'The police aren’t doing anything'

On Friday January 5 Theo walked out his front door and found a homemade bomb on the hood of his ute. The bomb carried a note warning Theo to take down the Palestinian flag he and his partner had hung outside their house.

Theo called the cops. They came with the Bomb Squad and forensics and stayed for about three hours, took statements from Theo and his partner and promised they’d be in touch.

I spoke to Theo and his partner on Tuesday January 23. At the time they’d been waiting nearly two weeks for the cops to update them and had heard nothing.

“The police aren’t doing anything. This is not being investigated,” Theo says. “It has fallen to my partner and I to investigate this and pressure the people whose job it is to investigate it, as well as other people volunteering their time and support. There’s a profound sense of betrayal by what I naively thought was a policing and justice system that kind of worked, despite its flaws.

“Knowing about the Burgertory arson and Dr Peter Slezak’s assault makes me feel phenomenally at risk and like there’s an active effort by the state government and the policing system to brush incidents like this down through the cracks.”

Theo is working with a barrister who has offered their time pro bono and who reached out to law enforcement repeatedly. On Wednesday January 24 Theo and his partner finally got an update from the cops letting them know that the investigation is ongoing.

Bafflingly, the case is being handled by a detective sergeant from the South Sydney Police Area Command, rather than by the NSW Police Counter Terrorism & Special Tactics Command. As of January 25 NSW Police have made no public calls for information on the NSW Police website or on Twitter or Facebook.

I asked NSW Police about that on January 24 to which they responded: “As police are continuing to investigate this incident, we are unable to comment”.

The ‘scenes in Botany’ and the ‘fake bomb’

On January 8 the media turned up at Theo’s house, photos of the bomb having gone viral the day before. Police gave a statement that day describing the bomb as an “inert improvised explosive device” — a genuine explosive device that could not self-trigger or be remotely detonated. The device was a jerry can with petrol inside, rags stuffed into it and bolts and a disposable lighter taped to it.

Several media outlets, including the ABC, mangled that description, describing the device in headlines as a “fake bomb”. NSW Premier Chris Minns later repeated that phrasing at a press conference.

Minns also spoke of the bomb as an act targeting a specific family rather than as an act of terrorism, which Theo and his partner believe minimises the crime and its broader implications.

“This was an illegal, violent threat against people who support Palestine,” Theo’s partner says. “It’s a suppression of people’s right to political expression. The ABC calling it a ‘fake bomb’ is an injustice. Chris Minns calling it a “fake bomb” is an injustice.

“Not only is justice not being done, it feels like the crime’s being whittled away and stuffed in a back corner by the government and the media so that the lack of police investigation doesn’t raise eyebrows.”

Theo and his partner also met with their local member Matt Thistlethwaite, partly to tell him what they thought of his public response to a bomb being placed on their car:

Incidentally Thistlethwaite’s tweet matches almost word for word a statement from then-acting Home Affairs Minister Andrew Giles, quoted in the Guardian as saying “[there is] no place in Australia for antisemitism, Islamophobia or any form of hate speech“. Either some staffer copy-pasted from some other staffer or Labor have prepped lines for MPs to recite whenever they’re asked about something like this.

“[The meeting] was better than expected — he gave a lot of time to listen to our concerns,” Theo’s partner says. “He didn’t seem very familiar with the crime so a lot of our time was bringing him up to speed.

“He took that on and promised to make a statement in Parliament when sittings resume that adequately represents the nature of the crime as a political one specifically targeting supporters of Palestine.”

‘This is going to continue’

Another aspect to this case is the level of coordinated trolling and doxxing being organised against people who express support for Palestine. In late December a photo of Theo’s house along with the name of their street was posted on a private Facebook group called Jews of Sydney. The post attracted dozens of interactions including numerous comments expressing hatred towards Palestinians.

“In investigating what’s happened to us and other supporters of Palestine like Antoinette Lattouf, we’ve found countless instances of hate speech and calls for attacks against Palestinians and their supporters online, including clear instances of Facebook groups being used to radicalise people against Palestinians,” Theo says.

“This is a narrative we know very well. It’s going from fantasising to people dipping their toe in the water — trying out attacks and terroristic actions to see what they get away with. The feedback those people are getting from the state and federal governments and the media allowing this behaviour really concerns me. This is going to continue to grow in severity and apparently no one gives a fuck.”

The last two weeks have taken a toll on Theo and his partner. Their sense of safety and normalcy in their home is gone and their uncertainty has been compounded by the near-silence from the police.

“This is our life now: investigating these batshit crazy spaces of the internet and their real-world implications. It’s exhausting,” Theo’s partner says. “It’s not effective but I do it so we can feel remotely safe and like I’m on top of what’s happening.”

Despite everything the flag is still up in front of their house.

“The thing about terrorism is it works. Mao said ‘kill one, teach a hundred’,” he says. “Our security cameras went up one day too late. But the flag’s not coming down.”

Who wants to go on a quest

What I’m looking at

• Gaza and Germany’s departure from reason

• This sick video of Captain Cook getting cut down in St Kilda

• I watched all of Skibidi Toilet and wrote about it for the Guardian. It was pretty good!