The Queensland police officer in charge of the state’s watch houses yesterday publicly apologized for the “sickening and disturbing” remarks by officers in leaked audio recordings published by Guardian Australia.
The recordings, published on Sunday, include officers at the Brisbane city watch house joking about beating and burying black people, complaining “you’ve got to be embarrassed about being white” and raising fears that Australia “will be fucking taken over.”
Queensland Police Service (QPS) Deputy Commissioner Mark Wheeler said the “beliefs and remarks have no place in society, let alone a professional workplace where vulnerable people are held in custody.”
“I’ve spoken to the police commissioner this morning, she’s absolutely appalled of course,” Wheeler said in Townsville.
The state inquiry into police responses to domestic and family violence has heard significant evidence about racism, sexism and misogyny within the QPS and yesterday handed its final report to the state government.
The inquiry was looking at the extent of “cultural issues” in the QPS.
Police have previously characterized most instances of problematic behavior as the actions of a minority, and denied the existence of widespread cultural issues.
Wheeler said the recording was concerning, but that “by and large our police do such a wonderful job day in day out [but] unfortunately you don’t always hear about the good stories.”
Speaking prior to reading the inquiry’s report yesterday, Queensland Attorney General Shannon Fentiman said there was “absolutely” a clear cultural issue within the QPS.
Fentiman said she did not want to pre-empt the inquiry’s findings, but said the recordings were evidence of cultural issues that must be addressed.
She said doing so was a “top priority” of government.
“There is a huge, huge amount of work ahead of us following the commission of inquiry. It is why we established the commission of inquiry,” Fentiman said.
Fentiman’s comments are the strongest public acknowledgment of cultural issues to date.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk yesterday told reporters the comments in the recordings were “horrific.”
The Australian Muslim Advocacy Network, in a letter to Fentiman about the recordings, raised concerns that recent “incidents of anti-Islam hate crime and white supremacists threats” at the Kuraby mosque, south of Brisbane, had been “downplayed” by the police service.
“Combined with these revelations [from the recordings], we submit there is sufficient evidence of systemic problems,” the letter said.
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