Excessive force

Hi guys,

I know I said I was leaving for a while and I am but circumstances changed dramatically for me on Friday when I went to Surfers Paradise to do some work for the company I contract to.

I've told the story to a couple of you so please forgive me for repeating myself.

I took Neralee with me in the Lexus so she could sit in the loading zone while I fixed the machine that was on the other side of the road (20 minute zone but you can never count on the parking cops NOT giving you a ticket so she was insurance)

There were no spots vacant when we got there so at a stop light with no other cars in the street we swapped positions while the lights were red and I also pulled the touch sensor out I was replacing.

Three young police (2 male 1 female) saw us do this and made an off the cuff remark "you can't do that" to which I said "I'm not impeding anyone" and they repeated their comment and I said "whatever" .

I had a ladder, my laptop and the large sensor in a cardboard box one metre by half a metre so it was cumbersome but not overly heavy and it was easier to unload there and walk across the road while Neralee drove around the block until I finished.

So, what should have ended there became a nightmare.

The cops went up the road (50metres) to the crossing, then across the road and back down 50 metres to where I was working on replacing the touch sensor which entailed cutting the double-sided tape on the old sensor to get it off.

They tell me curtly to put the knife down which I did and one of the cops kicks the knife down the street !!

I ask him what that was for and he says WH&S and then they proceed to question me about what I'm doing (it's all on the body cam I'm told so will be interesting to see if the imagery is made available )

They ask for ID and I asked why do they need this but then realise with all of the stupidity for this COVID rubbish we didn't need to get into that so I hand my license over to a cop who is behaving very belligerent towards me .

Now I can be a smartarse as everyone that knows me can attest to but in this instance I could see they had some other motive for the inquisition so I reigned my horns in and made sure I did not swear or do anything that should raise the hackles.

I did say to them "are you guys bored or something and that whatever they wanted to say to say it and leave me to get back to my job"

They were interviewing me on the supposed traffic misdemeaner and making up lies that there were cars I was impeding, no such case and I called the young female cop out on that and said she was perpetrating lies to justify this inquisition (hopefully on body cam again)

Then the belligerent cop came back and proceeded to continue trying to push my buttons and I was trying to explain that I have medical issues that prevent me standing in the sun for more than about 10 minutes before I start to feel unwell due to losing a lot of the thin padding on the top of your head from my car accident many years ago. This covering does a surprisingly good job of keeping the head cool so now with just skin graffs on bone the head heats up quickly and makes me ill, hence the need to finish the job quick and doing it in the early part of the day, and I have to wear a hat (NASA of course)

So, not happy that he can't get a belligerent response they proceed to say I am causing a disturbance by talking to them in a loud manner and that they were now arresting me for creating a public disturbance !

Remember, they went out of their way to come over the road and question me for a supposed traffic infringement (I did not get a traffic infringement notice of any kind BTW)

So now I'm getting arrested and I said to them I need to close the door on the machine as it had exposed wiring and I had a duty of care from a WH&S perspective for my company towards the public but they refused to allow me to secure the site and grabbed my arms and pulled them behind me.

Now again, due to the car accident I have limited mobility in my left shoulder due to rotor cup reconstruction and tendon damage and putting my arm behind my back is that limitation so to forcefully ram my arm behind my back is excruciating pain to say the least and the body's reflex action is to move away from the object causing the pain at which point they said stop resisting and the with me defenseless in handcuffs they shoulder charged me onto the footpath where I smashed my head onto the footpath (black eye and grazed right side of the head)

Now over the years I have instinctively turned my head to the left so as to protect the triple fractures I received in the said car accident and doctors (who can trust them ) have said if I get hit in the right spot of the head I could easily be killed as the way the head was fractured it had weaked it.

To top it all off I got DVT coming back from Canada last year and am on anti-coagulent medication to thin the blood and because they had put the handcuffs on so tight and then slammed me into the footpath I was now suffering from deep gashes to my right arm and bleeding uncontrollably due to the medication.

Was I taken to the hospital for treatment ?

No way, put in the back of a paddy wagon and taken to Surfers police station where I was put in a cell and allowed to bleed all over the place.

Eventually one of the cops handed me some paper towels and asked if I wanted medical treatment (for the damage they caused!!) to which I replied in the affirmative and they called for an ambulance.

Neralee who is a very qualified nurse of some 46 years was downstairs and I asked if she could come and look at the damage and see if there was something that could be done.

I was not offered any kind of pain killers but was given an ice pack by the cop that shoulder charged me from behind (do I hear someone saying mitigating the consequences later in court ??)

After half an hour no ambulance had arrived and the pain was radiating down my arm towards the shoulder and I asked when the ambulance was going to arrive and they said "it's pending" , so I said just charge me and let me go to the hospital

The cops carried some of my possessions down to the car where neralee was waiting , I loaded up the car (that hurt!!) hopped in the passenger seat because I am now incapable of driving and the female cop was telling Neralee 3 times the ambulance had been delayed to which she replied curtly "I've got it !!" and we went to the hospital for X-rays and a general examination.

The doctor looked at me in a surprised manner when I related how I received the injuries but didn't seemed surprised other than it had happened to an elderly man who wasn't on drugs or had been drinking.

I have never been handcuffed in my life , no criminal convictions, traffic infringements - plenty, but just a normal , hard working, pay your taxes and bills on time AND I'm 66yo going to work to fix a machine kind of day.

I did not expect to be harassed by the police, get threatened several times with being arrested and then eventually being arrested AND brutalised by the police who did everything they could to escalate rather than de-escalate the situation, but THEY went out of their way to come over and give me 2 tickets for preventing an officer performing his duty and disturbing the peace ($400 each BTW) when it should have ended at the comment they made about not swapping drivers at the lights.

But THEY went out of THEIR way to continue questioning me behaving in a belligerent manner to a person who was performing corrective action on a defective machine on the pretence that it was about traffic violations and yet I have NO fine for that matter but after THEIR interaction I am now injured, fined and incapacitated and can't drive so no mini G for me.

And as you can see by the time this was written my sleep pattern is all over the place due to being asleep all day as my body shut down to repair itself.

I write this as a warning, I reigned in my natural behaviour because the cops up here have a culture of behaving this way , not all of them , but enough to warrant me behaving in any manner that might give them opportunity to haul you over the coals, AND I still ended up in trouble

They were rude and intimidating to both me and Neralee as I found out later and they will find out one thing for sure ..... they picked the wrong people to do this to.

I woke up Friday with a plan of work I needed to do , got to my first job and ended up in hospital due to excessive force used by 3 young cops (20 somethings) against a frail 66yo upper middle class working male

To all of those that called me I greatly appreciate the thought (Gary, Dave, Horse, Gezim, etc)

This rubbish between Ian and I is insignificant in the bigger scheme of things, behaving like little girls pulling each other's hair should be left on the playground but I will still be taking a sabbatical from fchat as I need to sort out a lot of things as Neralee and I are moving soon after I sell my house on the Gold Coast, as if my life hasn't been complicated enough recently

But I have made some great friends here (I truly can't think of anyone I hate, not Ian, not Peter, not anyone) and I have the phone numbers of those I am a little closer to so if any of you would like to call some time in the future I'd be more than happy to have a chin wag.

Cheers

John

 

Thanks Greg but I thought the loan you gave me gave me greater "status" and it went to my head ..... I actually meant to type " I have no class" which everyone knows is closer to the truth

And thanks Robbie, funny how this happened just the next day after your call ..... did you call on a favour the QPS owe you ?

 

I'll get them off Neralee's phone but ask her permission first as she get's very protective of her photos as some people, including me , know

Ian, as usual , a considered response and I gratefully thank you for your response to this unforseen occurrence.

Our handbags at 10 paces tiff is forgotten by me and never to be mentioned again .

I am already going down this track and Neralee has lodged a complaint while I was in hospital and because she is what she is , she did it in the manner that the police are use to but she was lied to (told she could ONLY lodge it through the desk sargent - not true) so she is livid at the lies that are already being perpetrated (they're circling the wagons)

The police here have always had this culture so it's not hard to see why they are like they are here, and that is only from my personal experience in living here 30+ years. The Ferrari just makes it worse but then I've never had a good track record with the HWP but I've never been in trouble of any kind with the regular beat cops as I have a couple of family in the NSW police force and respect the terrible job they have to do with domestics, bikies , etc.

They see people from years ago who perpetrated these types of crimes and got away with it and are then promoted so it's obviously fine to behave like this by those standards.

There use to be a time in my life where police and clergy were respected people but the onset of time has tarnished both and incidences such as this have turned me to start looking differently at how the aboriginal people have been treated ...... if they can do this to me what chance do they have ?

I'm glad I was thinking about what I was saying rather than running off at the mouth which I'm told I can do

This can only look bad for them, traffic violations ?
None !
Causing a disturbance ?
they started it mum !
resisting arrest ?
mobility issues which they did not listen to !
I'm a frail old man, they were THREE fit, armed police
I was in handcuffs when I was shoulder charged from BEHIND, a cowardly act if ever I've seen one (hopefully the centre where I was working has CCTV in that location.)
deep cuts to my wrist with blood everywhere due to the anti-coags
could possibly have killed me with the shoulder charge smashing me head first to the ground

Whatever happened to the "one punch " laws ?

This was worse, and perpetrated by the very people who are supposed to enforce the law !!

Thanks again for your concern

 

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Right arm noticably swollen compared to left

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the other side of the arm

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both knees still sore

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Luckily for the police no broken bones

 

This was "just going to work" !!!

 

Admission is the first step to a cure

I'll die one day, hopefully there's a cure, but your lot won't find it

I just read Neralee's account of the incident and all it shows is that the police lie and circle wagons (she even put in exactly what she called the cop that refused to tell her what had happened to me truthfully - not very lady like )

Anyway, Fatbillybob, this is Australia, we have different standards we hold our police force to (they are not elected like your police), and I KNOW the area I was in is a hot spot on the Gold Coast for bad behaviour and understand the cops deal with drunks and druggies coming out of the nightclubs BUT, I was obviously working (ladder, backpack, etc) , told them I was going over the road to fix a machine, no raised voices, no abuse, normal working day for me and they were just going for a stroll around the block from their station and made an off the cuff remark which they never followed up on (Blocking traffic ?) because they knew it was a crock and came after me to shove what little power they had down my throat (little men big problems) and I refused to be intimidated but I was never disrespectful, in hindsight I'm glad I was restrained in my comments as they just look worse and worse

 

this is what I looked like before the altercation

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