LETTER FROM SYDNEY
Exit, uniforms and caps. The New South Wales police were finally invited to participate, as they do every year, in Gay Pride which closed, on March 2, three weeks of rainbow festivities in the streets of Sydney, but on the condition expressly that she keeps a low profile. In Australia, the historically complicated relationship between law enforcement and the LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual) movement deteriorated following a sordid news story at the end of February : a double murder committed within this community.
The bodies of Jesse Baird, a 26-year-old television presenter, and his partner, Luke Davis, 29, a Qantas cabin crew member, were discovered on Tuesday, February 27, near a monastery in a rural area of the The state of New South Wales (NSW), in the south-east of the island continent. The search, which lasted an interminable week under the watchful eye of the cameras, was followed by the entire country, taken aback by the profile of the main suspect, Beau Lamarre-Condon.
This 28-year-old young man pursued a career as a blogger specializing in celebrities – he had, among others, posed alongside Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus and Harry Styles – before joining the ranks of the police. A homosexual himself, he had an on-and-off affair with Jesse Baird and allegedly premeditated his crime. Shortly before the events, he bought a surfboard bag, which will be used to transport one of his two victims. To kill his former lover and his companion, Beau Lamarre-Condon allegedly used his service weapon, a Glock semi-automatic pistol that he had borrowed in anticipation of his assignment to monitor a Propalestian demonstration. The police immediately announced the opening of an investigation into the access and storage of service weapons.
Previous incidents
” The police has charged a man over the murders, a NSW Police officer who previously took part in the Mardi Gras parade », noted the representatives of Gay Pride, renowned throughout the world. Given the context and not to “intensify feelings (…) of sorrow and distress, the latter decided to withdraw their invitation to the state police. A decision which immediately sparked an intense debate among defenders of the rights of the homosexual minority. “I want the NSW Police Force to support the LGBTQI community every day of the year, including during the Mardi Gras parade,” notably regretted the gay activist and independent MP Alex Greenwich. “But how can the police serve us when, historically, they have oppressed us? »retorted, the same day, Jazmeen Payne, involved with victims of LGBTQIA + domestic violence, contacted by The world.
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