Sydney residents have unleashed at police for immediately sending a forensics team to fingerprint posters of NSW Premier Chris Minns with a Hitler moustache while being slow to investigate violent crimes.
The backlash erupted after a local shared photos of the investigation on Reddit, saying the posters were only up for an hour before police arrived, but that when their car was rammed by their crazy neighbour officers didn’t respond for 10 hours.
One image showed a police forensics team investigator in a mask and gloves appearing to fingerprint or DNA swab the poster, and in the second photo a general duties officer could be seen reflected in a car side mirror covering a poster with a black bag.
“Someone’s put up posters of Minns with a Hitler moustaches. The GDs are running around with garbage bags to cover them, and forensics are following up fingerprinting the sticky tape,” the resident said.
“Then they moved to the bus shelter for more evidence.”
The photos sparked outrage from other Australians who shared their experience with NSW Police refusing to investigate far more serious offences, and criticised Mr Minns for his crackdown on protest and speech rights.
“Cops will test forensics when you put up a poster (which could be classified as satire) but will turn a blind eye to car theft,” said one popular comment.
“I got attacked by my neighbour and his mate in my front yard while mowing the lawn, blood pouring out of my head and clearly beaten. Police said they can take a statement but couldn’t do anything else because he had a witness (his wife who wasn’t home and his mate who also attacked me) and I didn’t,” another said.
“I once had someone try to run me off the road after sexually harassing me. Whole thing was caught on camera. I called the cops, told them which camera, told them when and where, gave them a licence plate and description of the driver, and they told me it would be too hard to find him. Served that guy up on a silver platter but they’d rather dust a postbox to go after a satirist,” said a third.
“If you need urgent police response, include that someone talked shit about Israel’s leaders,” joked another, while someone else wrote: “People need to be aware that the Minns Definition of Anti-Semitism apparently forbids comparison of his policies with Nazi Germany.”
The investigation comes as Mr Minns and NSW Police face scrutiny over their handling of protests against Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia, which erupted in violence on Sunday night.
Mr Minns, who has repeatedly said freedom of speech is incompatible with multiculturalism, has also passed a series of “hate speech” and anti-protest laws over the last two years, some of which have been struck down by the courts.
The new laws have resulted in steady stream of charges for social media posts, war memorabilia, salutes and Nazi symbols.
Those dragged before the courts include a Wagga Wagga graphic artist who was charged with displaying Nazi symbols for depicted former Opposition leader Peter Dutton and local MP Michael McCormack as Nazis on a satirical poster in his shop window.
Header image: Left, right, the police investigating the posters (Reddit).
