Yesterday, approximately 200 people turned up to Sydney Town Hall, Gadigal, to commemorate 40 years since the death in custody of Gomeroi man, Eddie Murray, 21, at the Wee Waa police station in 1981.
The gathering heard impassioned speeches from family members and others, who demanded justice and a re-opening of the investigation into Murray’s death, as well as discussion on the broader issues of Aboriginal rights, policing and sovereignty.
Also present were family members of: Lloyd Boney, whose death in police custody in Brewarrina in 1987 was instrumental in triggering the 1990 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody; Eddie Russell, who was found dead, apparently hanged, in his cell at the end of a seven-year prison sentence; Kingsley Dixon, whose death in an Adelaide jail was also the subject of the Royal Commission; and T.J. Hickey, who died during a police pursuit in Waterloo-Redfern.
The crowd marched from Town Hall to the office of the NSW Attorney General at Martin Place.
The rally came a day after the announcement that the family of David Dungay Junior, another Aboriginal man who was killed in custody, would take their case to the United Nations.
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