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Charity rider exonerated by cop verdict

Police Harassment in charity ride Hells Angels assault charge exonerated
Magic being shoved by the officer

An army veteran rider who claimed he was assaulted by police at a March 2018 charity ride feels exonerated knowing the officer has been placed on restricted duties.

Michael “Magic” Parr faced a charge of not obeying the direction of police for this incident caught on video, but the charges were dropped in April, 2019.

Exonerated

When told that the officer, Senior Constable Andrew Murphy dubbed “Raptor 13”, was placed on restricted duties earlier this year, Magic said it was “good news”.

“The guy is psycho and that should have been obvious to the hierarchy a long time ago,” he says.

At the time, Murphy was part of NSW Police Strike Force Raptor established after the infamous 2009 “bikie” brawl at Sydney Airport.

The charity ride video is not the only one to have surrounded Murphy in controversy.

Type “Raptor 13” into a YouTube search and you will see a selection of videos, including:

  • Harassing mourners at the funeral of bikie boss Mahmoud “Mick” Hawi last year;

  • Holding a metal pole to a man’s head during a traffic stop;
  • Failing to supply his name during a traffic stop; and

  • Making “rude and disrespectful” comments to a 24-year-old female P-plater and her stepmother after failing to indicate at a roundabout.

In the latter incident, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission found Murphy and another officer engaged in “serious misconduct” by racially abusing the two Afghan Muslim women.

While both officers were found to be “unfit for purpose as a police officer”, Murphy was also found to be “presently unfit” to deal with the public.

However, News Ltd reports that Murphy has been on “appropriate restricted duties” since earlier this year.

We asked a police psychologist who determines the fitness of officers for duty what that meant.

They said it usually meant the officer was assigned to desk or other duties with limited or no public contact.

While it is not a demotion in rank, it usually means they work 9-5 and lose lucrative shift penalties.

Senior Constable Andrew Murphy aka “Raptor 13” exonerated
Senior Constable Andrew Murphy aka “Raptor 13”

Charity ride incident

Magic had faced a charge of not obeying the direction of police for the incident at Woodenbong on 3 March 2018 when police roadblocked the 26th annual Good as Gold ride.

The hearing was scheduled for April 2019 in Kyogle Local Court, but police prosecution contacted Magic a couple of days before to say they would not proceed. No reasons were given.

Rather than feeling exonerated, Magic said he was disappointed with the result as he had been looking forward to his day in court.

He also made a formal complaint to police of alleged unlawful assault when the officer shoved him.

However, NSW Police Force Professional Standards Unit rejected the complaint, saying the officer’s shove was a “single approved check drill in accordance with his training”.

Click here to read the full reply.

Police Harassment charity ride profiling exonerated
Hells Angels charity ride

“Police policing their own is an endemic problem,” Magic told us.

“There needs to be an external body to handle complaints about police.

“People are being abused and give up making complaints because they know it will not go anywhere.

“Now police feel they can do anything they like.”

Not if they have no public contact, they can’t.

  1. I am so happy I moved to Tasmania where the police are polite, friendly and easy to get on with yet they still do their job and enforce the law. I find NSW police are so often worse than the criminals they are meant to control. Culture in any organisation driven from the top down and the Commissioner of Police recently made a public statement that people should be a bit afraid of the police. No they shouldn’t, police are not above the law. I know if I was in a position to help a cop in trouble I’d tell them to shove it. These fools don’t understand they will have far more public support and a greater chance of solving crimes if they treat the public with respect. All they do now is create a them and us attitude.

  2. We motorcyclists whine about being judged as a group by the minority of riders who do the wrong thing. Well, the same goes for police I’d say. A few bad apples. I’ve never once had any trouble whatsoever from a police officer and I’m an older rider with many years and well over a quarter of a million km in the saddle. I’ve always been approached with courtesy and respect, which was met with the same from me. I think each group has a preconceived notion about the other which colours their interactions from the get-go. And that’s not to say I don’t believe people when they say they’ve been mistreated, but just that sadly the stories we hear do seem to err quite heavily on the side of the negative interactions. On each of the two times I’ve been booked for speeding, and once for undue care and attention, I’ve been treated politely and just asked to explain myself. And I’d help a police officer in trouble any day as well. They are just people with families who love them, just like anyone else. We don’t know what experiences with our rider ‘bad eggs’ have coloured their attitudes. A bit of chill on both sides I think.

  3. Let me preface my comments by stating that I’ve been pulled over once by a motorcycle cop for failing to cancel an indicator. I explained to the cop I’d just gotten off my daughter’s scooter which had an indicator cancelling button and he’d just caught me before I realised I had to manually cancel. The cop was polite. He even said ‘it’s hardly a hanging offence’ and sent me on my way without further action. When lane filtering became legal I spotted a patrol up ahead. Since I was running late I didn’t want to risk being stopped so I remained in the traffic. The Cop spotted me and deliberately slowed to inform me that lane filtering is legal now. I shouted to him that “I know but I didn’t know if he knew.” He laughed. So, as in everything, there is good and bad.

    Mark Morri writing in the Daily Telegraph of April 4, 2011 said: “Raptor… busting 1300 bikies for everything from murder to illegal parking.” “Police are unashamed of how the squad operates, setting out to niggle, annoy and harass bikies and associates with “in your face policing”. “Police are stopping bikies on a daily basis for anything and everything.”

    I am not condoning crime of any form. However, as person interested in rehabilitation these type of policing policies are seriously flawed and dare I say in contravention of the UN Rule of Law. Since when is it legal to harass anyone? This is an unashamed admission of unequal and arbitrary application of the Law. Could it be one step away from the type of ‘Government Policing’ as depicted in Sons of Anarchy where the ‘good guys’ were not adverse to doing things…

    “For the United Nations (UN) system, the rule of law is a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards. It requires measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of the law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law, separation of powers, participation in decision-making, legal certainty, avoidance of arbitrariness, and procedural and legal transparency.” UN website 2019

    Rank hypocrisy is not an effective strategy to fight crime or rehabilitate people.

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