Background to 'The day that the boys came down...'

[dug3]

Hi folks,

Can anyone tell me the background to this song please?

I'm guessing it's a Koori bloke who got one back re deaths in custody, then got 'blown away' - but I don't know the facts.

Cheers,

Doug

[johnhamill]

The Day That The Boys Came Down, was written in Australia as a piece of fiction that eerily and tragically came true about a year after Alistair first recorded it. More accurately, events bearing a remarkable similarity to those described here happened in the predominantly Aboriginal community of Redfern in Sydney in 1989. Members of the Special Weapons and Operations Section (SWOS), a highly dangerous wing of the NSW State Police, shot and killed Mr David Gundy in his home in the early hours of a morning in April that year, while supposedly seeking to apprehend another person altogether. Mr Gundy’s only ‘crime’ was a shared Aboriginality with the wanted man. The individual they were looking for had indeed killed a prison guard during an escape from Long Bay Jail, but his relationship to David Gundy was merely one of passing acquaintance, a fact most certainly known to the police officers involved