00:00I've been investigating the culture at NSW Police for several months now and spoken to
00:05dozens of officers and quite a few of them mentioned this racist culture within the force,
00:10particularly against Indigenous people.
00:12They spoke about racial profiling and overtly racist slurs that are used as part of normal
00:18business.
00:19Two of the officers who I spoke to have recently left the force and were willing to tell their
00:23stories to me.
00:24One of them couldn't be identified because of her new career, but she has since made
00:29a complaint to the Human Rights Commission about what she witnessed at the police force.
00:34That included racial slurs being used among officers as a way of referring to Indigenous
00:40people, racial profiling as I mentioned, and also one of her fellow officers who was actually
00:45charged with assaulting an Aboriginal woman during an arrest.
00:49Another former officer who spoke to me was Steve Bartholomew.
00:51He has since left the force after a nine-year career.
00:54He is now suing the police force for racial discrimination and neglecting his mental health.
00:59He claims that he experienced racism throughout his entire career, both himself as well as
01:05witnessed it against members of his community.
01:07He says he overheard some concerning conversations between officers, including one where they
01:12referred to essentially shooting Indigenous people.
01:17That's all in the story which is online today, but here's a little bit of what he had to
01:20say to me.
01:21The racial profiling is out of control and that's why I believe incarceration rates are
01:29as high as they are because some police will just get out and start a verbal confrontation
01:36just to obviously get an assault police, resist arrest, the trifecta they call it, assault
01:41police, resist arrest and offensive conduct.
01:44It goes from the highest ranks down to the lowest ranks in the co-ops of racism, so I
01:49believe it's a racist organisation.
01:52They'll say, oh we've done cultural safety training, cultural awareness training.
01:58It's a load of garbage.
01:59The commissioner came out soon after our initial reporting on this culture issue and she's
02:02already announced an official culture review led by a former human rights commissioner.
02:07She says she's taking it seriously, she acknowledges there is a problem.
02:10Now obviously she says that there is absolutely no place for racism or discrimination in the
02:14police force and she also said that they have put significant resources into ensuring they
02:19have an equal opportunity workplace.
02:21She also says they've put in significant resources to address the Closing the Gap initiative
02:26and of course these officers claim that this culture is significantly contributing to how
02:30many Indigenous people are in custody.
02:34Obviously that culture review is ongoing.
02:35We don't know where it's at at the moment but we hope to get an update sometime early
02:39next year.
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