Ms Dhu, a young, Yamatji woman was arrested and taken into police custody for failure to pay fines in 2014 and she later died in detention. Ms Dhu was already injured as a result of domestic violence at the time of arrest. Ms Dhu was arrested along with her attacker and denied medical attention. Both police and medical officers claimed she was faking her injuries.
In 2017, the West Australian State Coroner Fogliani found Ms Dhu’s death was preventable, and police were ‘unprofessional and inhumane’. Saying “this is a community wide issue and until there is a seismic shift in the understanding that is extended towards the plight of Aboriginal persons, the risk of unfounded assumptions being made without conscious deliberation continues, with the attendant risk of errors”
An article by by Alice Barter & Dennis Eggington, in the Indigenous Law Journal [PDF] states – “This case epitomises the problem of institutional racism in Australia. The interaction between Miss Dhu and the people entrusted with her care, and importantly, the interaction between the medical staff and the police, demonstrates that their racist assumptions convinced them to believe she is ‘faking’ her symptoms.”
