Sydney’s most debauched neighborhood is the epicenter of an Australia-wide problem of unprovoked violence.
“It was one punch,” he says over and over again. “It was one hit, that’s it.”
The police and media here sometimes refer to acts like this one,
which occurred on New Year’s Eve, 2013, as a “coward punch,” with the
goal of dissuading drunken young men prone to violently jumping
unsuspecting passers-by. Before that they were called “one-punch
attacks.” Even earlier they were known as “king hits.”
Whatever your preferred nomenclature, the place to go in Sydney for
an unannounced fist to the face is Kings Cross. Just up the road from
the naval base and host to innumerable tacky bars, dingy strip clubs,
and a healthy drug trade, the Cross has long been associated with both
organized crime and the tourist industry.
Recently, however, it’s these random punches that have attracted the
most attention. A friend of mine, stopping to light someone’s cigarette
outside a pub, was rewarded with a split lip. A similar incident in 2012
resulted in the death of Thomas Kelly, who was attacked while talking on the phone. Doctors at the local hospital have come to expect a serious head injury of this kind about once a fortnight. The problem of unprovoked attacks isn’t confined to the Cross: Nationwide between 2000 and 2013, a shocking 91 Australians were killed in one-punch attacks of this variety.
The man McNeil assaulted that evening, Daniel Christie, suffered
brain damage while falling and was taken off life support later that
month. He had interrupted McNeil attacking three minors who had offered
to sell him drugs.
On June 11 of this year, McNeil was cleared of murder but found
guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter and various assault charges.
He’ll serve a mandatory seven-and-a-half years before being eligible
for parole. Christie, who was 18 when he died, has become a symbol of
the grisly outcome of drinking and violence in Kings Cross.
* * *
The Cross is bounded by sticks and stones. At one end of the main
drag, set against the Sydney skyline, is Ken Unsworth’s outdoor
sculpture Stones Against the Sky
(jokingly referred to here as “Poo on Stilts”), and at the other end is
the dandelion-shaped El Alamein Fountain, which commemorates the battle
of the same name in Egypt during World War II.
In the quarter-mile between are two dozen bars and half a dozen strip
clubs and a few brothels. There are many more drinking establishments
on the nearby streets. The Cross is historically Sydney’s seediest
district, featuring cathouse razor gangs, BDSM dungeon murders, disappearing journalists, and worse. Today the neighborhood is defined by drugs, sex, music, gambling, and cheap, rundown backpacker hostels.
It’s for precisely those reasons that a large and rowdy crowd of
young people are drawn here every Saturday night. Until recently, as
many as 20,000 revelers staggered along Darlinghurst Road. Vomit and urine lie in puddles on the pavement outside the bars, and violence is common.
The deaths of Daniel Christie and others were the last straw for the
state government. Barry O’Farrell, the premier of the state of New South
Wales, introduced hardline “one-punch laws” including mandatory minimum
sentences for crimes, declaring, “The new measures are tough and I make
no apologies for that.” Soon afterwards, he fled politics, harried by
the scandal of undeclared donations from property developers. In his
attempt to transform Kings Cross from a red-light district to a somewhat
respectable nightlife entertainment center, lockout laws were
instituted in February 2014. Among other restrictions, no one can enter a
Kings Cross pub after 1:30 a.m., and last drinks are now called before 3
a.m.
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