Police Officer Meets Tasmanian LGBT Activist Rodney Croome, 30 Years After Arresting Him At Salamanca Market Protests
Thirty four years ago a young newly graduated police constable Tim Dooley arrested LGBTQI activist Rodney Croome, who was calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Tasmania.
Last week the two met for the first time after over three decades in very different circumstances. This was just the second encounter between Cooley, now a Commander with the Tasmanian Police, and Croome, a former Tasmanian of the Year, who was appointed Member of Order of Australia for his LGBTQI activism in 2003.
Croome recalls that in 1988 the LGBTQI community’s relationship with the local police were “at a low ebb”. In 1988, Tasmania’s LGBTQI community started their decade long battle to call for the repeal of the law that criminalised homosexuality with up to 21 years imprisonment.
They leased a stall in Hobart’s Salamanca market to collect signatures from the public to drum up support for the cause. In October 1988, the Hobart City Council banned the stall and called in the police.
