Six people have been arrested and fined at a Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney as the family of David Dungay Jr delivered a petition to state parliament asking for the attorney general to investigate his death in custody.
New South Wales police broke up the protest on Tuesday after it was deemed a prohibited public assembly by the NSW supreme court following a police application.
None of Dungay’s family members were arrested but other protest organisers and attendees were.
Dungay’s mother, Leetona Dungay, told Guardian Australia: “We were in bunches of 20, and the police just come up and stop it. We asked people to disperse with us.”
The protest organiser Paddy Gibson, who was arrested and fined $1,000, said the crowd was spread out in Sydney’s Domain park in groups of less than 20. They were wearing masks and using hand sanitiser.
“The first thing I saw police do was order our Covid safety team to pack up,” he said. “But everyone wore a mask, everyone was Covid-safe, I wasn’t even in a group of more than 20.”
The assistant police commissioner, Michael Willing, told reporters after the rally there was a breach of the 20-person rule because overall there were more than 20 people gathered “for a common purpose”.
After being given move-on orders, the protest dispersed within 15 minutes, but five attendees were fined for breaching public health orders and one was fined for using offensive language.
Gibson told Guardian Australia he would contest the fine in court.
Seth Dias, another organiser, said he was given a move-on order by police, detained and fined.
“We were trying to get everybody to disperse, but I was told to formally move on,” he said. “I was ensuring everyone was out and safe, at which point the police told me I had not followed a move-on order.”
Gibson said: “The police actions today prove this was always about intimidation and about trying to silence the fight for justice for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people in particular.”
The Dungay family had previously said they would call off the protest if the NSW government referred his death to the director of public prosecutions and SafeWork NSW.
Dungay, a 26-year-old Dunghutti man, died in Long Bay jail hospital in 2015 after he said “I can’t breathe” 12 times while being held down by five prison guards who were stopping him eating biscuits.
After Tuesday’s protest, his family presented a petition with nearly 100,000 signatures to the NSW parliament.
“A coronial inquest found there was no need to raid David’s cell, and the guards did so without proper authority, but there have been no consequences for anyone responsible for his death,” the petition stated.
“We call on the attorney general to refer the matter to the NSW director of public prosecutions and SafeWork NSW to investigate criminal charges.
“We call for the implementation of all 339 recommendations of the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody.”
Paul Silva, David’s nephew, said the family had repeatedly asked SafeWork NSW to investigate.
“They will investigate a finger cut off in a workplace but they won’t investigate a human’s life when he was held down in a workplace,” he said.
SafeWork NSW has previously twice ruled out investigating the death in custody.
The NSW attorney general, Mark Speakman, said on Monday it would be “wrong of the government” to direct the DPP to lay charges.
“The overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system is a national tragedy, for which there are no simple solutions,” he said.
“[But] the NSW police force and the NSW director of public prosecutions are responsible for prosecuting criminal charges. This responsibility is performed independently of the government of the day and it would be wrong for the government to direct them in any way.”
Leetona Dungay on Tuesday insisted: “We need charges and changes.” She said the petition was demanding “justice and I hope that I get it”.
The Greens MP David Shoebridge said the family “want what anybody would want if their boy had been killed”.
“The young man repeatedly said he can’t breathe,” Shoebridge said.
“The family has twice asked SafeWork NSW to investigate the circumstances of David’s death. David’s death happened in a workplace.”
Willing said on Tuesday police were not “anti the right to protest”.
“This is about public safety,” he said. “At the end of the day, we are in the middle of a pandemic. The supreme court judge himself described the current situation in NSW as being on a knife’s edge.”
