Friday, September 05, 2003 |
A Tale from Redfern
On the days I do have to go into work my office is in Redfern, a small infamous suburb of Sydney.
Sadly, Redfern is notorious for the criminal behaviour of its Aboriginal population. Now while I am sure that not all the criminal activity that occurs in Redfern is perpetrated by its Aboriginal people, I have to say that all the incidents I have either seen or have personally experienced have regrettably all involved Aboriginals.
A lot of this activity seems to centre on Redfern Railway Station. Unfortunately most people coming into and out of the suburb for work or to attend the University of Technology Sydney have to use this station. The real reason behind the axis of wrongdoing is not the railway station but the fact that it sits at the top of "the block".
Please do not mistake "the block" in Redfern with "the block" in Bondi. Unlike the one in Bondi there are no sexy blondes prancing around, attempting to look as though are contributing or homosexual couples secretly conspiring against the other tenants. In contrast Redfern's block is a depressing scene of domestic violence, public drunkenness and 3 year olds wandering the streets by themselves.
Exiting the station brings out conflicting emotions. The primary concern is that of safety. A feeling of anger starts to rise and thoughts such as "look at these filthy bastards just waiting for someone to stray from the pack. Hunting us like jackals" begin to pervade your mind. This reaction however will usually only last long enough to get a quick glimpse at the conditions under which these people live on a day to day basis. The garbage strewn about the street, the parents asleep in the gutter while their young children look on as a heroin deal is made next to them or another fire is lit on the pavement. Then someone will ride in on a pushbike, a warm carton of VB under his arm purchased from the nearby early opener, while he steers surprisingly well with the other.
The cycle of poverty and violence is very evident and is something that I have encountered first hand a number of times.
The first and to my mind saddest such incident occurred at around 7:30am one morning as I came out of the station. I crossed the road and began walking to the office. On the station side of the road I noticed that someone was also walking the same way exactly parallel to me. He then crossed the road and walked up to me. Instantly my guard was up and I expected something to happen. Instead all he did was talk to me ask how I was going. I kept walking (a little faster by this stage) and he then asked me if I wanted to score some drugs. I said no and he then asked if I had any cigarettes. I also said no to this to which he replied "well just give me your fucking mobile then" and started pushing me and attempting to take my mobile off my belt (as was the styles a few years ago). I was able to fight the guy off and get away from him after which he ran back down to Eveleigh street which is the main street of the block.
After the initial shock of the event wore off I naively thought I better report this to the police so I made my way to the Redfern Police Station. As part of the report they asked me what he looked like. Trying not to sound like a redneck racist, I attempted to describe the guy without saying he was an Aboriginal. The Police of course could see what I was trying to dot and finally just simply asked me "look mate was he an Aboriginal?" to which I confirmed he was. After the race of the person was established they took me into a room with a TV and a video. They turned on the TV and took out a video from a cupboard which was labelled, and I'm not kidding, "Aboriginals A-Z". After I saw this label and the subsequent still pictures of locals on the screen, any of the anger I felt washed away and was replaced with a kind of sadness for the lives of these people.
I was not able to identify the person from any of the pictures so I left and never heard about it again.
Approximately a year later I was involved in another incident at the exact same spot however this time I was not the one being attacked. Once again it was around 7:30am and I was coming out of the station. I noticed that the traffic was backed up from the traffic lights and I also noticed that there was someone slowly riding a bike up and down the footpath next to the cars waiting at the lights. Suddenly he stopped and opened the door of one of the cars, grabbed a bag from it and began to ride back down to Eveleigh Street.
I yelled out for Police and anyone else who would listen that there was a bag snatch going on however no one seemed to do anything. At this point I decided to take matters into my own hands and ran across the road to where the guy was slowly pedalling back home thinking he had gotten away with it.
I took a flying leap and tackled him off the bike, stolen handbag and all. Luckily for me and not so much for him, he was slammed into a brick wall and temporarily dazed. I took this opportunity to grab the bag that had fallen to the ground and looked up to see the woman who's bag it was running down the street towards me from her car. I handed her the bag, stood up and looked around to see quite the collection of locals watching the proceedings and their cousin sprawled out on the pavement. Both the lady and I decided that a quick get away was the order of the day so she made it back to her car and I hurried to work keeping a constant vigil on what was behind me.
I decided there was no use in reporting the incident to the police this time.
Since then the pedestrian crossing has been removed from outside the station because of all the car jackings that used occur there and there is also a Police presence during peak hours in the morning and afternoon.
On the days I do have to go into work my office is in Redfern, a small infamous suburb of Sydney.
Sadly, Redfern is notorious for the criminal behaviour of its Aboriginal population. Now while I am sure that not all the criminal activity that occurs in Redfern is perpetrated by its Aboriginal people, I have to say that all the incidents I have either seen or have personally experienced have regrettably all involved Aboriginals.
A lot of this activity seems to centre on Redfern Railway Station. Unfortunately most people coming into and out of the suburb for work or to attend the University of Technology Sydney have to use this station. The real reason behind the axis of wrongdoing is not the railway station but the fact that it sits at the top of "the block".
Please do not mistake "the block" in Redfern with "the block" in Bondi. Unlike the one in Bondi there are no sexy blondes prancing around, attempting to look as though are contributing or homosexual couples secretly conspiring against the other tenants. In contrast Redfern's block is a depressing scene of domestic violence, public drunkenness and 3 year olds wandering the streets by themselves.
Exiting the station brings out conflicting emotions. The primary concern is that of safety. A feeling of anger starts to rise and thoughts such as "look at these filthy bastards just waiting for someone to stray from the pack. Hunting us like jackals" begin to pervade your mind. This reaction however will usually only last long enough to get a quick glimpse at the conditions under which these people live on a day to day basis. The garbage strewn about the street, the parents asleep in the gutter while their young children look on as a heroin deal is made next to them or another fire is lit on the pavement. Then someone will ride in on a pushbike, a warm carton of VB under his arm purchased from the nearby early opener, while he steers surprisingly well with the other.
The cycle of poverty and violence is very evident and is something that I have encountered first hand a number of times.
The first and to my mind saddest such incident occurred at around 7:30am one morning as I came out of the station. I crossed the road and began walking to the office. On the station side of the road I noticed that someone was also walking the same way exactly parallel to me. He then crossed the road and walked up to me. Instantly my guard was up and I expected something to happen. Instead all he did was talk to me ask how I was going. I kept walking (a little faster by this stage) and he then asked me if I wanted to score some drugs. I said no and he then asked if I had any cigarettes. I also said no to this to which he replied "well just give me your fucking mobile then" and started pushing me and attempting to take my mobile off my belt (as was the styles a few years ago). I was able to fight the guy off and get away from him after which he ran back down to Eveleigh street which is the main street of the block.
After the initial shock of the event wore off I naively thought I better report this to the police so I made my way to the Redfern Police Station. As part of the report they asked me what he looked like. Trying not to sound like a redneck racist, I attempted to describe the guy without saying he was an Aboriginal. The Police of course could see what I was trying to dot and finally just simply asked me "look mate was he an Aboriginal?" to which I confirmed he was. After the race of the person was established they took me into a room with a TV and a video. They turned on the TV and took out a video from a cupboard which was labelled, and I'm not kidding, "Aboriginals A-Z". After I saw this label and the subsequent still pictures of locals on the screen, any of the anger I felt washed away and was replaced with a kind of sadness for the lives of these people.
I was not able to identify the person from any of the pictures so I left and never heard about it again.
Approximately a year later I was involved in another incident at the exact same spot however this time I was not the one being attacked. Once again it was around 7:30am and I was coming out of the station. I noticed that the traffic was backed up from the traffic lights and I also noticed that there was someone slowly riding a bike up and down the footpath next to the cars waiting at the lights. Suddenly he stopped and opened the door of one of the cars, grabbed a bag from it and began to ride back down to Eveleigh Street.
I yelled out for Police and anyone else who would listen that there was a bag snatch going on however no one seemed to do anything. At this point I decided to take matters into my own hands and ran across the road to where the guy was slowly pedalling back home thinking he had gotten away with it.
I took a flying leap and tackled him off the bike, stolen handbag and all. Luckily for me and not so much for him, he was slammed into a brick wall and temporarily dazed. I took this opportunity to grab the bag that had fallen to the ground and looked up to see the woman who's bag it was running down the street towards me from her car. I handed her the bag, stood up and looked around to see quite the collection of locals watching the proceedings and their cousin sprawled out on the pavement. Both the lady and I decided that a quick get away was the order of the day so she made it back to her car and I hurried to work keeping a constant vigil on what was behind me.
I decided there was no use in reporting the incident to the police this time.
Since then the pedestrian crossing has been removed from outside the station because of all the car jackings that used occur there and there is also a Police presence during peak hours in the morning and afternoon.
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