FORTY officers were injured today in riots in a suburb of Sydney sparked by allegations that police chased an aboriginal teenager to his death.
Rioters pelted police with petrol bombs and bricks in a nine-hour street battle.
Attackers set fire to a train station at the height of overnight rioting that stretched into this morning in the Redfern area of Sydney, following the death of 17-year-old Aborigine Thomas Hickey.
Thomass mother claimed her son died on Sunday after he fell from his bicycle and was impaled on a fence while being chased by police.
"Its got to stop, the way they treat our kids," Gail Hickey said. "They treat our kids like dogs ... they manhandle them."
Police denied chasing the youth.
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Burnt out . . . policeman surveys riot damage |
During the fighting hundreds of cops in full riot gear doused the rioters with high-pressure water hoses.
Most of the hospitalised police officers suffered broken bones and one was knocked out after being hit by a flying brick.
Four alleged rioters were arrested and charged with involvement in the fighting.
New South Wales state political leader Premier Bob Carr ordered an investigation into the cause of the riot and said the state coroner would probe Hickeys death and any possible police involvement.
Television images showed young men surrounding a police patrol car and slamming bricks into it from close range.
"They burnt out one vehicle and they in fact were throwing Molotov cocktails both at police and at Redfern railway station during the course of the riot," assistant commissioner Bob Waites said.
He also accused the rioters of stockpiling rubbish bins full of paving stones and beer bottles to throw at police.
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Stand-off . . . police face rioters |
Aboriginal community leader Lyle Munro said anger in the community had been simmering long before Hickeys death.
"These young people are very, very upset about what happened to this young man, and theyre very upset about whats happening to their young friends on a continual basis, he told a local radio station.
"It was a preventable death, like most of the deaths of young Aboriginal people today."
Mr Munro accused police of harassment of people living in a squalid grid of near-derelict houses known as "The Block."
Aborigines make up 400,000 of Australias 20 million people. The Block, a grid of run-down houses that is a virtual no-go area for people who do not live there, is notorious for heroin dealers trading openly in a park next to the railway tracks.