The commonwealth and ACT ombudsman has criticised the Australian federal police for failing to clearly define “racial profiling” after police in Canberra pulled guns on an Indigenous teenager they mistook for a suspect in an aggravated burglary.
The scathing investigation, released on Tuesday, made eight recommendations to the Australian federal police (AFP) and ACT Policing after investigating the November ۲۰۲۵ incident. ACT Policing sits under the AFP as the community policing arm.
The ۱۷-year-old boy, referred to by the pseudonym Jay in the ombudsman’s report, boarded a bus in Woden on the evening of ۱۱ November ۲۰۲۵.
ACT Police stopped the bus and three officers entered with guns drawn. After being taken off the bus at gunpoint, Jay was then brought to the ground, handcuffed and arrested, the report said.
Less than ۹۰ seconds later, police realised their mistake. Police had mistaken him for a suspect in an aggravated burglary.
Police released Jay, apologised to him and searched him. He then got back on the bus to continue his journey. Police did not ask for his name, confirm his age, or ask for details to contact a family member, according to the ombudsman’s report.
Iain Anderson, the commonwealth and ACT ombudsman, concluded that Jay was searched “inappropriately and seemingly unlawfully” after he was released from arrest.
“One of the other police who was there said, ‘Hey, here’s an opportunity. Let’s search him anyway even though we know he’s not the person we’re looking for,’” Anderson said.
“It was a bit staggering for me to see that that was their approach.”
The ombudsman found no evidence that Jay’s Aboriginality led to increased use of force. But Anderson said he was concerned that the AFP “had no clearly understood definition of ‘racial profiling’”.
The teenager’s family welcomed the “comprehensive and detailed report” from the ombudsman, saying it showed serious systemic failures within the AFP.
The ۱۷-year-old’s family said he was travelling to his aunty’s house and was “compliant and polite during the entire incident”.
“The failures are numerous and deeply concerning,” the family said in a statement issued via lawyer Sam Tierney.
“They include a complete failure to provide any care … after subjecting him to a traumatic incident despite knowing he was a child, making public statements after the incident which inappropriately attempted to downplay and diminish the incident and an apparent failure of the AFP internally to understand what racial profiling is.”
The description of the alleged offender for the burglary included the term “Aboriginal male”.
Anderson said the use of “Aboriginal” as a physical descriptor was unhelpful and relied on the use of an “outdated, stereotypical physical trait”.
He acknowledged ACT Policing were responding to a fast-evolving incident but concluded there were opportunities to improve the force’s engagement with First Nations communities and their aftercare of “innocent people who are caught up in their actions”.
“Altogether, the incident lasted just under four minutes. But it, and its aftermath, have had serious repercussions for Jay and his family and on the already fragile relationship between ACT Policing and the ACT’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities,” the report said.
The report’s recommendations include that ACT Policing review its use of race as a proxy to describe a person’s physical traits, adopt objective descriptors and develop clearer guidance to support officers performing the role of “Alpha ۸” to make decisions on command of an incident. Alpha ۸ is a role assigned to an on-duty inspector with responsibility for the strategic overview of policing resources.
The recommendations have been accepted.
The AFP accepted in principle the recommendation that it establish a clearly understood definition of “racial profiling” aligned with the objectives of Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act. The ombudsman said the definition should be included in the AFP’s order on professional standards, which establishes internal guidance.
The AFP said these orders were not the appropriate place to embed racial profiling. It said it would undertake a review of AFP and ACT Policing governance to determine if additional clarification would support members in applying the relevant principles.
An internal investigation by the AFP’s professional standards unit found Jay’s search breached their code of conduct but concluded discrimination did not lead to the mistaken arrest.
“The AFP can confirm that there was no evidence to suggest race or other discriminatory factors influenced interactions between police and the young person, or that excessive force was used during the arrest,” an AFP statement published on Tuesday morning said.
In correspondence to the ombudsman, Krissy Barrett, the AFP commissioner, said it was “committed to continuous improvement and to rebuilding trust and strengthening relations between the community and its police force”.
Last year, the ACT’s chief police officer, Scott Lee, apologised for the incident and acknowledged the trauma it would have caused Jay, his family and the broader Indigenous community.
Lee told the ombudsman he remained committed to building and strengthening its relationship with the ACT’s First Nations community.
