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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/aug/04/family-nt-police-constable-bill-mckinnon-history-ntwnfb>
"Malcolm McKinnon remembers poking around under Great-Uncle Bill’s big old
house in Brisbane while the adults were having afternoon tea. Once he found a
pile of rusty old chains. Some had big loops, one was a breastplate of some
kind. He thought they looked strange.
Malcolm’s brother Ross, 62, also remembers seeing the chains under Bill’s old
Queenslander. “They were too big to be handcuffs,” Ross says, “but as kids we
didn’t think about it any more than that.”
The boys grew up hearing about how Bill had been a famous police officer on the
frontier in the Northern Territory.
“Bill was seen in the family as a bit of a legend,” Malcolm, now 69, says. “He
was involved in the Petrov affair, he was active during Cyclone Tracy, he was
the last cop who rode a camel.”
Much later, they realised there was another side to the story.
The chains had been for capturing and imprisoning Aboriginal people. By the
neck.
A fuller picture of Constable Bill McKinnon’s policing career has emerged – and
it has been confronting, revelatory and life-changing for Malcolm, Ross and
their youngest brother, Alistair."
See also:
The Killing Code
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/04/the-killing-code-strange-symbols-in-a-wa-settlers-diaries-lay-bare-frontier-atrocities-ntwnfb>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
