Cat Woods reports in Law School Journal Online
Between 2021 and 2022, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) assessed over 5000 complaints into the conduct of NSW Police, an increase of 31 per cent over the previous year. In one of the higher profile cases, Operation Hosta, the LECC found a NSW Police officer guilty of serious misconduct, having bullied a bystander who filmed an arrest involving unreasonable and excessive force.
This may have reminded the public of another high-profile case from 2018 (the recent subject of an ABC Background Briefing investigation), in which a Byron Bay police officer struck a disoriented 16-year old boy with his baton 18 times after using both a Taser and pepper spray. The act was caught on video by a bystander, filming from a nearby balcony, who was allegedly threatened and sworn at by the officer. During court testimony in a resulting criminal trial, a witness recalled that an officer wandered over to some onlookers and appeared to have been questioning whether they had recorded the act, using a threatening tone.
Samantha (Sam) Lee is a senior solicitor specialising in Police Powers and Administrative Law at Redfern Legal Centre. She says that footage provided by bystanders is increasingly relied upon in the absence of the use of body cameras by police. She views the CopWatch app as a tool that can empower the public.
“[Bystander footage is] a powerful tool, a strategy that you can give people. Body-worn video footage was meant to be used by police officers, but unfortunately in our practice we’re witnessing that a lot of body-worn cameras, which are discretionary, aren’t turned on. So, to ensure people’s rights are protected, and there is some visibility of excessive force in particular, it’s important to educate the community about these strategies.”
Lee mentions a recent case of footage taken by a bystander showing a 14-year-old Indigenous boy suffering a head injury during an arrest in the Northern Rivers region.
The allegation is that police caused a head injury. If we didn’t have footage, that would have gone away because it would have been too difficult to prove,” she says
“A picture speaks a thousand words,” Lee adds. “It’s very useful to have footage, and we have seen people using phones a lot more as both witnesses and recipients of policing behaviour. It can benefit everyone, including police. I’m able to see footage to [establish] that police have acted appropriately or … have overstepped the mark.
“The Danny Lim situation [where the a protester was filmed] is one where, fortunately, someone did film that interaction, and that captured a very important physical interaction … if it was just one person’s word against another [this] would be a huge hurdle for the person who had experienced the excessive force.”
Read the full article here (14 February 2023).
