I am quite disturbed about some of the outbursts in this case. Does a lot of this boil down to charge the police officer regardless of whether there is any evidence. How evil would that be?

AnthonyMarinac makes a reasonable, detached argument but misses a couple of crucial issues. First, a man held in custody for a low-level misdemeanour is dead and we should all extend our sympathies to his family and his community. I feel diminished by Mulrunji's death and I know many others do too. This is a time for compassion, not for mere competitive argumentation. Logical legal argument does not change the fact that there will be no justice in this case using current approaches.

Second, as Tom Calma, the ATSISJ Commissioner, points out, in claiming that Mulrunji’s death was an accident, the Director of Public Prosecutions went beyond her role and duties. Her role was to determine whether the available evidence supported a prosecution. It did not require her to decide whether the death was accidental or not. She did not have the evidence or capacity to support that finding. Why did she make that claim?

There are other matters to resolve. The Deputy State Coroner found that the police investigation into Mulrunji’s death did not meet the standard required for a death in custody. What action, then, has the Police Commissioner taken to remedy that failure?

Moreover, this is another death in custody - fifteen years after governments around Australia resolved to reform the system. Something continues to go wrong. Why?

It would seem to me essential that the Director of Public Prosecutions should be free to make their best judgement based on the evidence available. It is dangerously wrong for a politician to instruct the DPP one way or the other. But surely a DPP sensitive to the public outcry could autonomously initiate a double check of their decision, perhaps by asking some independent authority to nominate an impartial judge of the evidence. I very much suspect that the evidence for a successful prosecution will be lacking, but that is the next question to be asked. Was the evidence gathering adequately?
It is very very sad that someone die in those circumstances, but it would be even sadder if that misfortune were compounded by further injustice, whether it be to try an officer or not to try him. Let the available facts speak.

Good on you Realist. Shonga's attack on you was out of order.

As in South Africa, it will take some time before justice and reconciliation win through here. It will happen, eventually, but it will be too late for Mulrunji Doomadgee.

Poor fella my country, indeed.

• baldpaul wrote: "I am quite disturbed about some of the outbursts in this case. Does a lot of this boil down to charge the police officer regardless of whether there is any evidence. How evil would that be? "

BaldPaul, Very evil, just as evil as to believe an Aboriginal man died in custody of injuries that no-one inflicted on him.

The evidence is substantial and comprehensive in my view, bfut perhaps you think the Coroners report was full of lies?

When 3 bouncers were charged in May for the death of a patron at the Royal Exchange pub in May this year no one said a thing.

When an Aboriginal man arrested for swearing was thrown into a paddy wagon, then allegedly died from injuries that medical experts say could only have been inflicted with great force - should we all presume the policeman was innocent?

I know it might seem 'natural', even inevitable, that Aboriginal or other people continue to die in custody, but it’s not natural, its not right and it should be questioned.

Thanks to those posters here who asked ‘what if it were your family’ because that’s exactly what its all about. Because it could be someone in your family next.

We deserve to know the facts ?

I'll go one better.. if there is a genuine issue of police brutality here and justice is not done nor seen to be done, then we are one step (and understandably so) further down the track of aboriginal violent radicalism and retribution.

Here is the classic weakness of 'Multi-culturalism'. When you have racially and culturally divided communities and ANY issue like this arises, the sneaking suspicions that normally just simmer, rage to the boil in a milisecond.

Be it a
-Shortage (lets be sure 'our mob' get our fair share)
-Death in Custody (aah..this was CERTainly racially motivated)
-Abundance (I'll BET that mob are going to do better because they are well connected to the people up top)

In short ANY major social disturbance will reveal the flaws of many cultures and will immediately nullify the idea of 'strength' in diversity.

The Qld government is probably the worst and most racist of all state governments from what I've read. (historically I mean)
The saying "God is not mocked, a man will reap what he sows" also applies to this incident.