By ERWIN CHLANDA
The spokesman for a supposed paramilitary group in Alice Springs, Gary Hall, seems to have been rejected by his base.
Most references to him have been deleted from a Facebook page, Alice Springs Community Open Forum, according to a long-time watcher of the local social media scene.
He provided the following comment on the condition of not being named: “There are still some threads on there but Gary and all the 600 plus comment threads were kicked off.
“To quote the site’s admin, who never deletes anything or kicks out anybody: ‘Just too much of a nut job, even for the open.'”
Others posted “GARY has left the room and the door hit him on the arse on the way out” and “Go play with ya guns ya nut job”.
Meanwhile Mr Hall says the group, Alice Springs Volunteer Force, will be patrolling the Eastside this weekend until 7am on Monday, looking out for people “stealing, fighting, breaking in, damaging cars”.
He says it will be a “military operation” but also urged people noticing criminal behaviour to call the police on 131444, asking for a Promiss Number and ensuring the call is recorded.
The report about Mr Hall in the Alice Springs News Online and on its Facebook page drew a very large readership.
PHOTO: One of the remaining references to Hall on the community FB site.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
The freedom of the press still furnishes that check upon government which no constitution has ever been able to provide – Chicago Tribune.
The aim of civilized society is to resolve differences, even conflicts, through discussion.
Gary Hall raised discussion of issues which need be addressed.
Many believe courts, police, schools, others involved, are powerless dealing with under-age or repeat offenders.
Community frustration arises from belief nothing effective is being done, to address this requires more public discussion.
Courts, police and government need to clearly explain how they address under-age, or repeat offenders, where their approaches appear to be working, and where they appear not to be working.
All the Members of Legislative Assembly need to set out clearly where and where not they support actions taken by courts, police and other organisations.
MLAs are elected to represent all their community to resolve these difficulties.
Only from full and frank open discussion shall resolutions be achieved.
Open discussion also requires “the offenders” to participate.
Youths need show they understand what happens when youths offend.
This requires more from government, MLAs, the courts and others, to ensure wider public coverage, thus informed discussion, of children’s court matters.
Community needs to accept court required protections for juvenile identities involved, which are waived in only most extreme circumstances.
The “missing-in-action Elders” need to join these public discussions, for they too are part of the community.
Well if the NT police were doing their job we would not be even discussing this.
Something needs to be done. Every day you see people drunk lying around in parks, the mall, shopping centres and being carted away in police vans.
It was only a couple of years ago we had two German tourist raped at gunpoint. This is unacceptable behaviour. This is one reason people are leaving the NT. No law. They need to lift their game when you see unroadworthy vehicles on our roads, bikes on footpaths, scateboards on footpaths, vehicles going up the street on the wrong side.
To top it off my neighbor was walking two dogs down the road when he was assaulted. When police arrived the only thing they could do was to tell the victim to walk the other way.
I have seen premises that had windows broken and the windows were repaired before the police arrived.
It’s about time governments started rounding up people who complain about police not doing their job and frog-marching them down the Mall. That would put a stop to their whinging.
One can’t even read the Alice Springs News Onlione without some well-meaning citizen going off the deep end. Something needs to be done.
Every day we have to read this stuff and some of them seem to get a thrill out of seeing their name in print. If they had a name, that is. That should be illegal, not the no name business, the other thing.
I’m going to talk to my Member of Parliament about this. All dogs should be locked up, and cats too. If this keeps up, I’m going to leave the NT for good, well, try to anyway.
They reckon if you’ve seen the Todd run three times, you’ve had it. That means if it rains again, we’re stuck here to put up with this kind of thing forever. And as for the local pollies, well, I could go on, but I can’t, the bath is running over and I just got new carpets installed from the last insurance job. That was easy.
Everything else around here is too difficult. And furthermore, the lawn mover needs a silencer. Those kids up the road have driven a car through the neighbours fence and they don’t seem to care. There’s no respect for anything.
Some of them seem to think the police are there for sport. I wish I could find something else to do, but that would mean leaving the NT again, so … what else is there?
What about a flying fox from Mt Gillen to Anzac Hill? That would be fun. Give the kids something to do. Stop them from breaking in and drinking all my grog.
Isn’t the mantra now that we need OUTCOMES? Well, if one positive comes from all this, this weekend it might just be that the police have a presence in Eastside residential areas watching over the vigilante Alice Springs Volunteer Force! Now there’s an irony.
One can say Eastside crime rate will drop.
You non existentialism people add fuel to a fire!
I see Adam Giles has a letter in the Advocate saying let cops enforce. If that’s the case it’s time to get on with it. This behavior is not new. Adam writing to the paper is achieving nothing. People need action.
Garry Hall is a regressive element in Alice Springs [where] I lived and studied at Centralian College in the 80s. My surrogate family was the Hayes.
Vigilantism belongs in 1974, Charles Bronson, New York.