22 December 2019 4WardEverUK

Urgent action needed on Indigenous deaths in police custody

source: Griffith University
published: 19 December 2019

Recent high-profile deaths of Indigenous people in police custody show a lack of meaningful progress despite over 25 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody says a Griffith University law professor.

Professor Elena Marchetti says while a recent Australian Institute of Criminology report shows deaths of Indigenous people have declined proportionally and are fewer than non-Indigenous deaths in prison, there was less certainty about police custody deaths.

Continue reading

21 December 2019 4WardEverUK

Voices from the criminal injustice system : ‘I am Troy Davis’

originally by: Workers World
published: 18 December 2019

A sold-out crowd at Rattlesticks Theater in the West Village on Dec. 8 heard readings from the book “I Am Troy Davis,” which features the stories of dozens of people whose lives have been cruelly affected by the state and its racist criminal injustice system.

Troy Davis, an African-American man accused of killing a cop, was executed in Georgia on Sept. 21, 2011, despite seven of nine witnesses recanting their trial testimony and a mountain of uncovered evidence proving his innocence.

The book was written by Davis’ sister, Martina Davis Correia, and Jen Marlow. Correia, who died after a long battle with cancer, fought with every fiber of her body over several decades to prove her brother’s innocence and to stop his execution.

Continue reading

6 December 2019 4WardEverUK

Suspicious circumstances: Injustice served at the David Dungay inquest

source: Mondaq
published: 6 December 2019

Six Immediate Action Team (IAT) officers stormed the cell that Dunghutti man David Dungay Junior was occupying in the hospital ward of Long Bay prison on 29 December 2015. The riot squad officers had been called in because the 26-year-old diabetic refused to stop eating a packet of biscuits.

The officers then dragged Mr Dungay into an observation cell and placed him face down on a bed in the potentially-fatal prone position. The young Aboriginal man called out a total of 12 twelve times that he couldn’t breathe, whilst some of the officers continued to kneel on him.