Former officers have expressed outrage and disgust over CCTV footage showing a policeman beating a teenager with a baton at a Queensland watch house.
The CCTV footage, seen by the ABC’s 7.30, shows an officer striking a 17-year-old First Nations boy with a baton three times until his legs give way.
It comes as the ABC has obtained an internal audit of watch houses, showing that as early as 2019 the Ethical Standards Unit had warned the Queensland Police Service (QPS) about “inconsistencies and deficiencies” relating to “human rights considerations”.
A former Queensland officer said in more than a decade in the job, they’d never seen a baton used on a teenager, or to “intimidate” them.
The police source told the ABC that batons aren’t often used due to the likelihood of them causing injury and are called “cobweb removers” by officers.
Batons are generally only expected to be used on “meatier” areas of the body.
“A strike with a baton would break bones easily … you can only use them to strike certain areas of the body,” the former officer said.
