Monday, July 16, 2007

Now you see him...

CC member Troy Mercanti, who disappeared last month after a dust up with a Spearwood fisherman at the Cooby Tavern - walked into WAPOL's Curtain House in Northbridge, last Wednesday.

He walked out of the courts today, released on bail after the victim filed an affidavits claiming to have provoked Mercanti, although police say surveillance footage didn't show the victim causing any trouble.

After arrest warrants were issued for Mercanti and his alleged accomplice, police appealed for witnesses of the assault to come forward(& of course, they were just lost in the stampede).

Mercanti's lawyer Laurie Levy said today that his client had been a good samaritan and had merely intervened in an altercation between one of his friends and the fisherman.

The victim's statement said he had limited recollection of the incident, but that it was sparked by his own aggression and drunkenness.

Today in the Fremantle Courts prosecutors failed to have the bikie's bail revoked on the basis that Mercanti was in breach of his bail conditions for charges stemming from a separate incident at Geisha on May 13, when a man's jaw was broken.

Mercanti's name guarantees headlines with a few other incidents involving him receiving fairly widespread media coverage over recent years.

Though WA Shadow Attorney General, Sue Walker, last year stuffed up a trial involving Mercanti's brother, charges against him stuck last week and Jason Mercanti received a $3000 fine for suggesting to some Irish backpackers that they talk too much.

Gone but not forgotten

Victorian Deputy State Coroner Jacqueline Milledge is going back to the magistrate's court amid criticism of her performance.

Many media outlets have featured Coroner Milledge's recent Brimble inquest as being the catalyst for the departure.

However, those with an eye for mysterious deaths, for corruption & transparency, or an interest in airport security bungling, will remember Milledge as a critic of APS aiport whistleblower -Gary Lee Rogers - who died mysteriously after making assertions that Sydney airport was being used for drug trafficking by AFP officers.

Lee Rogers, trained as a police and AFP officer, excelled as a paramedic, trained with the US navy seals and operated his own DSAR(deployment, rescue and retrieval operations) & was probably the closest thing to a real-life Action Man you'd find.

But not according to Milledge, who personally attacked the character of the security whistleblower at the end of the coronial investigation, which despite the blood-stained pillow, and bloodied knife and insulin syringe(the deceased was not diabetic)next to his body, and notes to his friends saying he feared for his life, led Jacqueline Milledge to conclude his death was natural.

It could be speculated that Milledge attempted to silence transparent examination of the facts by placing a gag-order on a well known author and police whistleblower, who had studied the troubling facts of the case and had written a book about it.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Be there or be square!

A national day of action has been planned for this Saturday, to protest violent arrests and lack of accountability in relation to deaths in custody in Australia.

Saturday July 14, 1pm - 2pm outside the Wesley Church, cnr Hay and Williams Sts, Perth.

With the withdrawal of funding to the deaths in custody watch committees after their torture report was submitted to the UN, questions loom over the legal funding for representation at a Coronial Inquest into the death of a local Nyoongar man, who died of heart disease, covered in bruises.

Organizers are calling for "Jail for police who kill. Implement all recommendations from the 1990 Royal Commission, and open a new Royal Commission into all deaths since - including Mulrunji’s death in the Palm Island watchhouse and Carl Woods' in Perth."

Monday, July 02, 2007

A wee solution?

This week the West Australian police announced roadside drug testing at a cost to taxpayers of about $40 per test.

If you recall when tests were introduced in Victoria, there were some problems with how unreliable the tests were & a prolonged court case ensued for an average bloke who incorrectly tested positive and had his world turned upside down.

In what seems like an astonishing waste of funds, police will test for Mary J, ecstacy and crystal meth because some "research," somewhere(without any name, place or person to be attributed to), has shown that 25% of people in traffic accidents had recently used an illicit drug.

With flagrant gay abandon civil liberties continue to be violated and legislated against, with minimal scrutiny from the toothless tiger that is the state opposition.

Questions need to be asked about the ethical disposal of samples, which could be used/kept for DNA, or misused by corrupt officers if not for anything else than to close cases, which can offer overworked lower ranking officers a shot at better working conditions.

The Sunday Times links to a US Fox(groan) 'news' report (a-la Bill O'Reilly), that will show these aberrant misfits where to hide their gear to avoid extra charges in the event they are detected & recommends using Fox-pee to mask the odour of drugs from the little wee sniffer beagles. For those of you with a slow connection speed, watch out for that download - may take a while.

It would be funny watching clubbers riding bicycles on their way out for the night, more environmentally friendly too, but is this drug testing strategy just another way for the police to raise more revenue with the anticipated reduction from them now being compelled to put warning signs before speed cameras?