New South Wales police have launched an investigation after a young Aboriginal man with disability was violently arrested while having a seizure and thrown to the ground while handcuffed in Taree.
The 18-year-old was arrested on Tuesday after police received reports a man had allegedly tried to break into two homes. Police said the man then fled. A man was arrested on Gwenneth Avenue.
Footage of the arrest shows the young man being walked along a driveway by an officer before stumbling and falling to the ground, where he begins having a seizure. The officer is then seen pulling him up and pushing him along the path before he collapses again and is handcuffed.
A second sequence shows the teenager being walked along the street while handcuffed before the same officer performs a leg sweep manoeuvre on him, throwing him violently to the ground.
There is no audio on any of the videos, which were circulated on Snapchat and Facebook.
The teenager’s aunt, whom Guardian Australia has chosen not to identify, said he told her he thought he was going to die after the arrest. He spoke to her from jail on Thursday after he was charged with being in possession of suspected stolen goods.
“He said, ‘I thought I was dying in the cell last night’. He said ‘I couldn’t move’,” the aunt said.
“No one deserves to be treated like that.”
She said the arrest was so violent it could have broken a bone when the young man was thrown to the ground. She claimed an ambulance was not called despite his seizures.
“There were other ways they could have dealt with him,” she said. “He wasn’t resisting arrest or anything.
“They nearly broke this little boy’s arm. This little fella was having seizures and they didn’t even have the courtesy to ring an ambulance.”
She claimed the young man hit his head during the arrest and had a cut on his head. She said he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and had been on the disability pension since he was 16.
In a statement, police confirmed an internal investigation had been launched. They did not respond to questions about whether he had been offered medical assistance.
“An internal investigation is under way after an 18-year-old man was arrested at Taree on Tuesday 15 August 2023 for alleged property offences,” a NSW police spokesperson said.
“The investigation, conducted by Manning-Great Lakes police district, will examine the response and arrest made by a police officer.”
On Wednesday the young man appeared at Taree local court, where he was refused bail. He will be back before the court in September.
The teenager’s partner said she was devastated to learn what had happened to him and said she wanted people to watch the footage.
“I’m losing sleep. I’m broken for words,” she said. “I just want the justice for my man that we can get. I’m not letting this go.”
In May a NSW police officer was found guilty of assaulting a 16-year-old Indigenous boy in inner Sydney in 2020, when he threw the boy to the ground using a similar leg sweep manoeuvre.
Magistrate Rami Attia found Constable Ryan Barlow guilty of occasioning actual bodily harm, dismissing claims the officer had felt threatened.
The case garnered national attention when mobile phone footage of the violent arrest – taken by the boy’s friends – was posted online. That footage, along with body-worn camera footage from Barlow and other officers present, was central to the case.
The chief executive of the National Justice Project, George Newhouse, was the lawyer for the victim in that case.
“The leg sweep in both cases appears extremely violent and harmful to the young men,” he said.
“I am very concerned to see this latest use of force in Taree.”
