Aussie arrested in own home accuses police of racial profiling

A father has accused police of racial profiling after he was accused of trespassing at his apartment complex and arrested by officers.

Tuck, 38, has lodged a formal complaint with ACT Police after the incident at his unit in the inner-south Canberra suburb of Narrabundah on June 27.

Tuck, who is from Zimbabwe but moved to Australia with his wife and daughter 17 years ago, said he was recuperating after a hospital stay by his apartment complex’s pool when a neighbour approached him.

The neighbour, who lives in the same complex, began demanding to know who Tuck was and what he was doing.

Tuck, who was wearing a hoodie, slippers and fleece track pants, said he was ‘confused’ by the neighbour’s ‘discourteous’ questions. 

‘I wasn’t sure if he was asking about my ethnic origin or whether he was asking about if I [live] within the complex,’ he told the ABC.

Tuck refused to tell the neighbour where he lived and returned fire by asking the man for the same information.

The neighbour threatened to call the police, which Tuck welcomed because he thought they would stop the harassment.

He was astonished to see three police cars pull up 15 minutes later – a response he thought was an ‘over-reaction’. 

Tuck said three officers began interrogating him and asked where he lived.

He pointed to his house which backs onto the pool and barbecue area.

Police demanded photo identification, according to Tuck, which he did not have on him.

However, he showed officers the keys for his house and the pool gate.

Officers said they would have to get a photo ID from the house.

‘I was offended at the suggestion that they would enter my house,’ Tuck said.

‘There was no search warrant. There was no report that there was anything illegal that they needed to search for in my house.’

Tuck said the police aggression was such that he asked if they were going to shoot him.

With Tuck resisting demand that he let them go in his house the officers began escorting him out of the pool area.

‘I didn’t take kindly to that, because I had a lawful right to be in the barbecue area,’ he said.

At this point he began filming the interaction. 

Tuck alleges that at this point an officer grabbed his wrist and said the phone was in his face.

The officer then arrested Tuck on suspicion of trespassing.

‘I was restrained on my right shoulder, and then they began to handcuff me behind my back,’ Tuck said.

‘I did not resist the arrest, I just gave up.’

Tuck told news website RiotAct that when the officer ‘was trying to get the keys from my hand he cut himself on a key and told me he was adding assaulting an officer to the charge’.

Officers also allegedly asked Tuck if he was intoxicated or had consumed marijuana, with one saying his eyes were red and his voice appeared slurred.

He accused police of trying to ‘strengthen the profile’ they were trying to create.

While one of the officers told him the arrest had nothing to do with the colour of his skin, Tuck doesn’t believe that was the case.

‘[They believed] that I was an unemployed youth… you know, potentially of African or Indigenous descent, that was enjoying amenities unlawfully,’ he said. 

‘I think they just hoped that indeed it was a trespass to confirm the narrative they’d created.’

After being handcuffed, Tuck was bundled into a police van with officers taking his keys to enter the unit and eventually they ascertained it was his and released him.

An ACT Police spokesman on Wednesday confirmed the incident to Daily Mail Australia.

He said officers ‘received a report of an alleged trespasser at an apartment complex in Narrabundah’ and claimed a man had been ‘belligerent.

‘The man was asked to provide identification but became belligerent with police directions,’ the spokesman said.

‘As officers attempted to handcuff the man, he resisted, causing a minor injury to an officer’s hand.’

‘The man was eventually cuffed and placed in a police vehicle while officers conducted checks on the man’s address.

‘After confirming the man was a resident of the apartment complex, he was unarrested.’

Despite alleging Tuck cut the officer’s hand police said they were laying no charges. 

They also confirmed Tuck’s complaint had been received and ‘was being assessed in accordance with the AFP Complaints Management Framework’.

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