How slain teenager Cassius Turvey's mother Mechelle used courage and restraint to pave a way for justice
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains an image of a person who has died, used with the permission of their family.
The scene of Mechelle Turvey hugging the lead detective of her son's murder case after two killers were sentenced to life imprisonment is a picture of the justice system and law enforcement at work.
But perhaps closer to the truth, is that it's a result of one mother's courage to tread the path of justice, and also change Western Australia's police force for good.
Cassius Turvey's death shook the nation. The 15-year-old boy was savagely beaten with a metal pole while walking with friends after school.
Tensions swirled.
An insidious fear crept into the community. The public called for justice. Thousands rallied across the country.
But through all of the noise, and the pain, Mechelle Turvey stayed composed. Grief-stricken, no doubt, but composed.
The community was asking questions about whether the attack was racially motivated, or to frame it another way, whether Aboriginal children could safely walk the streets as Cassius did.
Decades of pain bubbled to the surface from Australia's colonial past as the First Nations community saw yet another one of their children die.
The prime minister decried the "racially motivated" attack. "We are a better country than that," Anthony Albanese said.
But through it all, Mechelle Turvey called for calm and urged the community not to use Cassius's death to push their own agenda.
Through a cloud of grief and anger she could still see the way forward.
The court did not prosecute whether racism was a motivating factor behind the expedition of misguided vigilantism which ultimately led to Cassius's death, but Chief Justice Peter Quinlan was clear the attackers racially vilified the Aboriginal children they were hunting.
"It's no surprise … that the kids think they were being targeted because they were Aboriginal, and the attack would create justifiable fear for them and for the broader community that this was a racially motivated attack," Justice Quinlan said in his sentencing remarks.
At the time of the attack, tensions between police and the community were at boiling point amid the #BlackLivesMatter movement sparked in the United States.
Mechelle Turvey knew.
She knew the attackers had been spraying racial slurs at her son and his friends.
She knew the men who attacked her little boy — Jack Brearley, Brodie Palmer and Mitchell Forth — were guilty.
She knew her community was grieving and in pain.
But, she stayed composed because she knew the path forward was by trudging through the system.
It's easy to cry and yell in anger after your son dies. And no-one would blame anyone for doing so.
What's hard is controlling the unimaginable grief of losing your son for almost three years — so as to not jeopardise a trial — while the court and a jury methodically dug for the truth.
Now we know the truth.
Brearley is a murderer who showed no restraint when he hunted and senselessly beat an innocent boy with a metal pole.
The chief justice described him as a "comical" liar who tried not only to frame an innocent man of murdering Cassius, but tried to frame Cassius as a violent attacker who deserved to be beaten. All lies.
Palmer — another murderer — showed a "flicker of decency" when he interrupted Brearley's fit of rage, but as Justice Quinlan put it, "restraint in the context of a murder of a child does not weigh heavily".
In the wake of her son's death, Mechelle Turvey knew perhaps more than anyone what had actually happened. But her restraint paved the way for justice to run its course.
Her restraint paved the way for police officers to learn how to properly manage the needs of Aboriginal victims of crime.
Mechelle Turvey now helps the WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch — who she told to "get effed" when they first met — by running a program for officers which helps to "stamp out RoboCop attitudes".
The scene of Mechelle Turvey hugging Detective Senior Sergeant Stephen Cleal is a picture of the ideal: when law enforcement and the justice system help the community.
But perhaps closer to the truth is that the scene is a beacon of hope that individuals — like Mechelle Turvey — can make change.
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