South Australia Police Commissioner Grant Stevens is an Incompetent Clown Who Should Be in Jail
South Australia Police commissioner Grant Stevens is a clown.
A nasty, vindictive, and totally incompetent clown that should be in jail.
Yesterday, 42-year-old Gaurav Kundi died at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He had been on life support for two weeks, after being assaulted by SAPOL thugs on Payneham Rd in the early hours of Thursday, May 29.
CCTV footage captured shortly before the attack shows Gaurav stumbling along the footpath, looking ill and too weak to stand. Yet “up to eight” SAPOL officers arrived on scene to deal with a single male of average build who could barely stand upright. The available footage shows two of those officers restraining Gaurav next to a police car with his arms behind his back.
SAPOL cops however have an obsession with taking people to the ground before handcuffing them. In their mission to plant him face down on the ground, the two cops can be seen pulling Gaurav away from the car, with one kicking and tripping him to the ground.
It was just the latest in a long line of incidents where poorly-trained, bad-tempered SAPOL goons have shown up and turned a minor matter into a major violent incident. This tradition of escalating non-events into critical incidents owes much to Grant Stevens and his public defense and even praise of police violence.
When news of the incident broke, and South Australians learned a family man was on life support thanks to the same people tasked with “Keeping SA Safe”, all the usual suspects went into damage control.
Stevens told the media that after watching vision from just one of the officer’s body camera, he believed they acted “in line with their training.”
If that is true, then it confirms SAPOL officers receive very poor training.
One of Stevens’ sidekicks, SAPOL Assistant Commissioner John De Candia, confirmed intelligence and talent had nothing to do with scoring a top SAPOL job when he told the media:
“Without having a look at all the body-worn video from all the different angles, it’s a little bit difficult to make an assessment without looking at all the evidence.”
“However, I can say that from that evidence I’ve looked at that from that body-worn video, but it is only one portion, I’m comfortable.”
Believe it or not, this genius received a 2022 Australia Day Award for “distinguished service”.
So we had two of South Australia’s highest-ranking cops, admitting they had only seen a small portion of the evidence, declaring they were happy with the conduct of the officers whose violent actions resulted in a man being placed on life support.
Not only does this prove Stevens and his towel boy De Candia are incompetent and totally unsuited to their roles, it also raises very serious concerns about just why they are making such comments in public. The duo made these remarks while two police investigations into the matter were underway. These investigations are cynically being marketed as independent exercises, yet two of SA’s top cops were publicly signalling to their underlings what they expected the outcomes to be (police investigating police are not independent, nor are the government-controlled clowns at the Office of Public Integrity).
As Justice Matters recently stated:
“Stevens had no right whatsoever to pass judgment before an inquiry had been held and all of the facts had been considered, which Stevens himself later confirmed when he said the public should await the outcome of the police inquiry. So Stevens expects the public to wait but it’s okay for him to pass judgment. That’s right, Steven’s comments could be viewed as an attempt by him to influence the outcome of the inquiry which is an attempt to pervert the course of justice. And he shouldn’t just be sacked. He should answer to the courts the same as anybody else.”
Stevens is used to saying stupid things and getting away with it, because his audience is usually limited to South Australian viewers, many of whom are gullible sheep who think he handled Covid like a boss (he did not; he handled it like the Masonic puppet he is).
This time, things are a little different. Gaurav’s status as an Indian immigrant has attracted wide media coverage in India, a country with a population of almost 1.5 billion.
Small town clown Grant Stevens now finds himself having to deal with what has become something of an international incident. As expected, he’s not doing a very good job of it.
He fronted a press conference yesterday, and when a journalist asked if there was any indication of how Gaurav “could have been so depleted of oxygen to cause such a significant injury”, Stevens replied “it’s not something I could elaborate on at this time and the full circumstances uh will obviously be um determined by the major crime investigation.”
He added, “there will be further investigation in relation to the full circumstances and it is difficult for me to elaborate on any further detail at this point in time.”
So the same idiot who was quick to declare he was happy that his officers acted in line with their training was now admitting the full circumstances were yet to be determined.
South Australia’s highest paid hypocrite then audaciously told the gathered press, “I would just caution people to maintain an open mind until all of the information is collected and a proper assessment of the circumstances has been made.”
This is the latest in what is a habitual pattern of behavior for Stevens, which plays out like this:
- A SAPOL thug, or group of thugs, gets caught on camera using unnecessary violence against a lone, unarmed person
- Grant Stevens claims the cops did nothing wrong
- He says this even though further enquiries into the matter are still underway
- While these enquiries are underway, Grant “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” Stevens tells the public not to rush to judgement and wait for the full facts to be determined.
It bears remembering that this bad joke of a commissioner costs SA taxpayers $666,658 per year.
After footage of SAPOL officers swamping and punching an unarmed Indigenous man went viral in 2019, Stevens wrote a 19 June 2020 Advertiser editorial telling the public to “Look at facts before judging arrest video.”
Sure, let’s look at the facts.
The facts are that the victim of the police assault, Noel Henry, had done nothing wrong. The offending officers claimed they “suspected” Henry of possessing illegal drugs, but no drugs were found on him. Henry was arrested using the time-honored SAPOL catch-all charges of hindering police, resisting arrest and property damage. The validity of these charges can be gleaned by the fact Henry was quietly released without charge the following morning via the “back door” of Port Adelaide police station.
SAPOL then investigated itself and – surprise, surprise! – found itself innocent of all charges. Old mate Grantley got up before the cameras and repeated all the standard slogans – he claimed there was “independent oversight”, “the officers acted reasonably and in good faith”, “had not committed any criminal offences”, and “did not breach SAPOL’s Code of Conduct.”
Having declared itself innocent of all charges, SAPOL then turned its wrath back towards Henry and determined to punish him for daring to embarrass it. The vindictive tyrants at SAPOL reinstated the concocted charges against him and summonsed him to appear in court!
This is standard SAPOL behavior – target someone doing nothing wrong and when they ‘resist’ your bullying, slap them with the ol’ trifecta of bullshit charges. You can pick from a mix of SAPOL favorites like ‘resisting arrest’, ‘hindering police’, ‘failing to state name and address’, ‘assaulting police’ and, if they damage something they violently shoved their victim into, ‘property damage’! No actual crime has been committed, the victim was simply unlucky enough to be picked on by SAPOL goons too gutless to hunt down and confront real criminals, but needing something to justify their existence.
Among the uniformed criminals that Stevens has publicly defended during his shameful tenure is Benjamin Higgins, a serial thug who delights in violently attacking handcuffed people. Higgins is the psychopath who in February 2017 violently rammed a man’s head into a police station counter, knocking him out cold and leaving him with lasting brain injury. The man, Nathan Cross, was handcuffed and fully restrained at the time of Higgins’ cowardly attack. He posed no threat to Higgins or any other persons present. Higgins simply became enraged because a drunk Cross was verbally expressing his displeasure at what was transpiring. No disciplinary action was taken against Higgins.
In 2019, Higgins was at it again, this time sucker-punching a handcuffed Clarence Yates who was allegedly caught doing graffiti. Higgins and SAPOL claimed Yates spat at the officer, but footage of the incident clearly shows Yates spitting away from Higgins onto the ground.
As expected, Higgins was cleared of any wrongdoing by his fellow criminals at SAPOL, and the violent liar was praised by Stevens. “My officers should not tolerate being assaulted and I expect them to take reasonable action to protect themselves so they can go home unharmed to their families,” said Stevens of the incident in which no police officer was assaulted.
“That means they’re allowed to use reasonable force, and it means people are going to get hurt if they try to assault a police officer,” he added, despite the footage showing Yates was not trying to hurt anyone.
“I fully support the professional way they deal with those in the community who think it’s OK to threaten or assault police”, Stevens said of the highly unprofessional and violent Higgins.
Stevens, a gutless coward who needs over a dozen officers to accompany him to court because he is shit-scared of peaceful protestors, was not just talking like a macho bully. He was publicly giving a green light for his officers to engage in gratuitous violence, safe in the knowledge that even when they get caught on camera, SAPOL would downplay and dismiss the incident.
In 2020, cops violently assaulted a man in a CBD alleyway. When footage of the incident emerged, the cops absurdly claimed they bashed the man because he “threatened to spit on them”, despite no person ever in the history of the world saying “I will spit on you if you don’t leave me alone.”
Also in 2020, a scooter rider required medical treatment after he was violently tackled by deranged SAPOL goons for … not wearing a helmet. What better way to ensure scooter riders don’t sustain head injuries than throwing them onto a concrete footpath?
Three gutless, disgusting SAPOL thugs cost taxpayers $426,000 in damages after gang-attacking a Murray Bridge man in 2018. The man, who was quietly walking home alone and doing nothing wrong, required surgery as a result of injuries sustained during the vicious coward attack. SAPOL refused to divulge whether any of the thugs had been disciplined, which we can safely assume to mean “no”.
A violent 2021 arrest of a Parafield Gardens drug dealer was so unprofessional (even his dog was pepper-sprayed) that taxpayers were again forced to cough up a chunk of hush money to settle the manner. The man originally sued for $500,000 – the amount he received is not known.
In 2023, two SAPOL thugs showed up at a care facility and violently assaulted, tasered, pepper-sprayed and dragged a 61-year-old Huntington’s patient. Despite their brutality, SAPOL refused to charge the officers.
In December 2023, SAPOL thug Aiden Allt, who pepper sprayed and violently bashed a fully restrained man, was given a free pass by corrupt magistrate Roderick Jensen in what was obviously a predetermined decision.
A cop who got in an innocent man’s personal space last November, violently threw him against a wall, then dragged him along a footpath out to the street to arrest him on bullshit charges was cleared of wrongdoing by SAPOL and its accomplices at the pretend watchdog agency that is the Office of Public Integrity.
This is just a small sampling of the green-lighted brutality committed by SAPOL thugs, but the message is clear: SAPOL thugs can assault civilians with impunity.
Meanwhile, if an idiot cop harasses you for not wearing a face mask that scientific research has repeatedly shown to be ineffective, and you ask the cop to leave you alone, and the cop not only refuses to back off but puts their hands on you despite you not being under arrest, and you fight back in self defense, and a court recognizes this, SAPOL and its media bitches like David Penberthy will kick up such a stink that you will be retried and sent to prison.
SAPOL thugs can brutally assault you with impunity, but if you act in self-defense against these thugs, the cry-babies at SAPOL all simultaneously scream “instant jail time!”
So here we are, in 2025, with a man dead after SAPOL thugs once again got their rocks off and violently assaulted someone who was ‘resisting’ their belligerent aggression.
Is anyone surprised?
Gaurav’s death is being investigated under the benign sounding classification of “Death in Custody”, rather than “Victim of Deadly Police Assault”.
As a National Network press release states:
“Let us be clear: they killed him.
‘Another man has died after a violent attack by police, and once again, we are told to wait. Wait for the investigations. Wait for the inquiries. Wait for the same systems that failed to protect him to explain how and why he died. But we already know. We have said it every day, in every statement, for every life lost at the hands of police,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
‘There is nothing left to say that we haven’t already screamed through tears and grief and rage. The names change. The families change. But the system does not,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
The police cannot investigate themselves.
The police do not keep us safe.
We must divest from policing—now.
We must end police investigating police—now.
‘We will not dignify SAPOL’s attempts to sanitise this death. We reject their carefully worded denials and selective narratives. No press release, no “independent oversight,” no body-worn camera review can erase the simple truth: Gaurav Kundi is dead, and he should be alive,’ said Tabitha Lean.”
Grant Stevens has blood on his hands. If he wasn’t a highly paid cop, people would recognize him for what he is: A cowardly bully who engages in hate speech, encouraging a group of armed thugs to victimize a vulnerable group (the unarmed public).
If policing was truly about upholding justice and keeping the community safe, then police commissioners would posses qualities like:
- Bravery
- Unwavering commitment to justice and transparency
- High morals
- The ability to command and discipline their force without fear or favor
- Extreme intolerance of malfeasance, bullying, racism, nepotism, gratuitous violence, and weaponised use of the law
Grant Stevens possesses none of these qualities. He and his highly dysfunctional force are the complete antithesis of these qualities.
Stevens should not be receiving almost $700,000 a year for this – he should instead be in jail explaining his behavior to the people his goons helped imprison, sometimes on false grounds.
