Darumbal woman Kristina Hatfield speaks out on vigilante action
A crowd of more than 100 people has gathered at a Rockhampton park as a city at the centre of “anti-crime” vigilantism calls for change. VIDEO, UPDATES
Rockhampton
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Residents fed up with youth crime and Indigenous families fearing for the safety of wrongly targeted kids were among more than 100 people packing Rockhampton’s Central Park for a community gathering on Friday evening.
It comes as proud Indigenous leader and mother Kristina Hatfield says the city is at risk of becoming “the next Alice Springs” without a whole-of-community approach.
Ahead of the gathering, Ms Hatfield revealed Indigenous parents were scared to let their children walk to and from school alone for fear they will be targeted by vigilantes.
Ms Hatfield, a liaison officer with Darumbal Enterprises, has lived in Rockhampton her whole life and says Sunday’s anti-crime rally that attracted 100-150 supporters led by Muay Thai fighter Torin O’Brien was just the boiling point in bubbling community tensions.
Speaking at the Central Park event, Darumbal man Trent White said there were concerns innocent children would be ‘caught in the crossfire’.
“We have concerns about our children, there has been mistaken identity across our country for a lot of years and there has even been deaths from mistaken identity and people caught in the crossfire,” Mr White said.
“Our kids that aren’t out there committing crime are caught in the crossfire of kids and even adults who are.
“That is something our country is known for, it has happened. You only have to go back to Cassius Turvey in Perth walking home from school and mistaken for a crime and was killed because of it.
“That’s the fear in the Indigenous community here in Rockhampton, that that may be something that is repeated and we don’t want that, we want to stop it before it happens.”
Mr White said the gathering discussed emerging vigilante groups and importantly, what could be done to solve the crime epidemic.
“There’s crime happening here and it doesn’t matter what race you come from, crime doesn’t have a colour and we want to do our best to get rid of crime. We don’t want racism creeping in,” he said.
“There are a lot of solutions around our culture particularly, we are getting a lot of solutions from our Elders and also just people on the ground that deal in this space every day.
“There could be a lack of resources, there is a lot of poverty, drugs, addiction … We are looking at programs and whether they lack funding, resources, everything like that.
“We need to go back to the drawing board and come up with better ways of doing things.”
Ms Hatfield revealed a terrified parent came to her recently to share an alarming incident involving vigilantes.
“Around two weeks ago a young boy was riding his bike and a 4WD was following him and then started to chase him, and he was just heading home,” Ms Hatfield said.
“He didn’t do anything wrong and the thing is, our mob don’t go in to report those things because they don’t trust the police. That is terrible to say, but mob don’t trust the police.”
Ms Hatfield said Sunday’s anti-crime rally started off positive enough with a number of Indigenous community members attending themselves, but the movement had spiralled to a point where law-abiding residents were fearful for the safety of their families.
“We do have a lot of families who are not letting their kids come from school, they are picking them up from school and going to their football practices and staying there with them,” she said.
“They are not allowed to do the normal things that they would do – go and hang out with their mates. And these are good kids, they are not the kids doing the crime, they are innocent kids that parents now have to worry about that they are going to get targeted or singled out just because of the colour of their skin.
“It is very scary, and I am scared for our community and for our Indigenous children. My son only lives a block away from his school and he walks up to his grandparents but I said no, let’s just pick him up every day until this stuff settles down.
“People can say they won’t do anything, but you don’t know that.”
Ms Hatfield hoped Friday’s event would be the first step toward combating youth crime.
“We are aware of the youth crime … mob have had enough also, they are calling out on how we can stop this, everyone is working hard in the background in these organisations, trying to come up with a solution on how we can prevent or stop the reoffending,” she said.
“After everything on social media blowing up, we thought we needed to bring our own mob together to start the conversation … about the vigilante groups and how not to react to what they are doing.
“We wanted to bring our mob together to yarn and let everybody have a say and give them a voice. We just want to get the message across let’s just keep calm, settle the vigilante group issue first and then we will look at the next step.”
With new initiatives constantly being rolled out by the Queensland Government on the issue, Ms Hatfield said a community rather than ‘top down’ approach was needed to really make an impact.
“Let’s work together as a community on how we can address the youth crime and the reoffending of these young people, because it’s not just Indigenous kids that are doing this, you have non-Indigenous kids also doing it,” she said.
“Let’s all meet together with the police, these politicians, with the government funded organisations that are there to help our youth and community – let’s all come together and sit down and work together.
“It’s a top-down approach that is not effective, they are not coming here to the community and yarning to the community about their issues, instead they are staying down in Brisbane or wherever and calling the shots on the solutions.
“I just heard about $4 million going towards prevention in CQ – well who is that going to and what are those programs and are those programs working? The government keep throwing money at the same programs and the same organisations but look where we are – where are the real outcomes of those programs?
“Let’s teach kids how to live, respect, about life, about getting a job – let’s get back to life skills. Let’s go back to loving our kids.
“Some of these kids don’t even have parents, they are in the system under child safety orders. People are calling out these organisations saying they are not doing enough, but they are working their hardest to help the situation and what it comes back to is the state government – what are they doing to help?
“They need to come here and see what’s going on otherwise we are going to become the next Alice Springs or Darwin, we are getting closer to that.”
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