Middle Eastern Crime

    For some time now a handful of ex-police officers, like Tim Priest who was a Detective Sergeant in the NSW Police Force, have been writing and lecturing to any one who wishes to listen on the rise of Middle Eastern Crime (MEC) in this country.

    Most 'aware' officers working in and around Sydney during the mid to late 90's became familiar with the type of crime that Middle Eastern gangs were starting to concentrate on such as vehicle theft, armed robbery and smash and grab raids. Any police force is only as good as the information its intelligence services can gather on organized crime or criminals in general. The downside of course, when collating reliable information for which police act on, is the amount of time taken to gather that information.

    While there was an awareness at senior police level, of the rise of crime related incidents involving middle eastern gangs (Lebanese Muslim) before the Royal Commission of 1996/97 was convened, it was the advent of that Commission that put the investigation of these gangs onto the back burner. Senior police decided that until the fallout from the Commission had been fully assessed nothing further was to be done.

    This action on the part of senior police was a huge mistake, as the squad that would have been tasked with combating MEC was disbanded on the recommendation of Justice Wood, who headed the Commission. This recommendation by Wood has since, had far reaching consequences for the performance of the NSW Police. The loss of this squad very effectively nobbled any investigative knowledge that the police had at this time on criminals of all 'colors'. This ill thought out action of dismantling the state's foremost crime fighting unit gave rise to MEC throughout Sydney and wherever these gangs chose to commit crimes, or just for the fun of it, generally harass the non-Muslim population.

    During the latter part of the 1990's a tactic of the MEC gangs was to taunt and intimidate lone police officers, usually Highway Patrol officers who normally work as 'Alpha' units (Alone). It was not uncommon to be working a shift and have to respond to an 'officer backup' call, where earlier, a Highway Patrol officer may have pulled over a lone driver for a minor traffic offence, only to find within minutes that he/she would be surrounded by several vehicles carrying groups of young middle eastern men, readily identifying themselves as 'Lebs' who would begin to hurl abusive and offensive remarks aimed at that officer in order to intimidate them into retreating.

    While police at that time had no real power to move groups of persons on who were deemed to be causing trouble, and the younger police, some fresh out of the College of Knowledge, would stand around and be intimidated by these would be thugs, this author's favorite trick was to retrieve the Defect Notice book, or the Traffic infringement Notice book from the police vehicle, and begin defecting the trouble makers cars, or issuing them with traffic infringement notices depending on offences at the time. This action usually had the desired effect and the trouble makers would soon disperse leaving the Highway Patrol officer to do his job.

    Another tactic that the MEC gangs used was breaking into police vehicles while the officers were attending to 'jobs' away from the vehicle. Police equipment stolen over several thefts included, body armor, hand held radios, batons, and even a Glock 9mm pistol from a detectives car. Some officers had shirts stolen from their clothes line while some female officers were deliberately targeted and followed home by one or two of these criminals who did not bother to hide the fact from the wary and often intimidated officer. To the author's knowledge, none of the items stolen has ever been recovered, and there have been several incidents of crimes committed by offenders identifying themselves as 'police officers' invariably described by the victims of those crimes as males of middle eastern appearance.

    During mid 1999 a McDonalds Restaurant located in Southern Sydney came under siege by a group of young Arabic speaking men who, just prior to closing time, entered the restaurant and began to intimidate the restaurant's last minute diners by pushing and shoving them or by knocking their food onto the floor. When staff tried to intervene, the self- identified 'Lebs' began to pelt them with the diners discarded food and other loose and handy items which forced the staff, mostly female, to retreat into a back room and call police. Meanwhile the aggressive Muslims set about trashing the restaurant doing hundreds of dollars worth of damage.

    A large contingent of police arrived, including the Dog Squad, who set about arresting those offenders that still remained on the premises. Several scuffles broke out between police and Muslims and several officers suffered minor injuries. Those that were arrested were conveyed back to Sutherland Police station and charged with numerous offences. You may be thinking, that's great they got the bad guys! But wait, there's more!

    Following the Wood Royal Commission the then NSW Labor Government (socialist) put in place a very complex and intrusive complaint system within the NSW Police. In short, any one could call in anonymously and complain about a police officer. All complaints had to be acted on by a Duty Officer and let me add here, that the Duty Officer position was so new at this time, that some of these officers weren't even aware of their responsibilities. Even complaints from an offender recently arrested and still in police custody had to be dealt with. This most ridiculous system led to a very dangerous situation following the siege at McDonalds, and to wit:

    While Sutherland police were busily processing the offending Muslims the station came under a barrage of phone calls from family members of those being charged. As anyone knows who has dealt with these people, they know how to 'utilize' any system to their advantage. Complaints of police mistreatment at the hands of the arresting officers were so numerous that calls had to be diverted to other stations. But to really underscore this silly complaint system some of the Muslim family members began to call the emergency number '000' which then effectively tied up Southern Sydney's Emergency Network for more than two hours. Any REAL emergency calls that were lucky enough to get through, had to be dealt with by either mobile phone or portable radio on back channel. It was just plain luck that no one lost their life waiting for an ambulance.

    But, to really add insult to injury to a police officers job, on their day in Court the counsel for the offending Muslims accused the arresting officers of police brutality against his clients citing one offender who had allegedly been bitten by the police dog. The offenders now became the victims as the sitting Magistrate dismissed the police case against them ordering an investigation into police conduct at the McDonalds incident. This spineless keeper of our laws refused to even read the police FACTS sheet or witness/victims statements. One can only imagine the dismay of those police officers who, having sworn to uphold the law and protect the people and their property in the State of New South Wales, and had done so on the night in question, were now being singled out for investigation which could lead to possible charges. Robin Williams couldn't have written a better comedy!
             
    The NSW Police Association (Police Union) now became involved in this matter and vowed to fight the Magistrates decision all the way to the Supreme Court. The Secretary of the Police Association promised industrial action if any of the officers involved in the McDonalds incident were to face charges. After an Internal Affairs investigation all police involved in this now farcical stand off between the Police Force, the Judiciary and government were cleared of any wrongdoing.

    Although that silly complaint system soon after was modified to exclude anonymous complaints, which now has to be made in person, in this authors opinion, it was not modified enough!

    In 2000, an unprecedented act of intimidation was committed by a member of a MEC gang who shot nine rounds from a handgun, thought to be a police issue Glock 9mm, into Lakemba police station which narrowly missed the station officer and two other officers near him. The person thought to be responsible for that incident fled the country to Lebanon on his dual citizenship passport when he believed that police were closing in on him. However, he was soon arrested by authorities over there for another unrelated matter, and was until recently, serving time in that country's prison system. He has been extradited back to Australia and is currently serving a seven year jail sentence which some would say is not long enough.

    In 2002, a series of rapes were perpetrated on several young women in the Sydney area. Police soon picked up on the 'modus operandi' and as with most crimes of this nature there is a common thread which links them all together. These rapes were being committed by members of a gang of young Muslim men (Skaf brothers and friends) who would pack rape and taunt their victims and force them into degrading acts whilst uttering racial slurs, such as 'Aussie Pig'. The offenders readily identified themselves to the victims as Lebanese. In fact, they were proud of it! All members of this gang have now been locked up and are serving very lengthy prison sentences. The presiding judge at the trial of these scum was moved to remark when sentencing the leader of the gang, Bilal Skaf, to 55 years jail that was later on appeal reduced to 35 years, that; "Young Muslim men are a blight on our society." Again, some would say that even the original sentence as handed down was not long enough!

    In December, 2005, following many years of intimidation, taunts and some brutal assaults by young Muslim men aimed at young native Australian men and women, including Lifeguards - whose only crime was to enjoy themselves on a warm sunny day as countless generations have done before them at the beach - a crowd of local young people gathered at Cronulla Beach in Sydney's south east, to protest this recurrent problem and voice their concern to the authorities.

    Unfortunately, some people began to consume alcoholic beverages and began to take their frustrations out on anyone who looked to be Lebanese. While the author does not personally condone this type of protest and subsequent behaviour, it has to be understood, that this problem had been ongoing for years and regardless of the protestors concerns, the authorities, including the police, and for years, did absolutely nothing about it.

    Some hotheads in the large crowd assembled on that day hurled empty beer bottles and other handy weapons at police and ambulance officers out of sheer frustration and attacked several – again, self-identified young Lebanese males who had dared to show up on the day. While this was occurring in Cronulla, another group of young men were being primed at their local Mosque in Lakemba for what would turn out to be retaliation raids, almost an act of war, and not protests as most civilized peoples would offer up, against those who happened to live in the suburbs of Cronulla, Maroubra, and surrounding areas, and generally had played no part in the original riot.

    Over the next three nights, people living in those areas were the victims of, or witness to, some of the most violent and destructive actions by any group of individuals that has been witnessed to in this country since the Second World War.

    The police and the authorities to their everlasting shame stood back and let it happen! As an ex-cop and a proud Australian, this author has never felt so ashamed as he did at that time. One young male nearly lost his life and was left with a large knife embedded in his back while trying to defend two females from these gutless monsters. A father of three young children was beaten senseless with a baseball bat and now has brain damage, just because he was putting out his garbage for collection and chose to answer yes to the question; "Are you an Aussie?" before being assaulted. There was thousands of dollars worth of damage done to motor vehicles and other personal and public property. Then these Muslim thugs just melted back into their own community and have never been brought to justice! While the media and the authorities have named and shamed those young Australian men who were caught up in the so called Cronulla Riot, not one Lebanese Muslim has been dealt with who was involved in the payback raids, which for sheer violence and brutality, went far beyond that which had originally occurred on the actual riot day. This is the society that we now live in where individuals have more rights than society in general and minorities like the Lebanese Muslims are protected and can do no wrong according to our governments.

    The MEC gangs of today are involved in every kind of crime imaginable. In truth, they are over represented in crime statistics and in the jails. The crimes they are involved in cost this state and this nation, billions of dollars annually and it is only recently that a dedicated squad has been put in place to combat them. Young Muslim men are notorious for creating incidents against non-Muslim men and women who, on reacting to taunts from the Muslim, suddenly find themselves confronting several armed and very aggressive males. Several young Australian men have been murdered simply because they have reacted to insults aimed at them by young Muslim males. Off duty police have been assaulted and even murdered simply because they felt it their duty to intervene in a crime in progress that they inadvertently stumbled upon and the perpertrators happened to be Lebanese Muslim. Never before in our history have we been witness to the viciousness and wanton violence that the young Muslim is prepared to deal out to unsuspecting Australians, regardless of age or sex.

     We are now witness to the future of this country unless we can halt all Muslim immigration, and we need to do this now. Very rarely does a day go past where some crime has occurred that doesn't involve men of middle eastern appearance. There are now areas in Sydney and Melbourne that are no go areas for the native Australian who are now very thin on the ground in those parts, most having been intimidated into moving away from the areas now occupied by the Muslim.

    Is this what we want for our children?