patrick.net

The courage it took to continue streaming, while capturing the moment Vic Police, before a huge worldwide audience, lined up with their new weapons and passionately fired upon our country’s identity, cannot be underestimated.

The footage is hard to watch, not just because the police—dressed like stormtroopers and all masked up to protect their identities—are shooting fleeing protesters in the back, but because they take aim and fire repeatedly. They were enjoying themselves; getting off on it. It’s there, you just have to look.

One protester summed up the moment perfectly, by crying out during the stream, “This is Fucking Australia?”

In the morning, the streets of Melbourne were being patrolled by armoured cars called ‘BearCats’. Victorian Police Officers were hanging off these vehicles, many holding rubber bullet rifles and firing indiscriminately at those they assumed were protesters. ...

Not only were Vic Police shooting fleeing protesters, but they were shooting them as they were protesting on the Shrine of Remembrance—a building built to commemorate those who fought and died in the belief they were protecting our freedoms. ...

That’s why this wasn’t a protest; it was a battle. An assault on who we thought we were, by those who were willing to work for those in power, somewhere high above us, who had decided who we, as Australians, were going to become.

And to show their commitment to establishing this new identity, they ordered their officers—these Victorians—to shoot the stubborn ones who still believed that they could cling to the Australia we all thought we were, by simply standing up.