Katie Thorburn // 14 years on and still no justice: the TJ hickey protests

23.2.18

14 years on and still no justice: the TJ hickey protests: In the leadup to Wednesday the Hickey family and their supporters demanded the construction of a memorial for TJ at the site of his death. Their demands specified that the family get to determine the memorial’s design and location, and that the government conduct a parliamentary inquiry into police wrongdoing on that day. In what he descirbed as “a victory for the campaign, but a big victory for Gail Hickey”, Raul Bassi, one of the rally’s organisers told Honi that the former demand was recently met. “To our surprise, without any announcements, from Saturday to Tuesday [last week], the TJ Memorial was built.”

A parliamentary inquiry has not been forthcoming, however. This ongoing inaction animated the protestors, who called for a broader end to Indigenous deaths at the hands of the police at a time when that hurt remains fresh. Last week, Patrick Fisher, an Aboriginal man, died after falling 13 stories from a balcony while police were attempting to apprehend him.