Police expect to lay riot and grievous bodily harm charges over a disturbance involving 20 youth detainees in Townsville that reportedly led to a prison officer being blinded in one eye.
The incident at the Cleveland youth detention centre flared when the youths began arming themselves with objects “for an unknown reason”, damaging the unit and assaulting staff on Thursday afternoon, the assistant commissioner Paul Taylor said.
The youths had been playing football when guards responded to a separate disturbance in an accommodation unit, Taylor said.
Teams of riot police, the dog squad and negotiators achieved a “peaceful resolution” by Friday morning after a 12-hour standoff, during which some of the youths climbed on to the roof of the centre, he said.
Taylor said the police had been in no position to accommodate the “fairly frivolous” demands of the youths, which had included deliveries of Kentucky Fried Chicken, alcohol, drugs, computer games and the election of the US president, Barack Obama, for a third term.
The wife of one of four injured prison guards told the Townsville Bulletin he had permanently lost his sight in one eye after a rock was hurled at him.
Taylor said there would be a lengthy investigation involving forensic and CCTV examination, adding that “some of these kids [went] to great lengths to put shirts around their heads” to avoid identification.
“Police expect that the 20 youth involved will be charged with various matters,” he said.
“On the face of what we know now, those matters include rioting, they include assault, in particular assault causing grievous bodily harm, and wilful damage.
“Rioting in company is a fairly serious charge. Assault causing grievous bodily harm is a very serious charge.”
Cleveland was at the centre of allegations of mistreatment of inmates earlier this year. An Amnesty International report had said there was a “culture of abuse and secrecy” within Queensland’s youth detention system.
A former Cleveland inmate, Russell Johnston, 17, said he was repeatedly tormented by guards, alleging regular bashings and racial abuse.
The state government then ordered an independent review of the youth justice system.
On Friday, the attorney-general, Yvette D’Ath, travelled to Townsville to meet staff and management at the centre, which remained in lockdown.
“There will be an internal investigation into the incident and I will not pre-empt the outcome of the investigation,” D’Ath said.
The shadow attorney-general Ian Walker said the incident showed the government could not effectively manage youth detention centres.
Over the next year, offenders aged 17 will be removed from adult prisons under Labor reforms.
“One can only imagine what’s going to happen when 49 hardened juvenile offenders are relocated to these centres from the adult system,” Walker said.
Taylor said 29 staff, including the four injured who were being cared for by two nurse colleagues, had taken refuge in a visitors’ centre while the youths involved in the unrest had “free rein” of the facility.
“I’ve got to praise the youth workers,” Taylor said. “These are men and women that go to work every day trying to change the life of troubled youth, trying to provide them with opportunities to move away from offending and criminal activity, and they don’t go to work to become victims of assault.
“Sadly that’s what’s happened on this occasion.”
Taylor said there was never any threat to the public or concern the youths would reach “the external perimeter of the facility”.
“We were very mindful of the fact the people inside that facility are youths. And we were very mindful that we wanted a peaceful resolution and through negotiations and persistence of creating a rapport with the individuals, we successfully resolved the situation early this morning,” he said.
Taylor said police sympathised with community frustration at youth crime in Townsville and that people had turned to social media to raise concerns instead of calling police because officers had responded slowly on previous occasions.
“I am aware that people are circumventing advice to police and using other mechanisms such as social media, which is fine, but it’s very difficult to respond to the problem if we’re not given advice earlier,” he said.
“I know in the past too police have been called and we haven’t responded in a timely fashion. But give us a chance and if we do it wrong, we’ll look at better ways of doing it.”
He said the police were “working very vigilantly with other agencies and other entities to look at every opportunity we can to support the family environment, so there’s greater level of guardianship over some of these youths, [who] are otherwise wandering the street”.
