What are they afraid of when the whole matter is to come before a judge and jury.
If there is no case to answer, a jury will clear Chris Hurley and he will return to work. If he continues to work with the death of Mulrunji (Cameron Doomadgee) hanging over his head, there will always be a smell. There will be smoke. People will say that where there is smoke there is fire.
If Chris Hurley is culpable, what do the Queensland Police want? A guilty man to go free, to work among them, to survive to get away with something worse another day?
Miss Eagle has every sympathy for policemen carrying out their duties. Aboriginal communities can provide quite unique policing challenges and police should be able to rely on their superiors and their trade union. However, we are all equal before the law - or that's the general idea - whether we are police or civilians, black or white.
Once upon a time police in Queensland were corporately described as the Queensland Police Force. Those were the bad old days: the bad old days when Joh Bjelke-Petersen was Premier, many influential police were corrupt, and Miss Eagle - a born and bred Queenslander - was pleased that Joh only had police in his pocket and was not Prime Minister with an army, a navy, and an air force at his disposal.
