Trained yahoos? Nah, not that I have seen. Very professional people for the better part, who come from all walks of life, and are in training for 2 years to be a cop.

Every time you write into the media David Rook, you always complain about Tony Crandell. It sounds to me that you have tried to get your own way in a situation, and people have dared to say no, you were wrong, and you aren’t going to get your way. If things were different, then you you wouldn’t be whining to everyone about hard done by you are, your problem would have been solved. I may not have been around as long as you have, or dealt with legal situations as much as you seem to have, but I do know, that the squeaky wheel gets the oil and ohhhhhhhh lordy, your wheel is head splitting, and still you go on. Lay off the turps dear, and step away from the computer for a while, and you might find things aren’t as bad as what you make them out to be.

Last time I checked, the MP’s that we voted into parliament had not changed the laws that they had created in relation to criminalising drugs. So what you are saying is that because we are gay, the laws of the state don’t apply to us? Because we are gay and this is Oxford Street, an area well known for the high consumption of illegal and dangerous drugs that we inject or swallow or sell or lure others into taking? Why not do what other level headed and good minded people do David, write to your MP’s, get the law changed, don’t be such a coward and get onto sites like this and bitch and whine and trash people who most likely have never heard of you, or don’t remember you. It’s very easy to be brave and intrepid behind the safety of a keyboard when you are advocating a negative warfare on a person or organisation who don’t do as you demand of them.

Until you get off your bum and get the law changes through, or choose to become your own independent fairy kingdom, you are part of New South Wales, and must abide by NSW law, and respect those that have to play their part in administering those laws

To any Police officers, including Tony Crandell, any firemen, nurses and paramedics, thanks for being there for all of us. All of you guys and girls do a great job at looking after the rest of us, even those who do little to show their appreciation.

The apparent results of negotiations between Mardi Gras officials and police are deeply disappointing: more policing at Mardi Gras (in all shapes and forms) and no accountability for police violence, harassment and criminalisation targeting LGBTIQ people.

Reducing longstanding and ongoing histories of police intervention into queer spaces as amounting to ‘misunderstandings’ in the present shows the depth of denial and evasion of accountability within the police force. It also shirks any recognition of the immense power disparity at play between police and LGBTIQ people.

To quote Digby Duncan, the film-maker of ‘Witches and Fagoots, Dykes and Poofters’ that documented the first Mardi Gras, ‘we should always keep in mind our past and be ever-vigilant about our rights’. As this article demonstrates, we must also resist attempts by police to co-opt our histories of struggle and survival in the service of their legitimacy.

Seriously, it would have been appropriate & respectful for the author to acknowledge that the MG parade we have today is a legacy of *shameful* behaviour by the NSW Police and the Sydney press,in an era where homosexuality was illegal. I cheered the first year the police marched in the parade, but we should never lose sight of the fact that the ‘proud history’ invoked in this article only came about as a result of civil disobedience by queer people who refused to be suppressed by unjust laws.

What we really need is another police force – and not Queensland police either – I hear they are worse.

Tony Crandells long article above doesn’t address any of the real issues – as I see it they are:

1. A large % of his force are poorly trained yahoos who are arrogant and hate gays and will happily use and abuse their position to assert their power – and use their many weapons

2. When his troops do cross the line, or worse when they kill someone – don’t expect any justice – instead u will encounter the very slick well oiled machine called the police complaints / ombudsman process that will waste hundreds of hours of ur time and effort – typically at the end of it all u get are denials, obfuscation and a report full of basic factual errors – no less than Supt Crandell wrote ours and he mixed up our names and got key details wrong

3. What are all these police doing at this event anyway, and why the f’en drug dogs? Mardi Gras doesn’t ask for those Supt Crandell. And I am told Mardi Gras is given very little say on police numbers, they are I am told dictated by crowd size. I am sure I will see gangs of police, with sniffer dogs, looking very happy as they single out party go ‘ers – hoping to fuck up their night and show everyone how powerful they are.

Mardi Gras – or what’s left of it – will live on but NSW police are a bad smell that refuses to go away

No?

Well, either way it doesn’t bother me. I’m not going to waste my time travelling 3 hours each way from regional NSW to Sydney to stand in a crowd and probably be abused by haters (with or without police badges).