The Queensland Police Service has responded to a one of its officers wearing a right-wing extremist patch at a Brisbane Black Lives Matter rally last week, by removing the patch from the officer's uniform.
However, it is unclear if the male officer received any form of reprimand or direction to attend cultural awareness training after a week of enquiries from QPS.
The officer in question was photographed wearing a representation of the American flag bisected with a thin blue line. The patch has emerged as a symbol of white supremacy in law enforcement in the US in response to the Black Lives Matter uprisings and increasing calls for reforms in policing.
In a statement on Friday, a QPS spokesperson said the matter had been “finalised” and the patch had been removed.
“The Queensland Police Service has made further enquiries with the officer involved and the matter is now finalised,” said the spokesperson.
“The patch is not an approved part of uniform and has since been removed.”
The Thin Blue Line movement has been criticised in the US for supporting militarised policing while overlooking an epidemic of police brutality, racism and bigotry.
Last week's Black Lives Matter rally in Brisbane was sparked by the death in custody of 49-year-old Birri Gubba woman, Sherry Fisher Tilberoo.
Ms Fisher-Tilberoo was being held on remand, pending transfer to a correctional centre.
She was found unresponsive in her holding cell on Thursday last week.
On Friday last week, a group of around thirty police officers scuffled with a protest demonstration outside of the Roma Street Police Station and made 18 arrests as people chanted and waved placards, demanding justice and an end to racist policing.
Ms Fisher-Tilberoo is the fifth Indigenous person to die in custody in Australia since June this year and the 441st death in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
Australia's peak Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal body, NATSILS, has described the situation as a "national emergency".
A banner hangs across a bridge in Brisbane with the words, 'Justice for Aunty Sherry' on Friday 18 September. Source: Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) - (Facebook)
An investigation into Ms Fisher-Tilberoo’s death is now being overseen by Queensland's State Coroner and the Crime and Corruption Commission.
A vigil will be held on Friday afternoon at King George Square for Ms Fisher-Tilberoo and will be followed by a march across the river and into Musgrave Park, where the will be a community gathering.
