Case study: The Death of Mulrunji Mulrunji2 was 36 years old when he died on 19 November 2004 in the custody of the Queensland Police Service (QPS), in a police watch-house on Palm Island.3 Queensland is a state in the north-east of Australia. Mulrunji was an Aboriginal Australian who had never been in serious trouble with the police. Palm Island is a small community located off the east coast of northern Queensland. It is home to 2500 Aboriginal residents, making it one of the largest Aboriginal communities in Queensland. Palm Island has had a reputation as one of the worst settlements in the country. As early as 1916, the Queensland Government had pursued a policy of using Palm Island as a dumping ground “for individuals we wish to punish”. Over the years, thousands of Aboriginal men, women and children from more than 40 clans were forcibly sent to Palm Island. It became known, in the words of one author as a “tropical gulag”.4 It was not until the mid-1970s that the Aboriginal community on Palm Island achieved some autonomy, with the creation of an Aboriginal Council. WHY USE THIS CASE STUDY? The death of Mulrunji is a case that has a strong human rights aspect to it. It involves a member of an indigenous population that has had a long and troubled history with the State, its power to detain its citizens and the process by which deaths that occur in the custody of the State are investigated. It was a case to which the Australian human rights community, including the Australian Human Rights Commission,5 devoted significant attention and resources because of the serious and systemic human rights issues it raised. It is a well-documented case, so the facts are reasonably clear. It inflamed relations between the police and the Aboriginal community. It stirred considerable public interest of all kinds. It polarized. It cost taxpayers millions of dollars. However, some eight years after it happened, it was still not fully resolved. The main reason that it is being used as a case study is that it is, sadly, an example of what can go wrong when investigations are not done as well as they could and should be done, intentionally or otherwise. 19 November 2004: THE INCIDENT AND ARREST Background On the morning of 19 November 2004, police were investigating an allegation by three Aboriginal women – Gladys, Andrea and Anna Nugent – that Gladys’ partner, Roy Bramwell, had assaulted them in the house that Gladys shared with him. Andrea was so seriously injured that she had to be airlifted to the mainland for medical treatment. Gladys went to the police watch-house. She asked if she could return home to collect her medication. She did so, escorted by Senior Sergeant (S/Sgt.) Chris Hurley, who was in charge of the Queensland Police Service (QPS) staff on Palm Island. 2 It is a cultural tradition of indigenous peoples in Australia to not refer to the name of the deceased. The local community instead use the name Mulrunji to refer to the man in this instance. 3 A watch-house is part of a police station or court and is where those arrested are processed and placed in cells for temporary detention. 4 Tall Man: The Death of Doomadgee; Chloe Hooper; 2008. 5 Previously known as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The Mulrunji case | 1