Shocking police killing

All persons have a right to life. That is not only a moral position, it is the law.

The full circumstances of Gilbert’s killing must be thoroughly investigated by the Police Service and the Police Complaints Authority.

Acting Superintendent Yusuff Gaffar must complete his probe with dispatch.

The latest police killing is a reminder of the need for body cameras so that there can be incontestable footage of engagements with civilians.

President of the Police Social and Welfare Association Inspector Michael Seales has warned the public to be mindful that there are always two sides to a story.

He has also made a distinction between video footage that is selectively edited and footage that captures the entirety of an event, moving from “inception” to the “backend” of incidents.

The public should heed this caution.

However, while the full story may not be within the reach of ordinary members of the public, the footage showing police officers carrying around Gilbert’s lifeless body like an animal cadaver cannot be disputed.

Why was the man’s dead body removed? It seems unlikely that there can be any good justification for this. This was at its most basic level an instance of tampering with a crime scene. The position of the body is an essential factor that is normally considered when investigators are piecing together the sequence of events.

For this reason, police photographers capture images of the scene of a crime, and these are often tendered into evidence during criminal trials. And members of the public are often barred from the area a crime has taken place in to preserve it as much as possible. The officers would have been acutely aware of this. But edited footage or not, how do we explain the moment when the camera captures officers rummaging through the dead man’s pockets? And what are we to make of the instance where one officer is seen picking up something from the ground and putting it in his own pocket shortly thereafter? Seales’ explanation that the object may have been a 25 cent coin or a piece of jewellery is facetious.

It matters not if the object was a one cent coin. The police tampering with the body and the stealing of any of the dead man’s property are completely unacceptable.

Meanwhile, Opposition Senators have asked whether there is a death squad operating within the Police Service. We hope this is not the case. However, the circumstances of Gilbert’s death will lead many to suspect that this was not a one-off instance of abuse of power. The ease with which the incident seems to have unfolded unfortunately suggests it was part of a planned operation.

Still, the facts are to be determined.

Sadly, there is very little hope that the matter will be investigated independently since cops are probing cops.

The PCA itself has been complaining about a lack of resources and powers and it is likely to have to rely heavily on the same cops who are now under a cloud.

No one in this country can look at the video footage of what happened in relation to Gilbert without their stomach churning.

It is no excuse to say this victim was himself a criminal. If he was, then the same industry used to apprehend him should have been used to bring him to justice. His family have claimed he was unarmed.

We must enact stronger measures to hold officers to account if incidents like this shocking police killing are to end.