Hewitt, Tony --- "Gundy Died in Bed" [1989] AboriginalLawB 25; (1989) 1(38) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 4

• Gundy Died In Bed

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Gundy Died in Bed

Extract from an article by Tony Hewitt

reprinted from Land Rights News

In the eyes of the Koori community in Sydney the tragic shooting of David John Gundy by the elite NSW Police Special weapons and Operations Section (SWOS) polarised so many elements of the Aboriginal struggle against injustice.

Only hours after the 32 year old Mr Gundy who shared family and cultural links with the Aboriginal people of northern NSW was fatally wounded as dawn broke on Thursday 19 April, the common images of the black struggle were so patently clear - images that are very familiar to Aboriginal people.

IMAGE: Senior NSW Police, including a superintendent who had himself been investigated in 1981 for the shooting of an alleged prison escapee, asking Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people to accept that an honest mistake by SWOS officers had resulted in the death of Mr Gundy.

IMAGE: The State Police Minister Mr Ted Pickering, saying he could understand why police were "uptight" after the alleged shooting of Constable Allan McQueen by John Porter, the man whom SWOS officers thought Mr Gundy was, (Constable McQueen died several days after he was shot).

IMAGE: Mr Gundy's little boy, Bradley, who was in his father's home in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville at the time his father died, wondering what had happened because the police had not let him see his father during the fatal raid.

IMAGE: A frustrated Aboriginal Legal Service demanded specific information about the death from the NSW Government and the State's Police Commissioner, Mr John Avery.

IMAGE: Mr Gundy's mother, previously ravaged by years of dodging welfare authorities intent on removing her children from their parents, hiding in a derelict house in Redfern, inhere friends and family gathered wondering how they could break the news to her. Outside the squat, Mr Gundy's sister, Nina, said her mother, who had been told of a death of another close relative just days before the Marrickville shooting, would be so devastated, she would break into hysterics.

IMAGE: Aboriginal people reeling from the effects of the intense man hunt for Porter, said to be an Islander or Koori and for whom the police searched desperately as Kooris with dreadlocks - similar to Porter's - were stopped, questioned and often arrested, Koori organisations were searched.

These images of the black struggle were to expand in the days after the death's of Mr Gundy, whose widow, Doreen (Dolly) Eatts, a student of the Tranby Aboriginal Co-operative, was in Mount Isa when her husband was killed.

The SWOS squad's killing of David Gundy, and related matters are now the subject of a coronial inquiry. In the light of uncertainty about the scope of coronial inquiries, and their dependence on police investigators to assist the coroner, reservations have been expressed about the appropriateness of this form of inquiry for an adequate investigation into Gundy's death.

Mr Gundy's widow, the ALS, civil rights groups and even the Catholic Weekly, the Catholic Church's newspaper, which described the SWOS officers as "keystone cops", called for an inquiry into the death. Anger in the Koori community intensified.

Mr Hal Wootten, QC, one of the Royal Commissioners investigating Aboriginal deaths in custody, expressed reservations about the internal police inquiry into Mr Gundy's death and called on the NSW Government to allow the Royal Commission to investigate the case.

But the NSW Premier, Mr Nick Greiner, would not bow to police pressure for an independent inquiry, which was also supported by the Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Gerry Hand.

Mr Greiner indicated to the Royal Commission, which has not yet decided whether Gundy's death can be investigated under its terms of reference, that it cannot examine the matter until after the inquest.

Mr Greiner maintains that the coronial system, which is heavily dependent on the police for the evidence it hears, will investigate Gundy's death adequately.

The inquest, which began amid Aboriginal demonstrations in Sydney, will resume in less than two months with a jury in attendance.

While Mr Greiner was standing his ground on calls for an inquiry, it was revealed that Jim Brazel, one of the SWOS officers who took part in the raid on Mr Gundy's home, was to have been transferred from the section for allegedly spraying mace on a female colleague some years earlier during an anti-terrorist exercise. Mr Landa had recommended his transfer to the NSW Government.

The NSW Government did not acknowledge its sympathies to Mr Gundy's family at his funeral, which was a marked contrast to the VIPs, including Mr Avery and Mr Pickering, at the funeral of Constable McQueen, who was given full police honours.

Dolly Eatts said: "I've lost my husband, my home and my self-respect. I've received nothing from the Government."

Mr Gundy was buried in the presence of more than 200 people who came from throughout NSW.

During his memorial service, Lyal Munro Jnr said, on behalf of the family: "We would envisage justice somewhere along the line. It was an indiscriminate killing by the NSW Police."