A ‘JUSTICE for Mark’ march was hosted in Collarenebri on Friday.
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Mark Mason Snr, 44 at the time, died after he was shot by police in Collarenebri on November 11, 2010.
Deputy State Coroner Hugh Dillon found the shots fired by police officers to be in the course of duty and in self-defence at an inquest which concluded in October last year.
Mason died from two gunshots after a confrontation with five police officers.
He was sought for questioning after allegedly making threats to his girlfriend with a knife and led police on a car chase before crashing into a police vehicle and threatening officers with a tyre lever.
Mason’s sister and one of the organisers of the march, Marcia Mason-Hoskins, said despite the coroner deeming the police actions to be reasonable, she disagreed.
“Police should be made accountable,” Ms Mason-Hoskins said, “Not just for my brother but for all the death in custody cases.
“Police investigating police should be stopped. There’s no justice in that,” she said.
Ms Mason-Hoskins said during the incident, despite her brother holding a tyre lever, there were a number of missed opportunities for the officers to rush and/or apprehend Mason.
“He was capsicum sprayed. He was tasered.
“(Police) are supposed to be trained professionals. If they were close enough to him to do that why couldn’t they tackle him?
“We feel they could have acted differently,” Ms Mason-Hoskins said.
“They said he wouldn’t drop the weapon but you think about it, a tyre lever is metal, he was tasered, muscles contract, he wouldn’t have been able to drop it,” she said.
“We are brought up to respect these people but my respect for police, the trust factor is below zero.”
At the time of his death Mason had a seven-year-old son and three other adult children.
“There are no words to describe the trauma we have felt,” Ms Mason Hoskins said.
“There is never a day that goes by that we are able to cope with this.
“We all still have nightmares,” she said.
Ms Mason-Hoskins said the reason for the march was to make the community aware of what happened, and said the march would be hosted annually for every anniversary.
Greens MP David Shoebridge was in attendance along with Stephen Lawrence with the Aboriginal Legal Service and Ray Jackson of the Indigenous Social Justice Association to name a few.
Ms Mason-Hoskins said she would continue to rally elsewhere and push for justice of deaths in custody.
“There is a forum next month where we will work out our next move.”