Gangsters in Blue

Via ABC News and AFP-via-Google-news:

Man ‘cooked’ to death in Australian prison van

SYDNEY (AFP) — The family of an Australian Aboriginal elder who died after being “cooked” in the back of a scorching hot prison van may sue after a coroner branded his treatment inhumane.

A coroner Friday described the treatment of the 46-year-old man as a “disgrace” and inhumane, saying he would ask prosecutors to consider criminal charges over his death from heatstroke in Western Australia in January 2008.

The elder, known only as Mr Ward as his first name was withheld for cultural reasons, was transported 360 kilometres (225 miles) to jail in temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 F) in a van with faulty air conditioning.

Ward, who was arrested a day earlier for drink driving, spent four hours in the searing heat between the mining towns of Laverton and Kalgoorlie, suffering third-degree burns where his body touched the metal floor, the inquest heard.

Western Australia Coroner Alastair Hope found that Ward was effectively “cooked” to death and heavily criticised the state prisons department, the private security firm that operated the van and the two guards who escorted Ward.

“It is a disgrace that a prisoner in the 21st century, particularly a prisoner who has not been convicted of any crime, was transported for a long distance in high temperatures in this pod,” Hope said.

The hearing was told that when Ward eventually arrived unconscious at hospital in Kalgoorlie, his body was so hot that staff were unable to cool him down. After an ice bath, which failed to save him, he had a body temperature of 41.7 degrees Celsius as opposed to a normal temperature of 37 degrees Celsius.

Mr. Coroner Alastair Hope has it wrong, of course. The disgrace is that the uniformed gangsters roaming the countryside being paid with money stolen from innocents and kidnapping people, throwing them in chains and metal boxes in order to take them to larger cages made of concrete and steel where they’ll be kept like animals, all without said kidnap victims having harmed anyone, don’t wake up one fine morning to find their severed heads mounted on pikes along the palisades of the free cities.

But, oh, geez, I forgot. That wouldn’t be “civilized”, now, would it?

I’m sure it’s a great relief for the people of Occupied Australia that the two outsourced thugs from G4S aka Group 4 Securicor contracted for prisoner kidnap victim transport, “have now been suspended,” a year and a half later.

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Tags: Australia, crime, death, drunken driving, Gangsters in Blue, kidnapping, negligent homicide, outsourcing, prison

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From the Vancouver Sun:

Victoria must pay tethered teen $30,000

Friday, November 28, 2008

VICTORIA – Willow Kinloch has been granted half of the $60,000 she won in a lawsuit after being tethered in Victoria police cells, with the payment of the rest hinging on an appeal of her case by the City of Victoria.

The city had applied for a stay, or suspension, of payment until the appeal is heard, perhaps sometime next spring. But Justice Mary Saunders of the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that Kinloch is entitled to $30,000 now.

Kinloch’s case dates to 2005 when she was 15. A B.C. Supreme Court jury came up with the award earlier this year following a decision that officers had violated Kinloch’s charter rights.

Kinloch had been picked up by police in the downtown area for being drunk and was taken to police cells.

She spent about an hour screaming and banging on the walls before two officers tried to take her home to the apartment she shared with her mother.

The apartment intercom was broken and officers wouldn’t let Kinloch yell up to a window, so she was brought back to the police station. She did not want to return to a cell, and police described her as uncooperative. She ended up being bound at the ankles, tethered and left in the cell for four hours.

Kinloch is now in Thailand.

Here’s to hoping Ms. Kinloch is safe, given the unrest in Thailand at the moment.

See also:
The further education of Willow Kinloch
Victoria, BC citizenry to pay $60,000 to brutalized teen (includes video)

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Tags: bondage, Canada, crime, education, Gangsters in Blue, justice, law, lawsuit, money, rights, tax

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From the Edmonton Sun: Police appeal $60,000 court award to Victoria teen tied to jail cell door VICTORIA — Victoria police are appealing a court decision awarding $60,000 to a Victoria teen who spent four hours tied up in a padded cell and tethered to the cell door. My previous post on the topic, with video: Victoria, BC [...]

If there is a real investigation of this, what do you think will be the outcome for these fine uniformed thugs? Prison? Mall security? Or nothing at all? From WABC-TV, New York: Mistaken identity police brutality? [...] Minter’s video captures police in plain clothes milling around and a helicopter above. They’d apparently been chasing a suspect who crashed his car into the [...]

Willow Kinloch, then aged 15, got picked up three years ago by the Victoria police for the victimless crime of being drunk in public. For her own protection, or something. Somehow unable to manage taking an intoxicated, frightened young woman back to her mother, the cops take her back to a jail cell. Things get really [...]