The Tall Man Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Chloe Hooper
“gutted” by the allegations made against him. They pointed to the extensive volunteer work he’d done with Aboriginal children and to his Aboriginal friends. He even had a skin name; he’d been adopted into an Indigenous family in Cape York, and in his mid-twenties he had an Aboriginal girlfriend. Old colleagues said Hurley would restrain other officers if they lost their temper.
In the wake of Cameron’s death, the senior sergeant was emerging as a model cop. Before going to Palm Island, I read this glowing article about Hurley in Brisbane’s
Sunday Mail
of December 5, 2004:
A Cop Who Cared
At 200cm tall, Palm Island policeman Chris Hurley was always going to make an impression on the remote Aboriginal communities he made it his life’s work to serve. Before the death of Cameron Doomadgee on November 19 and continuing unrest on the island, that impression appears mostly good.
One of his postings as a constable aged just 21 was to Thursday Island, where the community quickly warmed to the gentle giant.
Worried about the high crime rate among children there, in 1989, he took it upon himself to establish a sporting club for young people, writing dozens of letters to organisations seeking donations to equip the club.
When a Brisbane shopping centre offered equipment if he would travel down to collect it, he arranged for three young islanders to join him and get their first taste of the big smoke.
A photograph taken on Thursday Island shows smiling children clambering over the young officer as he told
The Sunday Mail
his dream was for the “kids up here to be better known for their sporting ability than getting into trouble”.
A second photograph unveiled on Thursday Island this week is another reminder of his stay. It is part of a new photographic exhibition on Aboriginal reconciliation and is accompanied by his words: “Reconciliation is a two-way street; it’s going to take a lot of effort by all Australians. At the end of the day there are more similarities than differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.”
In the exhibition photograph, a darkening sky is filled with rolling clouds. Hurley stands on a bridge and behind him a river runs wide but twists out of sight. He looks serious and strong. Wearing a broad-brimmed police hat, he leans over a map spread out on the hood of a police van. His eyes are narrowed as if seeing something just emerging on the horizon, as if it is coming towards him.
T HE FIRST NIGHT I spent on Palm Island there was no moon. Cicadas tuned in and out of the heat. As it grew darker, I sat on the motel veranda drinking with the lawyers. Boe had the manner of someone lumbered with exchange students in a war zone. “What have you learnt?” he kept asking, wanting epiphanies. Virgin forest surrounded us. We heard unknown creatures begin their nocturnal rounds. In theory we were safe: the motel stood between the police station and the police barracks. But the barracks were surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence that was heavily padlocked. As I watched officers lock themselves in and out, it was unclear who needed protecting.
Erykah Kyle dropped by to speak to Boe. Like the Doomadgees, she had invested her hopes in him. The pair had an easy rapport, sharing ideals of activism that seemed to belong to an earlier age. As a young woman, Erykah had been inspired by the American black power movement, and in the early 1970s she’d spent time at the rebel Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, campaigning for land rights. Now she had written and printed a pamphlet that was to be distributed all over the island.
COMMUNITY NOTICE
THE STATE CORONER IS COMING TO PALM ISLAND FOR THE START OF THE INQUEST INTO THE DEATH OF OUR BELOVED BROTHER, PARTNER, FATHER, SON, COUSIN, NEPHEW, UNCLE AND MATE WHO DIED IN POLICE CUSTODY ON 19 NOVEMBER
PEOPLE WHO WANT TO ATTEND SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE WORK FOR THIS
COMMUNITY SUPPORT IS NEEDED TO MAKE SURE THAT JUSTICE MIGHT COME THROUGH
In the wake of Cameron’s death, the senior sergeant was emerging as a model cop. Before going to Palm Island, I read this glowing article about Hurley in Brisbane’s
Sunday Mail
of December 5, 2004:
A Cop Who Cared
At 200cm tall, Palm Island policeman Chris Hurley was always going to make an impression on the remote Aboriginal communities he made it his life’s work to serve. Before the death of Cameron Doomadgee on November 19 and continuing unrest on the island, that impression appears mostly good.
One of his postings as a constable aged just 21 was to Thursday Island, where the community quickly warmed to the gentle giant.
Worried about the high crime rate among children there, in 1989, he took it upon himself to establish a sporting club for young people, writing dozens of letters to organisations seeking donations to equip the club.
When a Brisbane shopping centre offered equipment if he would travel down to collect it, he arranged for three young islanders to join him and get their first taste of the big smoke.
A photograph taken on Thursday Island shows smiling children clambering over the young officer as he told
The Sunday Mail
his dream was for the “kids up here to be better known for their sporting ability than getting into trouble”.
A second photograph unveiled on Thursday Island this week is another reminder of his stay. It is part of a new photographic exhibition on Aboriginal reconciliation and is accompanied by his words: “Reconciliation is a two-way street; it’s going to take a lot of effort by all Australians. At the end of the day there are more similarities than differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.”
In the exhibition photograph, a darkening sky is filled with rolling clouds. Hurley stands on a bridge and behind him a river runs wide but twists out of sight. He looks serious and strong. Wearing a broad-brimmed police hat, he leans over a map spread out on the hood of a police van. His eyes are narrowed as if seeing something just emerging on the horizon, as if it is coming towards him.
T HE FIRST NIGHT I spent on Palm Island there was no moon. Cicadas tuned in and out of the heat. As it grew darker, I sat on the motel veranda drinking with the lawyers. Boe had the manner of someone lumbered with exchange students in a war zone. “What have you learnt?” he kept asking, wanting epiphanies. Virgin forest surrounded us. We heard unknown creatures begin their nocturnal rounds. In theory we were safe: the motel stood between the police station and the police barracks. But the barracks were surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence that was heavily padlocked. As I watched officers lock themselves in and out, it was unclear who needed protecting.
Erykah Kyle dropped by to speak to Boe. Like the Doomadgees, she had invested her hopes in him. The pair had an easy rapport, sharing ideals of activism that seemed to belong to an earlier age. As a young woman, Erykah had been inspired by the American black power movement, and in the early 1970s she’d spent time at the rebel Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, campaigning for land rights. Now she had written and printed a pamphlet that was to be distributed all over the island.
COMMUNITY NOTICE
THE STATE CORONER IS COMING TO PALM ISLAND FOR THE START OF THE INQUEST INTO THE DEATH OF OUR BELOVED BROTHER, PARTNER, FATHER, SON, COUSIN, NEPHEW, UNCLE AND MATE WHO DIED IN POLICE CUSTODY ON 19 NOVEMBER
PEOPLE WHO WANT TO ATTEND SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE WORK FOR THIS
COMMUNITY SUPPORT IS NEEDED TO MAKE SURE THAT JUSTICE MIGHT COME THROUGH