ABSTRACT
This chapter explains why it is important for students to understand the significance of race in intentional torts cases brought by Aboriginal plaintiffs against police officers. It argues that judgments are more than the application of legal rules to relevant facts. They also promulgate myths about race. Judgments in intentional torts cases often reinforce a narrative in which police brutality against Aboriginal people is understood as the random behaviour of a few ‘bad apples’. This is at odds with the experiential knowledge of Indigenous communities, according to which such violence is habitual. The chapter shows how students and teachers can develop a reading practice to distil the stories about race that are privileged and those that are erased from judgments in intentional torts cases.
