JASSEPPIE Garlett hasn’t ridden his motorbike since Elijah Doughty was run over and killed just a few hundred metres from home on August 29. He’s clearly traumatised: he sleeps a lot, doesn’t go to school, doesn’t say much. Elijah was his best mate.

He, like the other distressed teenage Aboriginal kids of the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, and like kids the world over, has that innate thing where torpor helps heals worry.

They haven’t yet processed what happened to Elijah who, according to police, was riding a small stolen bike in a dirt park in Boulder when he was run down. They can’t fathom his death. While parents and elders talk about racism, the kids just see strangers in cars who change down gears and roar and swerve at them.

There’s a seething presence in this gold town, 600km east of Perth. The blare of a two-stroke makes certain people sit up, alert. The suspicion is whoever’s riding that bike is a black kid who stole it.

We spoke to numerous Aboriginal kids, aged between 10 and 18, who ride dirt bikes on the edges of town, and sometimes through it. All had been chased by unknown white men in vehicles; or stalked and photographed by men and women with cameras.

They’re too quick and evade their pursuers, easily. Most of the time.

“When we’re walking along or riding bikes,” says Jasseppie, “people are yelling, ‘That’s my bike, you little black c***.’ I’ve been chased a lot of times.”

Camera Icon Jasseppie Garlett, 14, with his Mum Patricia Garlett, 39. Jasseppie has been victimised by white vigilantes who chased him on his motorbike. Credit: News Corp Australia, Gary Ramage

From about 2011, local citizen-crimewatch Facebook sites emerged, aimed at exposing supposedly bad kids and giving people an outlet to complain about police inaction and court leniency.

By 2013, the sites had descended to unmoderated free-for-all on Aborigines. Some of the posts, usually written by people hiding behind pseudonyms, could have been datelined Mississippi, 1963.

In the lead-up to Elijah’s death, people wrote openly about killing Aboriginal kids. One site, “Kalgoorlie Crimes Whinge and Whine”, was run by a local white man, Michael Doyle, 52. It took Elijah’s death for it to be closed down.

Doyle was too ill to get out of bed when we visited his Kalgoorlie home – he’s got 10 per cent kidney function and, according to someone close to him, not long to live.

Doyle has said previously he was not responsible for what people posted; that everything was the responsibility of the author. Visitors to the pages liked to complain they had lost the freedom to speak their minds – and then freely hurled the hatred.

Camera Icon The grandfather of murdered teenager Elijah Doughty-Albert Doughty at the spot where his grandson was killed, in Bolder. Credit: News Corp Australia, Gary Ramage

What he helped create got right out of control. Messages were sent in real-time, saying that certain kids were riding or walking on certain streets. Vigilantes got in their cars and searched.

A local white couple, Leigh and Dianne Smith, told of pulling up outside the Broken Hill pub in Boulder, earlier this year, to visit the TAB. Leigh said: “There were a heap of kids about. There were kids on motorbikes and this bloke came up the street swerving at them.

“This bigger kid came off his bike and hit the gutter. He was forced off the road. I thought he’d killed him. The kid said he didn’t want to go to police because they were already onto him over motorbikes. The bloke was laughing when the kid came off. I was dumbfounded.”

Leigh didn’t get a numberplate of the small blue car. The kid was covered in blood, his bike jammed under a car. He staggered off. “He was dazed and needed hospital,” says Dianne.

In May, a photo of Elijah was posted of him with his bike – his own bike – near the Johnston St flats. “Run the f***kers over,” someone wrote..

The man alleged to have killed Elijah has had his identity suppressed and will without doubt be under protective custody within WA corrections, given the Aboriginal prison population; his family has been evacuated from Kalgoorlie and the rental house they were living torched to the ground.

Camera Icon Debbie Carmody outside of Bolder, says people supported Elijah Doughty’s family at court. Credit: News Corp Australia, Gary Ramage

The decision to charge the 55-year-old with manslaughter, rather than murder, along with Aborigines being denied entry to the Kalgoorlie courthouse to attend the accused’s first appearance, created frustration and the main-street riot, with people hurling bottles and rocks.

“That day when he first went to court people went to support [Elijah’s] family,” says Debbie Carmody, manager of Tjuma Pulka Original Nations Media Corporation.

“There was great sorrow. It was quiet but it was loud and under the great sorrow was anger. Anger that he was only charged with manslaughter. Anger that two local social media sites openly encouraged racist attacks and killings on Wongi youth and that despite complaints were not closed down.”

Kyle Lynch, a 15-year-old from Kurrawang community just south-west of Kalgoorlie, a dirt-bike rider who was a mate of Elijah’s, shows me a Facebook post he saved to his phone. This captured the pitiless depths.

“Aboriginals,” he or she posted in the aftermath of Elijah’s death, “don’t deserve to live. That’s good that young boy got killed. Aboriginals don’t own Australia. Aboriginals live in the bush. They are filthy animals. They all need the death sentence.”

Camera Icon Kyle Lynch, 15, who has also been chased on his motorbike. He has been handcuffed by local Kalgoorlie Police officers for allegedly riding a stolen motorbike, but the bike was actually owned by him. Credit: News Corp Australia, Gary Ramage

For some reason, Kyle has saved that message to his phone. He not sure why. He doesn’t feel all white people hate him. Maybe it’s some contemporary smartphone talisman, a reminder there’s danger.

Kyle has been stalked and photographed while riding his bike; and earlier this year, he and his cousin Thahn left the dirt and crossed over on public roads to refuel at a servo when police swooped, putting both to the ground, handcuffing them, and demanding to know where they had stolen the bike.

Aubrey Lynch, widely regarded as the Goldfields’ region senior Aboriginal leader, had paid $4000 for the Honda 250, as a gift for Kyle. He had to pay another $1000 to get it out of impoundment once police established that it was not stolen (Kyle got a three-month good behaviour bond for reckless riding and being unlicensed on the road).

“There’s some good people in this town, they’re not all racist. It’s just some,” says Lynch, who as a Justice of the Peace likes to make a point of going to people’s homes when they need documents witnessed. I suspect he enjoys the mild shock of being an Aboriginal man who can give a white person the legal authority they need.

Camera Icon Kyle Lynch on his motorbike in Kalgoorlie/Boulder. Credit: News Corp Australia, Gary Ramage

Tensions boil over

THE TRASHING of the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Community High School on a Saturday evening in mid-October, causing $100,000 damage, was at first thought to be some kind of revenge statement relating to Elijah.

Police tracked down four suspect kids to Target in the centre of town, where they had been trying to smash their way in, arresting two while two others fled to a construction site.

Cops gave the escapees a warning to come out or they’d send in the dogs; and, unbelievably, proved good to their word. A 13-year-old boy was bitten on his backside and a 10-year-old was grabbed on his face.

The needless use of dogs on kids is being “reviewed”; but what should really give the town’s vigilantes pause is the racial profile of those arrested: it was three white kids and one Aboriginal boy.

Camera Icon Racism towards the nations first people in Kalgoorlie/Bolder is ongoing. Credit: News Corp Australia, Gary Ramage

Premier Colin Barnett called a mini-summit to discuss town tensions last Saturday and left it to Kalgoorlie-Boulder Mayor John Bowler to select locals to meet with him, Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion, departmental people and others.

Bowler is seen by local Aborigines as an old-school throwback; the summit became a minor street-side protest with demands he be ditched over comments he made to ABC in relation to the town’s problems.

Bowler was talking about Aborigines when he said: “Everything comes, in a way, down to the parents.” That was true enough, but he went on: “What I’m saying is it seems each generation gets a little worse than the one before.”

Aubrey Lynch hit the local paper, saying Bowler had generalised about Aboriginal parents who he said were “as responsible as non-Aboriginal parents”.

Camera Icon One of the aboriginal camps outside of Kalgoorlie. Credit: News Corp Australia, Gary Ramage

Lynch did not make Bowler’s invite list to the summit, which was an oversight given his standing. It would also have assured that Bowler’s own attitudes to his townspeople were high on the agenda.

Lynch, 80, is father to six and grandfather and great-grandfather to 57 local kids (“The problem is Australia only has a two to three per cent Aboriginal population, so I thought I’d do something about it,” he says).

I had planned to call Bowler but the need was circumvented as I sat with Lynch in his front yard. Bowler called to talk for the first time since they’d been at each other.

Bowler, a former journalist and state politician, told Lynch that he had known him for 40 years and considered him a friend.

Camera Icon Thahn Lynch and his older brother Troy have both been chased on their motorbikes by white vigilantes. Credit: News Corp Australia, Gary Ramage

“I apologise about the ‘generations’ thing,” Bowler told Lynch. “If I’ve caused harm or hurt, I apologise. I’ve got three years left as mayor. I’m going to dedicate that to better racial harmony and the lives of young kids going into the future.”

Aboriginal parenting has become a national free-speech debate after the Human Rights Commission began investigating Bill Leak him for supposedly inciting racial upset with a cartoon depicting an Aboriginal father who did not know the name of his own delinquent son.

It is inconsistent that Bowler, who made his criticisms atop a town powder keg, has not received the same treatment. That is not to suggest he should be investigated by the HRC; otherwise they’d have to deal with Aboriginal single mother of six from Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Patricia Gerardi, 39, who is also outspoken.

Camera Icon Downtown Boulder, where racism towards the nation’s first people continues. Credit: News Corp Australia, Gary Ramage

Patricia has no trouble admitting there are issues, but sees it flowing both ways. “Our kids have problems,” she says. “I agree it’s the parents that need to step up. Kids wouldn’t be in trouble if they were at home. The community has had enough of the crime.

“People say, ‘What are the parents doing?’ And I agree with that sometimes. But it doesn’t give them the right to harm children.”

Her two oldest daughters are Lynette, 19, and Hayley, 18, who became the hero of the Kalgoorlie riot when she bravely, and instinctively, stood with her hands raised wide to protect the cops, getting pelted and hurt outside the courthouse.

This was despite the fact that Elijah was her cousin; despite her knowing the cops don’t always do the right thing by Aboriginal people. That’s a girl who’s been raised strong.

Patricia, assisted by Lynette and Hayley, are doing their best to help raise the boys and get them through their teens without the troubles that have faced so many Aboriginal fathers, uncles, brothers and ancestors.

Patricia’s sons Herman, 15, Jasseppie, 14, and Cuba, 10, have never been in real trouble with the law. Nor have their cousins Sean Graham, 15, and Joshua Jedda, 14, who were hanging out when we met them.

Camera Icon Sean Graham, 15, Herman Garlett, 15, Jasseppie Garlett, 14, Declan Adams, 15 and Joshua Jedda, 14. Credit: News Corp Australia, Gary Ramage

All have been harassed by unknown white people, questioned by police over the house burning, and marked as crims. They know town bikies have a list of names of Aboriginal kids they’re hunting.

The kids don’t want revenge; they want to be safe. In Kalgoorlie-Boulder, everyone knows everyone. The streets are wide and summer’s hellish. Kids always hang outdoors but never considered themselves at risk. “We only go out in a group now,” says Sean.

Immediately after Elijah’s funeral, three vehicles turned up outside his grandfather Albert’s home in Boulder. They did burn-outs and fled, a twisted victory lap for a lost life. “It just makes you sick to the guts,” Albert Doughty says.

Patricia’s oldest son, who was not with us when we met the family, is the only one of her six kids to find himself in trouble. She doesn’t spare herself, or him, when she says: “He was out stealing for his habit, meth. He’s recovering and I hope he stays like that.”

As an Aboriginal woman, she could come up with a long list of historical and contemporary complaints, but she just wants her kids to survive. They’ve already lost one cousin and threat is not over.

All have watched the social media hatred and its physical expression with deep unease. Says Lynette of Elijah’s death: “I expected something bad, just not this bad.”