Introduction

In Australia on 12 March 2023, an eight-year-old First Nations boy riding a bicycle was struck by a large 4WD utility vehicle (Australian ‘ute’). To hit the boy, the driver had driven the ute onto the footpath, directly targeting the child. The child's father, who was nearby was alerted to the incident by ‘his son screaming, and the loud bangs and revs of a vehicle being driven quickly off-road’ (Bucci, 2023). Challenged by the father, the driver claimed he was a police officer and justified his actions in claiming to be disciplining the boy (Bucci, 2023). In the reports of the incident, it seemed that the child was physically unharmed from the attack but suffered trauma from being targeted by the officer.