Aboriginal Cop sacked

THE Northern Territory Police Force is proud of its Aboriginal Community Police Officers except, it seems, when they act like Aborigines. Gwen Brown, 53, one of the most awarded and senior ACPOs in the Territory, has been sacked for hitting her nephew with a stick, but she says she has the cultural right to do so.
“I got him and hit him on the butt with a stick, about three times,” she said. “It was just a long, thin ceremony stick. He put his arms behind him and I accidentally broke his arm.”
I used to smack my kids on the backside and they always put their hands there to try and deaden the blows and never once did any of them end up with a broken arm. Gwen Brown’s nephew was either suffering from some desease that took all the strength from his bones or she went ballistic. One or the other. “I accidentally broke his arm with a thin stick” doesn’t cut it.

4 comments

  • My first thought when I read the headline on your post was “I wonder why?”

    If the kid’s got no illness causing brittle bones, Gwen needs counselling about her temper.

    What a shame about the reputation of the NT Indigenous police.

  • It is a shame. It sounds like she has done a lot of good for her people but ‘losing it’ needs to stop. Black or white – beating kids to that level is a not on.

  • She did not beat a kid… it was a man; and while I don’t condone assault of any kind, it seems that she had already gone to the police station to log a complaint about the stolen battery from her car and they apparently did nothing. It seems to me that frustration and a desire to enforce her concerns about alcohol misuse were contributing factors.

  • Old enough to drink, drive and maintain a vehicle, albeit with some else’s battery. He’s probably better equipped to go into the armed forces than some of the initial starters back in the sixties, although being incarcerated for matters unrelated would count him out of the running.
    I didn’t read anything about compound fracture or serious fracture and having had some experience both as a victim and as a sportsman I know that sometimes a minor fracture can occur as a result of minimum blunt trauma. All bone fractures are described as breaks by the lay person. The penalty applied in this case would indicate that the “break” was in the minor category.
    She sounds like the kind of woman needed to enforce both sides of the spectrum within the communities in which she is involved.

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