The death of Mulrinji Doomagee has received nationwide publicity. So too has the fully justified response from the local Murri community who smashed down the police station. It is now clear that the only way that Mulrinji, a healthy man, could have died was by being murdered. You do not rupture a kidney by accident. The only people with access to him were the police. The police must have killed him.
Many think that at last justice is finally being carried out. For the first time in modern Australia a police officer has been charged with the death of a black person in custody. It is a step forward that a government has finally acknowledged that the police are responsible. Even this took a hell of a lot of action. We believe that had it not been for the Palm Island insurrection, the Beattie government would have done nothing!
The Police Association is crying blue murder. They say that every police office will now be fearful that they too could be charged. Good! They have threatened industrial action. This type of industrial action is, of course, reactionary. The police want independence to murder and physically attack Black people with impunity. The fact that finally a cop has been prosecuted has encouraged many to pose prosecuting cops as the way forward in the fight against racist police attacks. We say it isn�t.
The experience of Palm Island shows it is extremely difficult to get the state to act. In general the state is there to protect itself and attack Black people. However, under some circumstances, it may prune off a bad apple.
The point for revolutionaries is that it is not merely the odd cop who is racist and murderous and must be re-educated or got rid of. The capitalist state is an institution of racist oppression. The answer is not to replace bad cops with good cops (there are none). The answer is fighting the whole racist system, the capitalist state. We want to fight the police force, not to reform it. Scape-goating one particular officer who uses more brutal means than usual will be used to reinforce the police force by reactionaries such as Beattie. Replace the capitalist police force! Working people should form defence guards to protect and defend Black people.