Culture

Sydney Icon Danny Lim Hospitalised With Reported Brain Bleed After Being Tackled By Police

Sydney icon Danny Lim has been hospitalised with a bleed on the brain after a violent encounter with NSW police officers at the Queen Victoria Building.

by Charles Rushforth  23 November 2022

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

Confronting footage has emerged of violent arrest of iconic Sydney activist Danny Lim, who was tackled to the ground yesterday by police.

Lim, known for wearing his signature sandwich-board placards, was walking through Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building on Tuesday when he was allegedly approached by security who asked Lim to leave the premises before contacting the police.

Related
Sydney Icon Danny Lim Is Running For The Senate. Here's What He Actually Believes.

In footage captured by a bystander, responding police officers can be seen attempting to violently restrain the 78-year-old by sweeping his legs out from beneath him, resulting in Mr Lim hitting his head on the tile floor.

According to a statement from police, Mr Lim’s arrest was then “discontinued” as a result of his injuries, with paramedics later taking Mr Lim to St Vincent’s Hospital for treatment. Sydney lawyer Chris Murphy, who represented Mr Lim in 2019, said that Doctors had observed bleeding on the brain in the first CT scans following the incident, and have been monitoring his condition closely overnight.

“I could be dead when they threw me down like that,” Mr Lim told The Guardian from his hospital bed.

“I told them I suffer from PTSD…I couldn’t believe Australia could do this.”

The sign Mr Lim was wearing during the violent encounter with police was previously the case of a 2019 court hearing after officers arrested the Chinese-Malaysian in front of shocked onlookers in Barangaroo.

Officers arrested Mr Lim in alleged that the sign, which read “SMILE CVNT, WHY CVNT?”, warranted a public language offence, despite the responding officers repeatedly using curse words during the confrontation.

A judge later ruled Mr Lim’s placard was “cheeky” but not criminally offensive, criticised the responding officers for their heavy handed response.

Despite claiming that the incident would be reviewed in an independent review yesterday, NSW Police have since announced that conduct of officers during Lim’s arrest will be treated as a complaint subject to an internal review.

“The NSW Police have backflipped on their commitment made just yesterday, to hold an independent review of the assault. Instead they have decided to consider it as a complaint and review it internally without any oversight from the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission,” Greens MP Sue Higginson said.

“This type of violent arrest can happen to anyone, anywhere. It is so important to have independent oversight of police operations to ensure that this type of violence is properly investigated and prosecuted if a crime has been committed.”

“Instead they have decided to consider it as a complaint and review it internally without any oversight from the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.”

Queen Victoria Building management declined to comment after being contacted by Junkee.

Image Credit: Latoya Rule