{"id":652153,"date":"2026-05-06T00:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T00:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/652153\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T00:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T00:13:09","slug":"white-shirt-guy-claims-he-was-assaulted-by-police-at-the-sydney-rally-against-isaac-herzog-now-he-plans-to-sue-australian-police-and-policing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/652153\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018White shirt guy\u2019 claims he was assaulted by police at the Sydney rally against Isaac Herzog. Now he plans to sue | Australian police and policing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Derek Jones was on the ferry home to Manly with his wife when he saw the video of himself that would become global news<\/a>. He was wearing a ripped white business shirt and nursing two broken ribs.<\/p>\n

The viral video, shot a few hours earlier, shows Jones being grabbed by a police officer at a rally protesting against the visit of the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog. Jones has his hands in the air as two police officers repeatedly punch him.<\/p>\n

The 56-year-old, who became known as \u201cwhite shirt guy\u201d, kept a low profile amid widespread claims of police brutality<\/a> at the 9 February protest. Until now, he hadn\u2019t revealed himself publicly as the man in the video.<\/p>\n

This week Jones is due to become the first protester to launch legal action<\/a> in the New South Wales supreme court against police over their conduct at the protest. He plans to file a personal injury claim over what he alleges was an unprovoked assault.<\/p>\n

\"Video:Video: Office of David Shoebridge<\/p>\n

\u201cI was assaulted,\u201d he alleges when speaking from his lawyer\u2019s office. \u201cThey didn\u2019t need to behave in the way they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones says during the encounter near Sydney\u2019s town hall, \u201cmy wife was there yelling in horror as the crowd was also wondering what the hell was going on \u2013 because they all recognised it was completely unprovoked, unwarranted, excessive, crazy\u201d.<\/p>\n

The police conduct was \u201cabsolutely mad\u201d, he alleges.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Jones works in finance and had been to one previous pro-Palestine protest. He decided to go to the Herzog rally with his wife because he didn\u2019t think it was \u201cappropriate\u201d for the Australian government to invite the head of a state that a UN commission of inquiry found committed genocide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His lawyer, Mark Davis of XD Law, says he will also seek a judicial review to try to obtain documents revealing the orders police were following.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t want to just get a settlement \u2013 he wants to unpick that,\u201d Davis says. \u201cHe wants to know why these \u2026 officers suddenly descended on him after.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019s lawyer also wants to \u201csee those officers charged\u201d. \u201cWe think they should be subject to criminal prosecution,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The NSW government has faced scrutiny over its decision to pass a law, subsequently found to be unconstitutional<\/a>, before the rally. It was introduced after the Bondi beach terror attack<\/a> and effectively banned protesters from marching in Sydney\u2019s central business district over the summer.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s finding that the law impermissibly burdened the implied constitutional right to freedom of political communication has led police to review 26 charges laid against protesters since the Herzog rally.<\/p>\n

Jones was not arrested or charged after the alleged assault. But a young man seen in the video \u2013 who Jones says was trying to help \u2013 was charged with hindering police.<\/p>\n

\u2018All of a sudden, I was dragged into that fracas\u2019<\/p>\n

Jones met his wife \u2013 the woman seen in the video behind him wearing a keffiyeh \u2013 at the protest after he finished work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a peaceful protest that we were going to,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Jones says they were trying to leave after the speeches when they stopped to watch what was unfolding on George Street.<\/p>\n

\u2018I didn\u2019t want to have my video of me being assaulted broadcast all around the world,\u2019 Jones says. Photograph: Jessica Hromas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw down the street, someone pulled out of the crowd and sort of violently thrown to the ground,\u201d he says. \u201cI had no thought that it would come over to our side [of the street].\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, all of a sudden, I was dragged into that fracas and then assaulted,\u201d he alleges.<\/p>\n

Jones says there were some words exchanged between the protesters on his side of the street to the effect of: \u201cWhy don\u2019t you go and arrest some real criminals?\u201d<\/p>\n

He says he may have said something similar but he doesn\u2019t recall.<\/p>\n

He thinks the officer who grabbed hold of him had first tried to grab a woman next to him, who said something to the police.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s pulling me towards him, and I can\u2019t get away \u2013 I\u2019ve got my hands up,\u201d Jones says, referring to the police officer on the bicycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife is holding me, trying to pull me back, and that\u2019s actually the most upsetting. I can hear her sort of screaming. As I was being pulled forward, I did reach out to try to not topple over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones, who became emotional when recalling the protest, alleges another officer then punched him multiple times in his chest. He alleges yet another officer punched him in the face.<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019s 18-year-old son saw the viral video on social media before Jones could tell him what had happened. He says his son was watching videos with friends when the footage popped up. His son realised: \u201cShit, that\u2019s my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones started to receive messages from family, friends and work colleagues who recognised him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to have my video of me being assaulted broadcast all around the world, but that\u2019s happened,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The premier, Chris Minns<\/a>, was asked about what happened to Jones in the days after the protest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, all the circumstances will, of course, be investigated,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cPolice had body-worn videos on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important that people not judge the actions of police on 10- or 15-second social media posts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see the full context, many people will draw the opposite conclusion, and that is that police were repeatedly confronted. People were attempting to breach police lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to questions about Jones\u2019s allegations, NSW police said the force was unable to substantiate the identity of the person in the video.<\/p>\n

Jones says comments by politicians and public figures \u201csort of justifying their [police] behaviour and saying that that was in any way appropriate, that\u2019s pretty frustrating, more than frustrating\u201d.<\/p>\n

He says his physical injuries, which included a bruised lung and the broken ribs, took between eight and 10 weeks to heal.<\/p>\n

\u201cPsychologically, that\u2019s a different story,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t know how that will play out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Derek Jones was on the ferry home to Manly with his wife when he saw the video of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-652153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}