Police and Media Working Hand In Hand

Written By: LB

Following the death of George Floyd thousands of protests sprung up around the world to highlight and combat police brutality and racial injustice and not let the names of the black and Indigenous people who fall victim to this brutality be lost to history. The police were under a previously unimaginable level of public scrutiny, and yet even now while being forced to be on their best behaviour they still continue to be aggressive and violent.

“We turned on 9 news the moment we got home. What we saw outraged us”

Across the country on the 6th of June, thousands of people marched against police brutality and Indigenous deaths in custody. In Sydney a reported 40,000 people arrived at Town hall to protest the racial injustices of Australia’s prison system and police force. and show solidarity with those protesting against racial injustice in the US and across the world. The protesters gathered at Town Hall despite the Supreme Court and NSW police refusal to authorise it, however less than an hour before the march was meant to start the verdict to outlaw the march was overturned.

The March started in Town Hall and ended at Belmore Park where protestors took a knee and had one-minute silence for George Floyd and every other black life lost to police brutality. Belmore Park was the scheduled ending point for the march however as many protesters headed towards Central Station it continued.

An Instagram user posted a detailed description of what he saw after the protest. He described the situation as follows: protesters gathered outside Central station where they had split into two groups, one under the bridge and one on top, where he and his friends watched what happened below.

“Suddenly the protesters were being ushered under the bridge by the police. We ran to the other side of the bridge to see what was happening—there were between 30 and 40 police officers waiting. Barricading. We watched as protesters who tried to turn back around were confronted on the other side too. They were being ushered into a corner from all sides.”

Soon the police noticed the protesters on top of the bridge and urged the protesters to move to the other side where they couldn’t see anything before encouraging protesters to come down the stairs to under the bridge. Micah at one point went down to the bridge to try and find some friends he’d lost and saw the chaos of a human-pile up the police had created leading to people being injured all the while police were aggressive and remained caging in protesters under the bridge.

“We turned on 9 news the moment we got home. What we saw outraged us. They were portraying the protest as just ‘getting a little out of hand’. They said the police were ‘respectful’ and ‘handling the situation’.”

The Instagram poster, like many others, would later find out that the police had used Capsicum spray on protesters trapped in Central station. One of the 200+ people trapped in the station was a disabled woman who uploaded a video to her Instagram from hospital recounting the moment she was capsicum sprayed by police.

“Police were described as being respectful and professional, but hearing the stories and seeing the videos and photos of people actually tells a much different story”

“I saw some black protesters and the police officers were getting quite handsy and aggressive towards them despite them doing nothing but…speak, and I felt so scared for them. So I pushed forwards on my crutches and I held my hands out to create a shield between the black protesters and the police and I just said don’t touch them, don’t touch them.”

She says the police kept trying to push people around despite them having nowhere to go. Amongst this, one police officer trying to push protesters away put his hands around Jane’s throat, and one behind him maced her directly in the face.

After dropping to the ground she couldn’t recall much except the intense pain from the spray and protesters around her flushing out her eyes and helping her as much as they could until an ambulance arrived and took her to St Vincent’s hospital.

“The thing is the media is going to tell you guys we were violent. But that’s not what happened and it’s caught on camera by the protesters there. Don’t buy into what mainstream media might be feeding you.”

Jane would later upload a video of after she was maced filmed by another protester. She screams at the police for capsicum spraying a disabled veteran for doing nothing to provoke them. The video is captioned with “If you did this to a white woman, what do you do to black people?” as well reiterating the fact that only the protesters provided her with any aid after being maced.

And she was right about the media. Looking at any mainstream media outlet reporting on the June 6th or subsequent protests, police were described as being respectful and professional, but hearing the stories and seeing the videos and photos of people actually tells a much different story.

This is why the police can get away with the brutalities they commit from trigger happy macing to straight up murder, their job is to protect the capitalist system from any threat of change, and large media outlets survive off of capitalist interests. The police’s image as noble guardians of the people will be protected by any capitalist tool or entity because they play a crucial role in keeping Capitalism running. From harassing homeless people, to punishing the mentally ill and impoverished, to squashing any attempt at systematic change for racial equality, it’s all fair game under capitalism.