A father has accused police of racial profiling after he was accused of trespassing at his apartment complex and arrested by officers.
Tuck, 38, filed a formal complaint with ACT Police after the incident at his unit in the inner-south Canberra suburb of Narrabundah on June 27.
Tuck, who is from Zimbabwe but moved to Australia with his wife and daughter 17 years ago, said he was recovering after a hospital stay by the pool at his apartment complex when he was approached by a neighbour.
The neighbor, who lives in the same complex, began demanding to know who Tuck was and what he was doing.
Tuck, wearing a hoodie, sneakers and fleece sweatpants, said he was “confused” by the neighbor’s “rude” questions.
“I wasn’t sure if he was asking me about my ethnicity or if he was asking if I (live) within the complex,” he told the ABC.
Tuck refused to tell the neighbor where he lived and returned fire by asking the man for the same information.
The neighbor threatened to call the police, which Tuck welcomed because he thought it would stop the harassment.
An Australian citizen originally from Zimbabwe has accused police of racially profiling him when they arrested him in a communal area of the apartments where he lives.
He was shocked to see three police cars appear 15 minutes later, a response he called an “overreaction.”
Tuck said three officers began questioning him, asking where he lived.
He pointed to his house, which overlooks the pool and barbecue area.
Police demanded photo identification, Tuck said, which he did not have with him.
However, he showed officers the keys to his house and the pool gate.
Officers said they would need to obtain photo identification from the home.
“I was offended by the suggestion that they would break into my home,” Tuck said.
“There was no search warrant. There was no report that indicated there was anything illegal that they needed to look for in my house.”
Tuck said the police aggression was so severe that he asked if they were going to shoot him.
When Tuck resisted their demand to let them into his home, officers began escorting him out of the pool area.
“I didn’t like that, because I had the legal right to be in the barbecue area,” he said.
At this point he began filming the interaction.
Tuck alleges that at that point an officer grabbed his wrist and told him his phone was in his face.
The officer then arrested Tuck on suspicion of trespassing.
“They grabbed me by my right shoulder and then started handcuffing me behind my back,” Tuck said.
“I didn’t resist arrest, I just surrendered.”
Officers also allegedly asked Tuck if he was intoxicated or had consumed marijuana, with one of them saying his eyes were red and his voice seemed slurred (file image)
Tuck told news website RiotAct that when the officer “was trying to take the keys out of my hand, he cut himself with a wrench and told me he was adding the charge of assaulting an officer.”
Officers also allegedly asked Tuck if he was intoxicated or had consumed marijuana, and one of them said his eyes were red and his voice seemed slurred.
He accused the police of trying to “strengthen the profile” they were trying to create.
Although one of the officers told him the arrest had nothing to do with the color of his skin, Tuck doesn’t believe that was the case.
“(They believed) that I was an unemployed young man… you know, potentially of African or indigenous descent, who was enjoying comforts illegally,” he said.
“I think they were just hoping that it would actually be an intrusion to confirm the narrative that they had created.”
After being handcuffed, Tuck was shoved into a police van and officers took his keys to the vehicle, eventually verifying it was his and releasing him.
An ACT Police spokesperson confirmed the incident to Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday.
He said the officers…received a report of an alleged intruder at an apartment complex in Narrabundah and stated that a man had been “belligerent”.
‘The man was asked to identify himself but was aggressive towards police instructions,’ the spokesman said.
‘When officers attempted to handcuff the man, he resisted, resulting in a minor injury to one officer’s hand.’
‘The man was eventually handcuffed and placed in a police vehicle while officers verified his address.
‘After confirming that the man was a resident of the apartment complex, he was arrested.’
Despite alleging that Tuck cut the officer’s hand, police said they would not press charges.
They also confirmed that Tuck’s complaint had been received and was “being assessed in accordance with the AFP Complaints Management Framework”.
