5 People Beaten To Death
Another 5 Punched And Kicked Into Comas
More Than 7200 Brutal Assaults In Just Twelve Months
There's something terrible happening in New South Wales. A level of violence and aggression we haven't seen in years, and alcohol abuse is believed to be a major factor in most of the assaults.
In the space of one year, an average of twenty assaults per day are being reported by police. More than 7200 in total. The majority of the beatings and assaults and murders have occurred on Friday and Saturday nights.
In some areas of New South Wales, primarily in Sydney and country towns, teenagers are reportedly so scared of being assaulted they are choosing to stay home on Friday and Saturday nights.
One in ten youth between the ages of 15 and 24 are reported to have been hashed, or threatened with assault, in the past year.
The evening news has become a cavalcade of murders, beatings, rapes and child molestation.
In just the past 12 weeks alone, five people have been beaten to death, including a fifteen year old boy, and another five have suffered such savage assaults they've been left in comas.
The storm of savage violence engulfing New South Wales towns and cities shows no signs of abating.
From The Daily Telegraph :
Homicide squad chief Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford said police were worried by the aggression and the ferocious nature of the attacks. "There has certainly been a rate of assaults that is of great concern to us," he said.
"People are getting into a fight or king hitting someone and not thinking about the consequences."
Dr Weatherburn said he was most concerned for young people who were often targeted by drunk people who pick on them because they are more vulnerable or of smaller build.
He said the problem was worse in rural areas, particularly in the northwest of the state.
The victims have included Geoffrey Taban, 26, who escaped war-torn Sudan only to die after he was bashed...
And there's this incredible story, from Victoria, about a a family picnic destroyed by a booze-fuelled brawl involving more 60 drunken youths :
It was midday on the last day of the year and Adrian Leckie, his sister and their families were enjoying a picnic in a park outside his holiday house in Brunswick Heads, on the North Coast.A few hundred metres away a group of about 100 youths were riding bikes and playing cricket.
It was a sedate and peaceful beginning to a day that was to end otherwise - Mr Leckie and two others savagely beaten, his house attacked and invaded and his three-year-old daughter picked up and thrown on the road.
The Australian government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past decade running ad campaigns about the dangers of illegal drugs. Alcohol abuse by teenagers, and adults, rarely gets a look in from the federal or state governments. Despite the fact that social service agencies repeatedly publish studies showing that alcohol abuse is constantly cited in thousands of cases of rape, child abuse, domestic violence, car accidents and street assaults.
While cigarette advertising has been banned across all media in Australia, most major sporting events are still awash in advertising and promotions for alcohol.
