Thanks to the Helpers. Let’s take care of ourselves and each other. Hanx pic.twitter.com/09gCdvzGcO

— Tom Hanks (@tomhanks) March 15, 2020

Actually managed to speak to someone from Centrelink on the phone today. I asked him how he was coping and he started crying.

— Messy Higgins (@silencewedge) March 23, 2020

They need to do it. It would be the only sport in the world. 1 billion people watching every game https://t.co/sxoysBBmn2

— henno (@jrhennessy) April 2, 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/08/nsw-police-watchdog-says-strip-searches-illegal-but-critics-say-findings-did-not-go-far-enough posted:

A New South Wales police watchdog investigation into seven strip searches including one in which a 16-year-old Aboriginal boy was physically forced to remove his shorts and squat has found that all of them were unlawful.

But the watchdog has been criticised for “not going far enough” in its findings, with Sarah Crellin, a principal solicitor at the Aboriginal Legal Service, saying she was “deeply disappointed that there have been no recommendations for disciplinary action” against individual officers.

On Friday the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission released the findings of five separate investigations into seven strip searches conducted between March 2015 and January 2019.

In one of the investigations, the LECC found that a search in which a 16-year-old Aboriginal boy was forcibly made to squat by a NSW police sergeant was unlawful and revealed wide-spread failures in the training of police.

“This investigation demonstrates that whatever educational methods are being utilised by the NSWPF to inform officers of their powers and responsibilities … they are not being universally applied in the practice of policing,” it stated.

On 25 November, 2018, the boy was carrying two grams of cannabis inside a cigar-shaped foil while walking with two friends on a main street “of a major town in regional north-western NSW”.

When he saw two officers approaching, the boy dropped the foil then picked it up and placed it in his pocket. One of the officers, a sergeant, mistakenly believed he had seen the boy put the cannabis down the back of his shorts.

Bodyworn camera footage reviewed by the LECC shows the boy was then stopped by the officers, who told his friends to leave. As he did, the boy shouted for them to tell his father what had happened.

Less than two minutes after he had been stopped, the sergeant told the boy to put his hands against a fence and then “began to pull the waistband of the boy’s shorts out so that he could look into the back of his pants,” an action which constitutes a strip search.

The boy objected to the search, saying to the officer “you can’t look down my pants cunt” and then “What are you doin’, you can’t put your hands down my bum ... you can search me down at the station when my parents are there”.

The officer replied: “Well, you actually don’t know the rules, we can search you.”

In NSW, police are only permitted to carry out field strip-searches if the urgency and seriousness of the situation requires it. In the case of minors, a parent or guardian must be present unless an immediate search is deemed necessary to protect the person or prevent evidence being destroyed.

In its report, the LECC stated the sergeant “would later concede that it was he who did not know the rules and that the 16-year-old boy’s understanding was correct”.

Less than four minutes after he was stopped, two more officers arrived at the scene. One of them, a constable, said to the boy: “I’m taking it out for you, am I?”

What the constable then did was not captured by the bodyworn camera, but after again failing to find the cannabis, the boy was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police van before being taken to the station.

Once there, he was again searched in the presence of two officers while in the vehicle dock. Footage released by the LECC shows the sergeant checking the boy’s pockets before untying the draw string of his shorts.

“He pulled the boy’s shorts down to the floor, lifted the back of his T-shirt and then pushed his right shoulder down in order to force him to squat,” the LECC’s report stated.

During the LECC’s investigation, the boy gave evidence that when one of the officers examined his clothing “he made a rude remark regarding the state of his shorts”. The LECC said the boy was “embarrassed by the officer’s comments and also by having to stand naked except for his shoes and T-shirt”.

During the search, one of the officers inspected the rear of the police van and found the cannabis. The LECC’s report stated the sergeant “conceded in evidence that, if he had searched this area first, he would have found the foil”. The boy was then questioned about the cannabis for about 30 seconds while he was still naked from the waist down. He also conceded that if he had conducted an adequate pat-down at the scene he likely would have found the cannabis in his pocket.

The boy was charged by the sergeant with possession of two grams of cannabis and released on strict bail conditions. He was later fined in the children’s court.

ah yes, a "failure of training"

Meyne Wyatt closes #QandA with a monologue from his play, City of Gold. pic.twitter.com/9ALFIYRAnq

— QandA (@QandA) June 8, 2020

Flying_horse_in_saudi_arabia posted:

Yeah no shit she "can't afford the risk of doing this" What kind of maniac locks up a 79 year old woman - their own mother no less - for 2 weeks. He even says she has "serious respiratory issues". I really hope she's been rescued and that she's now safe from this psychotic control freak.