A call for independent investigative body for police - NSW

This is long overdue. It's no secret that the police appear often to collude together and cover up wrongdoing in their ranks. Yet there is the ridiculous situation where the police investigate themselves. Often police who have been involved in serious incidents of wrong doing, even deaths, simply end up being promoted.

Now the LGBT community in Sydney has joined with other sectors of the community in a new call for an independent body be set up to investigate police:

Some of NSW’s leading LGBTI* community organisations will today deliver a petition to NSW MPs calling for the establishment of an independent agency to investigate complaints against police. 

The petition, which will be handed to members of the NSW Parliamentary LGBTI Cross Party Working Group, follows comments from NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione supporting the creation of an organisation like the UK’s Independent Police Complaints Commission. 

The Commissioner’s statement was in reaction to ongoing revelations at the NSW parliamentary inquiry into police bugging. 

Recent media coverage regarding NSW police handling of LGBTI cases in the late 1980s and early 1990s has reignited calls for more effective oversight of police activities. Last month the Sydney Morning Herald published a story about Alan Rosendale, the victim of a gay assault that was possibly perpetrated and subsequently covered up by police. There is also evidence to suggest that other gay hate crimes from the same period may also have been mishandled by police. 

NSW GLRL Co-Convenor Dr Justin Koonin said the petition is a critical part of a broader response to concerns that the LGBTI community has raised in relation to how police investigate complaints against police. more