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At a glance it’s a mystery how Melbourne came to have an African gang problem. One day, or so it seemed, the City on the Yarra was as it had always been — a sprawling, sport-fixated country town, albeit with five million residents, never more content than when gazing into the navel of its parish-pump obsessions: AFL, artisan coffee, laneways, the sound of lawn mowers in what once was billed as the Garden State. Jaw-dropping crimes, a police force of dubious integrity, blatantly bent politicians — they were the hallmarks, or so we heard and believed, of cosmopolitan Sydney, that city of sin. Down here in the south we gave thanks for the good fortune to reside in a sedate, safe and civil burg.
Then, suddenly, we’re the South Bronx on the Bay, every morning’s news peppered with news of home invasions, riots, carjackings, robberies, assaults, police cars rammed. If Melbourne had a problem with “youths of African appearance”, according to the ever-quotable community leaders and activist lawyers The Age and ABC keep on speed-dial, it was that Victoria Police are bigots in blue who give young black men a hard time for no good reason at all.
Take the case of Magnus Kaba, a passenger in a car stopped by police for a routine licence and registration check in April, 2012, and depicted without exception in the media as a victim after being charged with a variety of offences. The state’s Human Rights Commission, which the former Baillieu/Napthine Liberal government promised to scrap but didn’t, also weighed in on Mr Kaba’s behalf. Those reports, though, omitted what many might regard as pertinent details.
As Magistrate Duncan Reynolds acknowledged when the case came before him, Mr Kaba has a very salty tongue indeed, plus a brazen eagerness to confront authority with his private parts. The young man began his dialogue with the police who had pulled over his friend and driver by posing the question, “How long this was fucking going to take. I have somewhere to be?”
While the registration check was being conducted, Mr Kaba climbed out of the car, identified by police records as having been formerly involved in a drug-related investigation, and began walking from the scene. One of the officers gave chase, stopped him and demanded that he identify himself “for the record”. At which point, as laid out in Magistrate Reynolds’ ruling, the following exchange took place (emphasis added):
… [Kaba was asked] for his name or identification to which he stated the response was ‘ … fuck off’. [Constable] Andrews again asked for indentification. [Constable] Randall had got out of the police car and approached Kaba. He stated to him that he needed his name ‘… to say I spoke to you’. Randall reported that the accused replied by saying ‘… go and get fucked cunt, I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Randall then informed Kalba that he had committed the offence of using offensive language. Randall stated that the accused said ‘… that’s fucking bullshit cunt, you are a racist‘.
The police officer then asked the accused for his name and address. The accused did not comply with the request and stated ‘… I don’t have to tell you anything, I’ve done nothing wrong’.
Randall then told Kaba that if he did not state his name and address, he would be placed under arrest ‘… until I can confirm who you are’.
The accused is said to have responded that ‘… this is fucking bullshit, you’re just harassing me because I am black‘. Randall then informed the accused that he was under arrest for failing to state his name and address. He was then requested to turn out his pockets.
Randall stated that Kaba then removed his T-shirt, dropped his trousers and underpants, exposed and grabbed hold of his penis and said ‘ … see I have got nothing on me.
That was not quite the end of the encounter or of the subsequent charges to be laid against Mr Kaba, who police allege grabbed and squeezed the arresting officer’s testicles while being led to the divvy van, an action credibly said to have caused Constable Randall “immense pain”.
Magistrate Reynolds subsequently ruled there is no common law power vested in police that gives them the unfettered right to stop or detain a person and seek identification, an opinion subsequently overturned on appeal.
But before that, next stop for Mr Kaba was the Flemington and Kensington Community Legal Centre, which does a brisk trade in identifying racism amongst police and where he joined five other plaintiffs — including a certain Jabril God (left), another son of the Dark Continent of whom there will be more later — in suing Victoria Police for compensation.
He and his fellow litigants collected an undisclosed sum, reported by The Age as being “tens of thousands of dollars”, when the Victorian government abruptly capitulated and settled, despite having spent some $3 million on its defence, according to then-Police Commissioner Ken Lay. Handing over money when accused of racist policing seems a near-reflex action in Victoria, regardless of which party is in government.
As to Mr God, who also shared in the windfall, he and his fellow plaintiffs were hailed as heroes by then-Police Commissioner Ken Lay, who lauded their courage, resilience and tenacity, which had “done their community proud”. As a mark of that respect and as part of the settlement, Victoria Police also went on record as stating the force in general, and constables Randall and Andrews in particular, agreed to “acknowledge that any policing involving discrimination on the basis of race is unacceptable”. All this, mind you, prompted by a young man who refused to give his name and allegedly thought it appropriate to wave his willy at a walloper.
As the two officers vehemently denied wrongdoing when the state was still spending taxpayer money on their defence, one can imagine how those words must not easily have passed their lips.
Oh, and as to Mr God, one of the plaintiff’s lauded by Commissioner Lay, that payout might well have come in handy in covering the cost of other legal matters in which he was involved. As the Sunday Herald Sun reported
AN AFRICAN refugee who won a payout from Victoria Police after claiming he was “racially abused ” has been exposed as a violent criminal.
A Sunday Herald Sun investigation has uncovered that Jibril God has a history of violence, drug abuse and has terrified ex-girlfriends and family members.
God embarrassed Victoria Police when he was awarded a payout reportedly worth tens of thousands of dollars after claiming that he was stopped and searched because he was black. (readers with a Herald Sun subscription can read the entire report here)
Two weeks ago in the outer western suburb of Werribee, a war of sorts raged in the night when police were called to a house party attended by, as they say, many “youths of African appearance.” Rocks were thrown, neighbouring homes damaged and cars vandalised while residents bolted their doors and prayed the fracas would conclude.
Not one arrest was made. Not one.
It is a safe bet the officers who maintained a softly-softly attitude amidst the rain of rocks and bottles were aware of what befell constables Randall and Andrews and the legal gauntlet of accusation and inquisition that became their comrades’ unhappy lot after doing what the policemen and the non-activist public deem to be their jobs and duty. They might also have understood, as a serving policeman told Quadrant Online, that being caught up in such a case does one’s career not a jot of good.
Should we be surprised no arrests were made in Werribee? What else are those in the trenches to do when their uniformed generals and civic leaders turn tail and run.
UPDATE: Even as this piece was being entered into Quadrant‘s publishing system, breaking reports of three more violent episodes involving people of African appearance were leading commercial radio news bulletins. The ABC (surpise!) focused on the alleged racist backlash against black people. If you haven’t yet heard the term “Africanphobia”, you will soon. Count on it.
Roger Franklin, b0rn and bred in Melbourne’s West, is the editor of Quadrant Online
Andrews really is a feckless and pathetic individual, with a stoop to match. Much of his public service seems to have fallen in line; certainly the courts. I’m so bored with hearing from African ‘advocates’ about how the society owes them in terms of ‘support’ and ‘services’. Again, a classical case of victim blaming.
yeah, spent 10 weeks in Melbourne last year – had more problems with crime than I have for the last decade in Canberra. The police are worthless: not surprising given what you’ve described, but still intolerable.
Andrews (the politician, not the policeman) is a great part of the problem, but what about the gutless Police Command that does not support their own people. My goodness, Ken is almost good enough to be an Army General these days.
Actually, I don’t see this as much different from the adulation of the murderous Kelly Gang of yesteryear, the Underbelly TV series and the illogical admiration of Blackbeard and his ilk (yet we condemn Somali pirates).
How many problems has Australia DELIBERATELY infected itself with, yet with 18C looming large it is a wonder Chris Kenny was even able to report the truth. Yet when Peter Dutton tries to deport foreign criminals he is vilified for saving the sheeples from the wolves.
Yes, also, has anyone seen Amanda Vanstone this week? Has she apologised for inflicting any of this on us? I used to live near the Kensington Housing Projects and could see a disaster waiting to happen – hundreds of kids living far too many for their small flat allocation.
Also, in this age of few manufacturing jobs and weak labor opportunities, the last thing we need is to import a bunch of low-skilled people from Africa, of all places.
The Japanese and Korean, etc, rejection of Leftist-multiculturalist-guilt-imposed, non-discriminatory mass immigration is lookin wiser by the minute.
I put in a late comment relevant to the above article in the previous article dealing with racism and the SBS. Jodie’s comments hit the nail on the head. I watched that SBS show about the Sudanese basketball team in Melbourne. It was a pathetic production. They conflated the situation of these gangs in Melbourne with the situation of Afro-Americans in the 60s in the USA. They even had a statutory white “American” racist from the 60s who was so self loathing it was embarrassing to watch, to say nothing of how contrived and torturous was the storyline and the emphasis on victimhood and extolling the virtues of criminality. It looked like it was written by some undergraduate who had just failed his exam in gender studies. Migrants to Australia in this day and age can achieve their potential, go to university, learn a trade etc. It is not like the USA in the 60s.There was an old saying “Only in America” but we can match it now with “Only in Victoria”. You don’t hear of this garbage happening now in other States who have obviously woken up that exempting certain groups from the law of the land ends in disaster.
Melbourne,now a small scale Johberg. Best get in early and put a wall around it.
Naaah
Better to find out the domestic arrangements of labor politicians and labor appointed policemen, then fund the building of hostels for criminal young people, in their suburbs.
Truly. Such a hostel near every polling place that voted overwhelmingly Green would also be a wake up call.
From the first paragraph of the article here:
> “What to call the apologists and practitioners of the blind eye who have excused and enabled them?”
It is hard to understand the motives of these people. Perhaps it is just as Keating once opined: “We’ll just swamp the Tories”. If so, noble cause corruption raises its’ head again – to make a “better world”, they must first destroy the existing order.
The perils of CO2, like the Perils of Pauline, do not faze me. Noble cause corruption does.
The base of this is, you do the crime, and there is no punishment and you can get rich suing the police for even daring to pull you over. ” He was a mean racist police man.” When I lived in Melbourne, you did the crime (generally) you got a boot up the backside. The Cops told your parents, and they administered a culturally appropriate punishment. I saw on Facebook a while ago, today we have “Elf on a shelf” to control kids behaviour, in my day it was a “belt on a shelf”.
I think it started with the ‘flower children’ of the 1960/1970s; they read new age child psychology books and had their gurus. Fundamental to this was (1) never hit your children; it damages them for life, (2) all children are basically beautiful and you can reason with them and talk gently with them to ‘negotiate’ discipline, (3) children are no less important than adults and NEED to be seen and heard, (4) everybody is oppressed by the ‘patriarchy’ and childrens’ well-being and self-esteem needs to be bolstered by having them win at everything they do, (5) children should be able to run free without fear of sanction from adults.
You might ask what all this has to do with Victoria; well, we now have the children and their children of these hippies. They’ve evolved into world class ‘enablers’ and apply their new-age psychology to criminals. They want to be everybody’s friends, just like their hippy parents did with their own children. They don’t believe in punishment and they think everybody who isn’t middle class and affluent is a victim of that same demographic. And the legal profession had the added ‘advantage’ of having their own worst fears confirmed at university through their marxist professors. It’s ugly, yes.
The fact that any attempt at law enforcement seemingly ends in the complete capitulation of general common sense, ably abetted by the judiciary, it is no wonder that the police have more or less given up on bringing these people to task. Until the larger general populace decide enough is enough and make a difference at the ballot box then the situation will inevitably get much worse before it (hopefully) gets better. Most readers of this site would have a pretty good idea of the solution to these issues but I suspect that the many of the communities currently affected are in terminal decline mainly as a result of immigration policies. What passes for political leadership both at the state and federal level is more interested in the feel good pc message than legislating for the good of the majority.
When the police refuse to act, when the State is incapable of providing protection – that is the time you begin to understand American gun laws.
[nods] Anyone who truly supports *our* gun laws should as a result want zero tolerance of this sort of crime, as it undermines the safety that permits a gun free society.