Wednesday 10 October 2012

Tasered 14 times and dead

There's an inquest going on here into the death of a Brazilian foreign student Roberto Laudisio Curti, who died in Sydney earlier this year. The family has travelled from Brazil to attend the inquest and find out what happened.

Not a regular drug user, he'd had a small amount of LSD and was (by the looks) completely off his face. After "stealing" two packets of biscuits from a late night convenience store (or did he simply not know what he was doing?) the police mistakenly thought it had been an "armed robbery" and went in pursuit. Despite being shirtless, barefoot, and unarmed, he was kicked, handcuffed (handcuffing is unusual here), sprayed in the face with capsicum spray, and tasered 14 times. He died at the scene.

As the inquest gets under-way, the family of Curti has requested this video of the last moments of his life be made public. It shows Curti on the ground with police crowding around him, whilst the capsicum is sprayed into his face. They attempt to handcuff him, and (in what seems to me to be completely unprovoked) he's tasered again at close range.





More video about it here.
An inquest has heard a Brazilian student who died after being tasered in Sydney's CBD was kicked by a police officer minutes before his death. 

Coroner Mary Jerram has been told Tasers were discharged 14 times and that police also used capsicum spray and handcuffs to detain Roberto Laudisio Curti. 

They chased the 21-year-old in the Sydney CBD in March after reports of a robbery at a convenience store. 

The coroner is investigating if police followed guidelines when they tasered Mr Curti. 

Local resident Tommy Wang told Glebe Coroners Court that he saw a female police officer kick the student as he lay on the ground. 

He said the student was unarmed and not wearing a shirt, and described the police conduct as violent and excessive. more
I've long asserted the police here are a bunch of thugs, and I'm not the only one. A while back I got two broken ribs after swearing at them. I though didn't have the money to pursue them in court over it, whereas the family of Curti does. 

I hope something comes out of this inquest. For too long the cops just do their own internal investigation and they get off scot free.

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