My name is Rebecca Long and I just came here in Australia in 1999 with my poor children.
At the time I was a single, just with my boys, poor boys. It's my son, the career Martin
Matian. I'm into music, like I like listening to music and making music. I play sports
for fun, love soccer, I love to watch soccer on TV.
But now when the police arrived, I came from work and I just sent Dominique to buy a fixer
quickly. When Dominique drove back, I saw the police car, Polo Dominique car, the police
of the car, knocked to my neighbor's house. So Dominique get out in the car with fixer
and come to knock the door and I opened the door and I talked to Dominique. I said, what
did you do? And he said, no, I didn't do anything. What happened? And he said, I said, the police
follow you. And he said, no, I didn't do anything, mom. And I said, okay, when you didn't do
anything, come here. I just take the fixer and put it on the table. And me and Dominique,
we just sit. And in two seconds, the police arrived, knocked the door, boom, boom, boom.
And I opened the door, you know, and he asked me, he said that, he said, where is that?
He said, passing the house. Where is that? And I said, I really don't know that because
I'm just coming now from work. He said, now the 7-Eleven ring to say the Sambalac, the
sailing ship. And Dominique said, no, I didn't know that. So we're talking with these police
here. And in one second, the crying coming back of my house.
I found police officers in front of my door to officers standing there in front of my door.
The torch already like lit straight into my face. And they just basically asked me, you
know, who was Zechariah? I told them, I'm Zechariah. Then they asked me, who stole the
chips? And I told them, what are you talking about? Like, I don't know what exactly you're
talking about. And he just got real aggressive when he started screaming. Like, you know,
tell us who freaking stole the chips, you little shit, you know what I mean? And I basically
told him, seriously, I'm an officer, I don't know who stole the chips. And he just, big
papers spray can, he just out of nowhere, out of the blue, just put it straight in my
face. And he just started spraying like, like, like I was some type of insect or something.
So the two police, they're talking to her and like, like four or five, they're already
in the bungalow there, fighting with the boys. And my, my niece, I heard, she's crying out.
He said, auntie, auntie, just run. The boy, you can't, you can't, the boy big died. He
didn't know the police bashing the boys. Come quickly auntie. You know, when I hear the
other police, they're running in the, in the backyard doorway. And me, I right inside.
And when I arrived to go out in the, into the bungalow, they, I saw the police man is
on the, on the court. He just back him and he hold him with the handcuffs. And the, the
female woman, the female one is on the job. It just pan him and kick him, pan him and
kick him. Cause I was, I was, I was shocked at that moment after he had sprayed me and
everything just went blank in my head. And I just, I just turned against the wall in
my room, close my eyes and put my hands like on my eyes. There was just screaming and yelling
in the room. And, you know, pepper, pepper spray cans just gone off like, you know, like
fire hoses or whatever. I seen them drag one of the boys out of the room to the backyard
and they were stomping like the hell out of him. Like kicking him on the floor and everything.
I remember feeling like I just woke up from like a sleep, like sleep and with the police
officer on my back, I'm putting handcuffs on me, physically forcing me up from, from
like where I was laying, which was in my room, like under my bed. And yeah, just dragging
me basically to the front yard. And you know, he did assault me like with his baton and
punched me too. Yeah. When he got, when he took me to like the side of the house, he punched
me and then when I got to the, when I got to the front, my mom came and she started
hugging me, telling me like, you know what I mean? Like, you know, you guys are killing
my son, what he's doing. And yeah, I remember like having tears like full, like, you know,
coming out of my, like me crying too.
So I just crying. I say, you can't kill my son, thrown on my face. I say, you're a woman.
You should have a heart. And he said, he said, don't move. When you move, everybody on arrest.
Don't move. Everybody on arrest when you hear me like that. I say, you killed my son already.
I just crying. I just crying on the door. And, you know, when they grab that, because
they want to put to sit, they can't sit. They just like that. And yeah, and I just crying
when I saw Jack like that, I really crying and I want to rush out to helping my son.
And the police say nobody move out. And that woman, he just grabbed, he dropped that and
he just jumped to the door, to the security door. He, he put his shoulder, he put it like
that.
Forced the door inside.
To put the door inside and his hand is behind. So Dominic is right there because I really
cry when I saw bullies like that. I say, maybe go to shoot me or go to, you know, when Dominic
came and Dominic say, what, what happened? And, you know, when the woman saw Dominic
boys, he's really so rough. He's really better, better mad.
She got aggressive.
Yeah. He's really better mad. He's screaming and he's screaming, yelling to say everybody
under, under arrest. So I crying to Dominic. I say, the boy outside there, already they
died. You can't go out again. When you go out, maybe the woman hugged you. Don't go
out. I just big Dominic. I said, Dominic, don't go out. Go, Dominic, you want to write to
the boy to see how bad they are.
So the man there, he just, he just, you know, say the bad word. Like, I'm, you know, I really
didn't teach my kid properly. They, you know, like the criminal kid and I didn't teach them
properly. So I just cry and I hold my son in. It's what I'm doing. And that woman, he
just jammed with this spray behind and he just, because Dominic really don't want his,
the big boy is wrong. He put me to, he want to go out to helping the boy. When it's, when
the female woman saw Dominic like that, we just grab the, the spray and just spray on
there.
So sprayed at you in the house?
Yeah. Inside the house.
Who else would have been affected by the spray, Rebecca?
That time, you know, my children, um, Abraham is sleeping in that, in that room there, he's
in that room there. And I can only have a baby for three, three months, four. Yeah.
And my children, that time, Bronson is four and Anna is three. So all my children, they
all inside the house. So the time they spray house, we just, everybody just like, like
a few minutes, nobody talk. Everybody just, you know, we try to open our eyes. Everything
is colored. It's showed up. And the boys, they go to the boy, to check the boy, the
boy can respond like they been, they've been blocked out, you know. So the boy is yelling
to say, when you help bring the water, bring the cold water with two jugs. So I run and
give them two jugs and give them another two jugs. And that time is raining. The boy on
the, on the rain, they been handcuffed and the pace is puppy with white spray in the
pace. So they're all down and Joel is just crying and say, why should you guy spray house
in the house? What did we do? Joel is asking them later, when you take out the ball, did
you go to tell us, what did we do? We didn't do anything today. We didn't do nothing. The
police, the one they sent it to 7-Eleven, he ran back quickly and he said, they're not
these boys. We're doing something wrong, you know. And the court say, you've been trade
house like we criminal and they say, you are black criminal all the time. You're doing,
running around, doing a bad thing. One day, police been spray house, all of us, we are
there. The mother with the little baby. So the spray is being affected to the baby and
the baby is being vomited and being crying and crying. So he's been, the, the ambulance
people, they've been watching the baby. But the baby that night, like three days, he's
been just crying. And the other thing I remember after the ambulance left, I just get in the
car, put the kid back inside. I remember I leave them in the, in the backyard with Dominic
and I drive to the police station, Altona. And, you know, and when I went there, I told
to the, to the prom, prom desk. Yeah, I talked to them and I said, I really need officer,
I really need a police to, to be in charge in this night because I really have a big
problem in my house. And he said, just wait. I've been waiting there like two hours waiting.
When the man coming out, it's not interested about what I told him. He said my, he said
my partners, when they do something wrong there, maybe the boy, they've been criminal.
Maybe they're doing a bad stuff that why they bullied. I said the boys, they're not doing
something wrong. They get in the house and the police came inside my house.
In the days after this happened, Zaka Rebekah, what was it like for you?
It's, it's, it's very bad. It's special for me that he didn't know the war before. I
born them in the war. And when I left there, I came here when that is six years old. But
for me, it's, it's really put me back because when I came here, I came to, you know, to,
you know, like I'm a survival, but I love my children to have a good life, not to kill
anybody or somebody to kill them. So I really put me back the way before somebody came to
kill you for no reason at all.
It really hurt me. Even until today, like I still haven't been able to find my peace
with the police. I've just felt like, you know what I mean? Like, I can't trust them
or even come to them for help. So I've been very hurt by it. And I think I've, I'm still
traumatized until today, actually, because when I see police officers, my heart just
pounds and pounds and pounds and, you know, in.
