is gone, broken”.

When asked about the possibility of legal action, she almost laughs:” Nothing’s going to happen to the police. It never does.

” I do n’t think we’ll ever see change, as much as we want it. The whole system sucks.”

It’s a viewpoint shared by many Indigenous families and advocates who believe hope is hard to come by.

However, a warranted conviction of a police or prison officer over an Indigenous death in custody could be “breaking news” according to several experts who spoke to the BBC.

According to Prof. Anthony,” It would send a message that police are not immune from the criminal justice system.”

She continues,” We rarely” police not be believed by what are typically” non-Indigenous juries, and that only a small percentage of cases make it to trial.

The national police union of Australia declined to respond to questions from the BBC.

A resolution wo n’t be reached until there is ongoing public outcry over every Indigenous death, according to Ms. Nixon.

” When you’re only 3 % of the population, you rely on the other 97 % to do the right thing,” she says.

” It comes down to human compassion]but ] there’s still a blame the victim mentality- as though what happens to us is what we deserve. Maybe future generations will change that narrative.”