Police raid club, no arrests made
Image: Police raided a Kings Cross club without notice last week. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
BY ALEX EUGENE
Last week Kings Cross Police Officers stormed Club 77 in Darlinghurst without warning, cutting short a headline act’s DJ set and allegedly throwing out several partygoers.
In a statement on Facebook, club owner Matt Bicket said 15 police searched people in “innapropriate places” and ordered others to leave for intoxication, but made no arrests nor found any drugs. The searches were made on anyone who “attracted attention” from the officers’ sniffer dog. He also said some people claimed they were tasered in a nearby laneway.
City Hub contacted Mr Bicket for further comment but were told lawyers had advised him not to say anything more. The club’s Facebook page has since been deleted and the post, which was liked and shared over 3000 times, is no longer available.
A spokesperson for NSW Police Media Unit released a statement that said “Police conducted a proactive operation, utilising a police drug detection dog, in the Kings Cross Local Area Command, which lead to 13 drug detections; nine of these were issued court attendance notices for drug possession and three [were] issued a cannabis caution. Information circulating regarding use of taser is incorrect.”
The raid is still being hotly debated on social media with hundreds of Sydney residents slamming police behaviour as unfair, and even racist, with one person alleging her boyfriend was strip searched for being “the only brown guy in a hoodie” in the officers’ line of sight.
A spokesperson for Keep Sydney Open was critical of the incident.
“Just when a little confidence in Sydney’s nightlife starts to build, NSW Police pull a stunt like this,” they said.
“We need to have a very serious conversation about police conduct and their use of taxpayer-funded resources.”
