A " thankless " task !

The coroner has handed down her findings on the death of 21 year old Brazilian student Roberto Curti and she has been scathing on the circumstances that led to his death.   She found that the police chasing this young man through the Sydney streets were acting like school children in the movie " Lord of the Flies " and that individual officers acted in a " thuggish " manner.

Curti was Tasered fourteen times, repeatedly hit with capsicum spray and was on the ground, handcuffed at the time of his death.  The police commissioner has accepted the points raised by the coroner and reports that officers concerned have had their Taser certification cancelled.   They will have to undergo retraining before that certification is restored.

The family of the slain student is demanding that police officers be charged.   Their fury is understandable.  This young man should not have died in police custody and the methods of apprehension were clearly excessive, but there are two sides to every story.

Roberto Curti clearly contributed to his own death when he ingested a LSD tablet on a night out partying in Sydney.   He took a step into the unknown when he tried an illegal drug and the result was a reaction that rendered him into a psychotic state.  There followed irrational behaviour.  He phoned his sister and accused her of wanting to kill him.   He got into a fight with other revellers.  He got chased through the streets as a result of that fight and took refuge in a convenience store.   He did damage to the store fittings and eventually ran out the door clutching stolen biscuits, causing the proprietor to phone the police.

Sydney can be a wild place in the small hours of the morning.   The advice over the police radio wrongly suggested that this had been an armed robbery.   Fuelled by LSD, the student broke away from the first police who tried to contain him and it seems that the chase gathered other young and inexperienced officers who made bad decisions on Taser use.   Most of these officers had no idea what reason the student was being sought - and no idea what risk factor was involved.  They simply over reacted in the heat of the chase and the end result was the death of a young man who was ordinarily a mild person with a promising career ahead of him.

What will annoy many people is the complete absence of any reference to Roberto Curti's part in this tragedy.   It is clear that there would have been no chase - and no death in police hands - if he had not taken a chance and tried an illegal drug of unknown purity.

The entire focus of this investigation has been on the actions of the police - and in particular - their use of Taser guns as the weapon of choice.   Clearly, they over reacted but at least some good may come out of this tragic incident.   But police face a divided responsibility every time they are called into action.   On the one hand, they are tasked with preventing an offender to doing harm to others - which calls for that person to be subjected to containment.   On the other hand, they are expected to show restraint and objectivity, without knowing what danger the offender may pose or how that person may be armed.

Policing is a " thankless task ".    Those who fall foul of the heavy hand of the law will be quick to criticise and we all complain when we get handed a speeding ticket - but society would be an unthinkable place without the security that police provide.

In judging the rights and wrongs of this untimely death, it is a fact of life that mistakes in policing usually lead to better training and improvements to procedures, but at the same time it must be remembered that those who take mind altering drugs also contribute to the consequence of  events !