‘Support for racism’: NT Police officer’s Thin Blue Line symbol triggers ban – ABC News

A Northern Territory police sergeant with a history of racism publicly displayed an image linked to white supremacists as his Facebook cover photo for three years, only removing it last week after the ABC made inquiries. WARNING: This story contains racist and offensive language and the name of an Indigenous person who has died. Sergeant Lee Bauwens was the direct supervisor of former police constable Zachary Rolfe, who fatally shot 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker in the remote community of Yuendumu in 2019. The inquest that followed into Mr Walker’s death revealed that Sergeant Bauwens shared attitudes with Mr Rolfe that were, in the words of the coroner, “plainly racist” and had “joined him in his use of racist language”. Sergeant Bauwens denied in his evidence to the coroner that his team or its members were racist. Sergeant Bauwens uploaded the controversial Thin Blue Line flag as his Facebook cover image in February 2022, the day Mr Rolfe’s murder trial began over the shooting death. Mr Rolfe was acquitted of all charges. The black-and-white image of the Australian flag with a blue line running horizontally through the middle has come to be associated with far-right extremism, according to academic Kaz Ross. “This
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