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Man's racist attack on Brisbane train caught on video Man's racist attack on Brisbane train caught on video
(35 minutes later)
Queensland police are investigating a racist rant on a Brisbane train after a video of the incident was uploaded to the internet. Detectives are questioning two people over a racist tirade on a train that was filmed and posted online, with the ugly behaviour of the passenger involved drawing condemnation from the Australian prime minister.
The five-minute video, which has been circulating on social media since Saturday, shows a young man swearing at and racially abusing a security guard after being told to take his feet of a seat. The five-minute video shows a young man swearing and hurling racial slurs at a Queensland Rail train guard who had asked him to take his feet off the seats.
The young man tells the guard to “learn some English”, claiming he can’t understand him. “Learn some fucking English because this is Australia, because I can’t understand you,” the man says. “Do you even have citizenship?”
“You want to come to our country ... do you even have citizenship?” he says. When another rail officer steps in the young man calls him a “dumb white dog”.
Fellow passengers look on in disgust and the young man’s friend, who is filming the incident, can be heard laughing from behind camera. Other passengers eventually intervene, telling the man to get off the train, but he declares: “I’ll sit on this train for hours if I have to, I’ll hold everyone up. I really don’t care,” before continuing to hurl foul language and racial insults and confront other occupants of the train.
At one point the abusive passenger challenges the guard to a fight. After several minutes of racially charged insults, another passenger steps in to demand they get off the train. After the footage went viral on Saturday evening a Facebook user claiming to be the man shown in the video left a comment claiming he had been drunk. “I was just drunk couldn’t remember shit so stop over reacting, but I am proud to be white!” the post read.
Police have confirmed they are looking into the incident. Another comment followed several hours later: “I’m really sorry to everyone that was affected by the video, I really can not remember anything out of all honesty, the post made before was someone else, I know this is no excuse.
On Saturday night, someone purporting to be the subject of the video posted an apology on a Facebook account. “But can you all see from my point of view that I was a fucking idiot and I’m really sorry.”
“I was just drunk couldn’t remember s*** so stop over reacting, but I am proud to be white!” one message read. A police spokesman confirmed that two people were being questioned on Sunday afternoon.
The user then posted another comment several hours later, which was more remorseful. The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, told reporters in Brisbane the footage was “deplorable”.
“I’m really sorry to everyone that was affected by the video I really can not remember anything out of all honesty the post made before was someone else I know this is no excuse. “I think it’s un-Australian to abuse people in a public place just because you don’t like the way they look, or you don’t like the way they dress, or you make assumptions about what they believe,” he said.
“But can you all see from my point of view that I was a F***ing idiot and I’m really sorry.” The Queensland state premier, Campbell Newman, praised the “dignity and aplomb” of the guard at the centre of the attack, saying he had shown “admirable restraint”.
On Sunday prime minister Tony Abbott denounced the racially-fuelled attack, calling it “un-Australian”. “His name is Joe. I haven’t talked to him yet but I intend to talk to him,” Newman said. “He didn’t inflame things – from what I’ve seen he did a really good job in the difficult circumstances.”
“I think it’s un-Australian to abuse someone in a public place just because you don’t like the way they look, or you don’t like the way they dress, or you make assumptions about what they believe,” Abbott said, speaking in Brisbane. Queensland Rail also congratulated the guard and said it was “disgusted at the anti-social behaviour” of the passenger. “We strive to provide a safe workplace for our people and to see this occur is appalling,” it said in a statement.
Queensland premier Campbell Newman also condemned the racist tirade and praised the “dignity” of the security guard. The incident is the latest in a series of racist attacks caught on camera on Australian public transport.
“It was not on,” Newman told reporters. “Totally inappropriate ... we’ve got to look after one another, we’ve got to respect one another. We’ve got to be a tolerant, multicultural society.” In July a woman was filmed abusing two people on a train in Sydney, make racist gestures at an Asian woman and telling her male companion he was “sad” and “pathetic”.
Referring to the apology that appeared on a Facebook account purporting to belong to the young man in the video, Newman said his attempt to show remorse did not “cut the mustard”. The 55-year old woman later apologised, saying she had been having a “really, really rotten day”.
The premier applauded the guard for the “dignity and aplomb” he showed and said the insults he endured were “totally unacceptable”. In April last year video footage surfaced of a woman on a Melbourne train screaming at a dark-skinned passenger, telling him “It’s my fucking country” and using racial insults.
“His name is Joe. I haven’t talked to him yet but I intend to talk to him,” Newman said. A French tourist on a Melbourne bus was told to “speak English or die” and threatened with having her breasts cut off in another incident caught on camera in November 2012. Australian Broadcasting Corporation newsreader Jeremy Fernandez, who has a Malaysian background, also wrote last year of being racially abused in front of his young daughter and told to go back his “own country” by a woman on a bus in Sydney.
“He didn’t inflame things, from what I’ve seen he did a really good job in the difficult circumstances.”
Queensland Rail has issued a statement condemning the attack as “appalling”, while police have confirmed they are investigating.
Newman said it was up to the guard to decide whether he will make any sort of complaint.