Raising Hell: Issue 31: Of Pleasure Yachts and Zuckerbergs

It was sometime after 4.55pm on 13 November 2017 when Levi Congdon was arrested in his car, around the corner from his home in Ascot, Perth. According to the arresting officers, the 27-year-old alleged drug dealer appeared calm and compliant in those early moments. He had immediately asked to speak to his lawyer and answered “no comment” to all questions from police.

Before long, however, he told the officers he was experiencing the early stages of an anxiety-attack, a condition for which he took medicine twice a day. As anxiety was something that could be managed, no on thought anything of it at first, but as the hours wound out and the search went on, Congdon’s anxiety seemed to grow. By 7pm that night, the WAPF officers noticed he had begun to sweat, appeared nervous and was fidgeting. Ten minutes later, after nearly vomiting, Congdon asked for an ambulance.

During that first call, the officers were told the ambulance would take at least 30 minutes arrive, but before it could Congdon’s condition began to rapidly worsen. If he was showing the early signs of a drug overdose, an officer present noticed the cluster of behaviours he was displaying and recognised something he had been taught about in training. Understanding that this was a medical emergency, that officer told the detective present to call again for an ambulance, but this time said he should use the words “excited delirium” on the basis that the paramedics would know it meant.

He was wrong.

As the phrase had no medical meaning, the dispatcher did not understand the urgency of the situation, and so did not upgrade the ambulance already on route to a Priority 1 call. Two more calls for assistance would be made before the dispatcher finally understood what was occurring but even then the first paramedics on the scene would not arrive until 8.05pm. By then, it would be too late. Congdon was rushed to hospital at 8.45pm and declared dead just twenty minutes later.

Most, it should be said, would find Congdon himself a fairly unsympathetic figure: he was a meth dealer who was sentenced to four years in 2011 for sexual offences involving a minor. The point, however, is bigger than Congdon. While the Coroner in Congdon’s case was not certain whether the outcome would have changed had the ambulance arrived sooner, next time it may kill people — if it hasn’t already. There is no doubt the man caused considerable harm over his lifetime, but what happened to him will happen to others should law enforcement and corrections departments double down on hard-wiring “excited delirium” into their lexicon. At best “excited delirium” co-opts medical language, at worst it’s an entirely fabricated condition. In either case, it only exists thanks to a “thicket” of intersecting corporate interests and bad faith actors.

Having spent the last fortnight working on a single, complex investigative feature looking at how “excited delirium” landed in Australia, this was one of several stories to come out of my research but did not make it into the final draft for reasons that include length, editorial judgement and legal considerations. As for the other bits and pieces I could not include in the story, I offer them here as further background reading for anyone interested in learning more:

• It turns out, the Axon corporation funded research by Dr Jeffrey Ho who injected ketamine into patients identified by law enforcement as suffering from excited delirium without their consent.
• The American Medical Association has formally come out against the use of “excited delirium” in determining cause of death.
• In 2017, Reuters journalists investigating how experts tied to the Axon corporation have worked to shape the medical literature around excited delirium described the situation as a “a thicket of intersecting relationships among police, coroners and a wide network of scientists”.
• I was made aware of several recent Indigenous Deaths in Custody cases involving where “excited delirium” has appeared, but I missed the 2015 death of Shaun Coolwell.
• In the UK — where “excited delirium” is known as “acute behavioural disturbance” — use of the term has faced renewed opposition with medical bodies, community groups and families of men who have died calling for it to be abandoned.

For the Fortnight: June 8 to

Reporting In

Where I recap what I’ve been doing this last fortnight so you know I’m not just using your money to stimulate the local economy …

• ‘‘Excited delirium”: how a disputed US term found its way to Australian deaths-in-custody inquests’ (The Guardian, 4 July 2021).

• Meanwhile, I won an award! At the South Australia Media Awards, your boy was nominated in the Investigative Journalism category and in the best Freelance Contribution. While I didn’t catch the first, I walked away with a dust-catcher for the second.

• I also had an unexpected viral hit when I reported to Twitter what it would cost to obtain a copy of the transcript from the Coronial Inquest into the Death in Custody of Wayne Fella Morrison. I then spent the evening answering questions as people learned how the mechanics of the legal system have been set up to consistently favour those with money.

  In South Australia, it costs $8.70 per page to have a court transcript emailed to you.
  
  The transcript of the Coronial inquest into the Indigenous Death in Custody of Wayne Fella Morrison runs to 7791 pages.
  
  That's $67,781.70. A years salary. A home deposit.

  — Royce Kurmelovs (@RoyceRk2) 5:50 AM ∙ Jun 29, 2021

Cracking COVIDSafe

Over the course of November, Raising Hell ran its first serialised investigation, CrackingCOVIDSafe, in association with Electronic Frontiers Australia. The series looked at the creation of the government’s automated contact tracing app COVIDSafe and stepped out how I used Freedom of Information to learn more so that others may learn to do their own. Along the way, we tracked how a constellation of government agencies and a clutch of for-profit companies made a hash of a new public service. So far we have managed to reveal how the government prioritised reputational risk over service quality and how security issues were not addressed by government for weeks after release, even though they put the app in breach of the government’s own privacy policy.

Laramba’s Water

The story of Laramba so far is straight forward. High concentrations of uranium were first found in Laramba’s water back in 2008. The situation in the remote Indigenous community of about 263 people hit the headlines in 2018 when NT Power and Water Corporation (PWC) published a report showing uranium concentrations there nearly three times higher than the national guidelines. That story made news again early this year when the community lost a legal fight to force the NT Government to do something to fix it.

Thanks to the support of my generous subscribers I’ve been able to pick up the issue to find out more. Here’s a running list of published stories that will be updated as I do more over time.

• ‘High levels of uranium in drinking water of NT community’ (NITV, 31 July 2020).
• ‘Company remains shtum on plans to filter Laramba's contaminated water supply’ (NITV, 21 October 2020).

You Hate To See It

A dyspeptic, snark-ridden and highly ironic round-up of the news from our shared hellscape…

• Thoughts And Prayers

  Donald Rumsfeld, noted standing evangelist and fan of tortue, is dead. As one of the figures who lied to the world in order to commit the US — and by extension Australia — to the decades-long conflicts in Iraq, Rumsfeld — who was responsible for the deaths of at least 400,000 Iraqi’s and helping set in train events that ultimately gave rise to Islamic State — passed away peacefully, surrounded by family on 20 June 2021. Among the obituaries for a man who arguably should have died in an Iraqi prison, was this beautifully withering epithet by author and journalist George Packer in The Atlantic, writing: “Donald Rumsfeld was the worst secretary of defense in American history. Being newly dead shouldn’t spare him this distinction.”

  

  Image: The torture memo signed by Donald Rumsfeld on 12 February 2002 authorising 20-hour long interrogations, the removal of clothing, the weaponisation of phobias and stress positions — like standing — for four hours. Note Rumsfeld’s hand written addendum at the bottom. (Source: George Zornick).

• Visions Of The Future

  Here is your periodic reminder that climate change is still a thing and though snow might have fallen in northern New South Wales thanks to a series of arctic blasts, the radiating heat currently sweeping across the US Pacific Northwest gives us some idea about what Australia can expect in the coming summer. Run this out over the next 20-to-40 years and, it turns out, the New South Wales Planning Department is preparing for rivers in the state to run dry, permanently.

  Astounding heat obliterated all-time records across the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada in late June 2021.
  
  Learn more about how this region got so hot from @NOAAClimate: climate.gov/news-features/…

  — NOAA Research (@NOAAResearch) 2:24 PM ∙ Jul 1, 2021

• Australia: Still Number 1!

  Oh, Australia. After months of stalling and repeatedly telling people that vaccinating against a highly contagious influenza virus that has killed 3.95 million worldwide “wasn’t a race”, the nation drifted into another round of lockdowns in order to contain the potent Delta variant. In doing so, the federal government finally released data showing how fewer than 8 percent of the population had been fully vaccinated to date. And of course just listing off the string of screw ups that have accompanied these events reads like a black comedy: first Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the under-40s can and should access to the AstraZeneca vaccine, before state governments and GPs turned around saying they had no fucking clue he was talking about. The PM then went on to promise that there really are enough vaccines to go around despite his government denying a request Queensland government for more. Meanwhile, his finance minister couldn’t name a date where young people might get the jab. The whole situation was beautifully distilled down into two letters sent by the leaders of the Federal and New South Wales Liberal parties to one unhappy constituent:

  

  At the very least, people are trying to do something about it. One Raising Hell subscriber has organised a petition calling on the government to actually do something — anything — to help out casual workers who the Coalition would rather prefer didn’t exist.

• A Law Unto Themselves

  The Coalition’s automated COVIDSafe contact tracing app — a colossal failure that only served to enrich a opaque group of consulting operations burrowed deep into the public service — may not have panned out, but millions of Australians have spent the last 18 months dutifully doing their civic duty by checking-in using a state-based contact tracing app at every venue they visit. Of course, the officers of the West Australian Police Force have rewarded that sense of civic responsibility by using the information collected in these databases in criminal investigations. When asked by the Premier to stop doing this over fears it may make it harder to manage the pandemic, WAPF Police Commissioner Chris Dawson refused, saying: "I would not do my job as Police Commissioner if I was directed by the Premier or the politician elected by the people as to how to run a murder investigation.”

• If I Had A Dollar…

  Over two decades the Institute of Public Affairs — the libertarian, free market think tank — waged trench warfare against the nation’s car industry as the last bastion of well-paid union jobs left in neoliberal Australia. In 2012 the organsation listed “cease subsidising the car industry” as item 30 on a 75-point shopping list of polices they wanted from Tony Abbott in order to radically transform the country. As one keen-eyed Raising Hell subscriber noticed, now that the car industry has been killed off for good, the IPA have now put out a report lamenting — wait for it — the decline of manufacturing and stagnant wages.

• My Kingdom For A Carpark

  It may be the case that the Australian Dream is a home with a backyard big enough for the kids to run around in, but if you ask the federal Coalition it’s carparks that really gets the average voters blood pumping. Thanks to the Auditor-General, it is now know that the federal government operated the “commuter car park fund” as slush fund during the last election in order to firehose money into certain electorates. On Sunday, federal finance minister Simon Birmingham was asked whether this whole episode could be considered an example of “good government”, but the minister refused to answer and instead told the television cameras that this form of soft-corruption was now basically Coalition policy.

• Might As Well Call Themselves Pharaohs

  That familiar cadre of globe-trotting class of billionaires who have become household names seem to certainly be having a great old time in the new Gilded Age. We already know figures like Jeff Bezos — whose net wealth stands at a cool $200 billion — is about to blast off into space and has built himself a new super yacht worth a cool $500 million — a 417-foot floating pleasure palace that must be trailed by a smaller “support yacht” with its own helipad in order to function. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg — the man who got rich by inventing a website that melts boomer brains — is really just taking the piss at this point. He recently released a video of himself wake-boarding while holding the American flag, set to the tune of “Country Roads” by John Denver. Welcome to Hell.

Failing Upward

Where we recognise and celebrate the true stupidity of the rich, powerful and influential…

• Look, we know: those of us cooped up here in the Raising Hell office basement spend entirely too much of our time looking longingly at the consequence-free existence of those who inhabit the world of federal Australian politics — those beautiful, god-like sons of bitches who can screw up everything they touch and still be appointed to some cruisey diplomatic role, presumably with percs that include a travel allowance and 17 percent super. Today, however, we would like to recognise that there are plenty of useless people with power and influence right in our own backyard, to wit: South Australian Human Services Minister Michelle Lensink who in April this year began promoting a reorganisation of homelessness services in the statement.Those changes, naturally, came with two big promises: no cuts to services, no loss of funding. The funny thing is, however, that both these things seem to have occurred over the last fortnight. As part of the reorganisation, the state government put out a tender for “alliances” of charities and non-profits that ultimately cut $1.2 million from the budgets of the unsuccessful applicants.And then there is the cuts to services. In putting out to tender a contract to provide 116 “crisis beds” in Adelaide’s southern suburbs, it seems the Ministers officer informed the winning alliance of charities and non-profits that they would actually only need to provide 95 beds, while every other group was left budgeting for the full 116. Understandably, the losing organisations are not happy about what looks like insider dealing, but the fun part is the Minister’s response to questions from intrepid reporters at InDaily who noticed the discrepancy. Faced with a choice between copping to a fib or pleading incompetence, the Minister’s office went with the latter, claiming it was an “error”. At this rate, we expect that if Lensink doesn’t enjoy a long, fruitful career in office she will no doubt land a plumb gig as an emissary to the UN or OECD, perhaps working with Matthias Cormann.

Good Reads, Good Times

To share the love, here are some of the best or more interesting reads from the last fortnight…

• So critical race theory is out — thanks to Queensland Senator Pauline Hanson — but what, exactly, is this set of ideas on the left so dangerous that has the right so terrified they have to ban it from the school curriculum with an act of parliament? Luke Pearson has you covered with this for IndigenousX explaining what Critical Race Theory isn’t.

• Meanjin has this by Caroline Graham on the historical savagery of the Australian military and its role as enforcers of colonialism for over a century.

• Tao Gofers, the architect who designed the Sirius building in Sydney as social housing had this interesting editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald this past fortnight. It is a good piece of writing, if only for the final paragraph which poses the question:

  “I have a simple question. Is it Coalition policy to move all social housing tenants and other low income people from the central council areas to distant suburbs? If so, this starts a new social order of economic apartheid.”

• Not a good read, but I consider this incredible and had to share:

  Fossil of 37 million years old Whale Skeleton (more than 65ft long) found in Wadi Al Hitan, Egyptian desert.
  Dozens of rare fossilized whale skeletons have emerged from the sands of the Egyptian Saharan desert. A museum has now opened on the site to help preserve the fossils.

  — Archaeo - Histories (@archeohistories) 7:58 AM ∙ Jun 30, 2021

Before You Go (Go)…

• Are you a public sector bureaucrat whose tyrannical boss is behaving badly? Have you recently come into possession of documents showing some rich guy is trying to move their ill-gotten-gains to Curacao? Did you take a low-paying job with an evil corporation registered in Delaware that is burying toxic waste under playgrounds? If your conscience is keeping you up at night, or you’d just plain like to see some wrong-doers cast into the sea, we here at Raising Hell can suggest a course of action: leak! You can securely make contact through Signal or through encrypted message Wickr Me on my account: rorok1990. Alternatively you can send us your hard copies to: PO Box 134, Welland SA 5007
• And if you’ve come this far, consider supporting me further by picking up one of my books, leaving a review or by just telling a friend about Raising Hell!