NSW Police Officer in Unmarked Car Chases 12-Year-Old Gomeroi Boy on Foot

At around 8 pm on Friday 13 December 2024, an unmarked police car was caught on CCTV footage chasing a 12-year-old Gomeroi boy, who was on foot, down Chester Street in Moree in relation to a recent break and enter in the area.

The child was forced to dive over the front fence of his grandfather’s front yard, as the car with no police markings mounted the curb and took out the next-door neighbour’s letterbox. And to add more outrage to this scenario, the NSW police officers involved were searching for a suspect said to be a male of about 30 years of age.

The boy’s mother, Jennifer Duncan, was in central Moree when she received a call last Friday night about the incident, and when she arrived at the scene not long after, she found her son sitting on the ground surrounded by three plainclothes police officers, who wouldn’t let her near her injured boy, to the point that one officer threatened her with pepper spray if she didn’t desist.

“When I got there, I saw all these police around him. I got scared. I couldn’t even get near my son. One of the officers said, ‘If you get any closer, I will pepper spray you,’” recalled Duncan. “And I said, ‘No. That is my son. He is only 12. He is only a minor. He has got to have an adult there with him.’”

This incident comes at the end of a year that has seen a continuing rise in deaths in custody with 24 First Nations people having died in the care of NSW police or Corrective Services NSW, which has brought the First Nations deaths in custody toll to 580 deceased since 1991, and this includes at least 33 Indigenous youths.

While the Minns government further launched a crackdown on youth crime in March, with a particular focus on Moree.

A potentially deadly pursuit

“They ride bikes up and down the street,” Duncan told Sydney Criminal Lawyers. “The car looked like it came from around the corner and chased him. They then arrested him for break and enter. And when they released him, they said it was a mistaken identity.”

“When he got arrested and the coppers were lifting him up, the handcuffs broke in half. He complained about where the handcuffs were,” she continued. “He said his wrists were sore, and his arms and legs were, because he had to jump over the fence. That fence is taller than him. He had to dive over it, and he got caught on the mailbox.”

The footage shows the 12-year-old Gomeroi boy bolting down the street with the unmarked car not far behind him. Another plainclothes officer then runs down Chester Street behind the vehicle, and then another following on foot appears. After the police vehicle mounts the curb, the driver jumps out and all three officers follow the boy into the front yard.

The distressed-looking child is then captured on phone camera footage sitting on the grass surrounded by plainclothes officers, busily trying to ensure that Aunty Jennifer, her daughter and her brother-in-law stand back from the child.

The plainclothes police officers then applied handcuffs to the 12-year-old innocent bystander and hauled him down to Moree police station.

“This is a mother’s worst nightmare,” Duncan added. “My heart dropped. I said, “What if that had of hit him against the fence?’ They would have killed him or hurt him real bad. He is only a skinny little boy.”

No duty of care apparent

“As a First Nations man, whose been exposed to the system, this incident shows NSW police using excessive force in using a car to try and run down a young boy,” said Blak Caucus member Paul Silva. “One officer was chasing the boy in a car, even though there were officers on foot close behind the alleged suspect who were also chasing him.”

“The treatment First Nations people receive from the police in these small communities is not in the media light as much as it should be,” the Dunghutti social justice activist continued. “This is a prime example. There was a lack of duty of care. Officers were engaged in a physical altercation with a 12-year-old boy.”

Silva has been advocating for the rights of First Nations people, ever since his uncle, David Dungay Junior, was killed by a group of specialist prison guards in the hospital wing of Long Bay Gaol on 29 December 2015.

Despite Corrective Services having apologised for the breaches of protocol that led to David’s death at the end of the hands of its officers at the end of the 2019 coronial inquest, no charges have ever been laid in relation to the death and no recommendations to lay any have been made.

Recommendation 6 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody explains that custodial deaths involve those that happen in the custody of police or corrections, and these fatalities can be caused by either traumatic injury or lack of proper care.

Custody deaths also include fatal injuries caused by police or corrections officers attempting to detain a person or deaths resulting from attempts to escape the custody of these authorities.

Silva underscored that the police then released the boy “into the public and onto the street, without any question of whether he needed any medical treatment” or “any question as to whether he was okay”.

“We know that after these incidents people do need to be assessed for medical treatment, and that was not offered,” he added. 

Dumped on the curb

After the plainclothes police placed the 12-year-old boy in a police car and took him down to the station, Aunty Jennifer jumped in her vehicle and followed.

However, once she got to Moree station and told the duty officer that she wanted to see her son who was being kept in custody, she was then told that the station currently had no one in custody.

Following the officer double checking, Duncan was then told that after the boy arrived at the station, officers realised they had the wrong person, so they drove him back to his grandfather’s house and left him on the street.

Once his mother located the young boy, they took him to the local hospital to have his injuries seen to.

The Duncan family is now considering their legal options, as they want to see these officers “held to account”.