Professor Gracelyn Smallwood quits police role after death-in-custody

Professor Gracelyn Smallwood resigns, saying ‘things are getting worse’ between police and the Indigenous community.

Gracelyn Smallwood in Townsville. Picture: Ian Hitchcock

An Indigenous adviser to Queensland Police Commissioner Kata­rina Carroll has quit in protest after the deaths of two Aboriginal men at the hands of police.

Gracelyn Smallwood, a veteran Indigenous activist and professor of nursing, said she no longer ­believed her work on the Queensland Police Service First Nations Advisory Group would lead to “necessary changes” in police practice.

Her resignation comes after Aboriginal man Aubrey Donahue, 28, was shot dead at the weekend when a team of specialist tactical response officers, who, it has since been revealed, were not wearing body-worn cameras, stormed his home in the small north Queensland town of Mareeba.

It also follows revelations by The Australian earlier this month that another Aboriginal man, Steven Nixon-McKellar, 28, had died after police applied a controversial but approved stranglehold on him as he resisted arrest in Too­woomba in October 2021.

In her letter of resignation on Wednesday, Professor Smallwood said Queensland police and successive state governments had ­ignored recommendations to ­im­prove policing practices, including those set out in the 1991 report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

“Things are getting worse, not better,’’ she said in the letter, which she shared with The Australian.

“The recommendations from RCIADIC and many subsequent requests from communities, in particular after the tragic killing and aftermath of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island, have been ignored. Our communities continue to lose lives during inter­actions with the QPS.”

Earlier this month, Professor Smallwood and fellow Indigenous leader and academic Stephen Hagan called for Queensland police to ban the stranglehold used on Nixon-McKellar – known as a Lateral Vascular Neck Restraint – in line with the rest of Australia’s police services.

After The Australian’s revelations about the circumstances of Nixon-McKellar’s death, Ms Carroll said she was going to personally assess the restraint, the subject of an internal review last year that decided to retain its use.

Queensland Deputy Commissioner Mark Wheeler on Thursday said a review was being conducted into the failure of the Special Emergency Response Team to wear body-worn cameras when they shot Donahue dead on Saturday after a four-hour stand-off.

There is no footage of SERT ­officers killing Donahue, who is ­alleged to have been armed with a knife and holding his partner hostage. Police said they stormed the house when they heard the partner “scream for help”.

It is standard issue for general duty Queensland police officers to wear body-worn cameras. Deputy Commissioner Wheeler said SERT teams – which are called to high-risk situations often involving use of lethal force – don’t wear cameras because of “practicality reasons … In light of recent events, we are now reviewing the arrangement for specialist police in terms of body-worn cameras.’’

In a subsequent statement, Queensland police said prior to an upgrade of the body-worn camera technology in the middle of last year, they had been deemed ­unsuitable for use by SERT officers. “This was primarily due to the size of the device, audible noises and visible light, and their positioning on complex tactical operator equipment or when required to be covert,’’ the statement said. “As a result of an upgrade in QPS technology … SERT are now in the latter stages of implementation of both body-worn and vehicle-mounted camera systems.”

Both deaths are being investigated by the police Ethical Standards Command.