Questions over why Queensland cops avoided detailing race of baby’s alleged attacker

A top cop has called out police for initially failing to specify the race of the man suspected of throwing a thermos of hot coffee over a baby in a sickening unprovoked attack.

Nine-month-old Luka suffered horrific burns to his face and body when the alleged perpetrator approached him and his mother on the morning of August 27 while they picnicked in a Brisbane park.

He fled the scene and a manhunt commenced, but questions are now swirling about why it took investigators so long to identify the suspect, who had already fled the country by the time they learnt his name.

David Craig is a former Australian Federal Police detective superintendent and questioned whether cops erred on the side of political correctness when issuing their first description of the alleged attacker to avoid being seen as racist.

“His description was reported as ‘a person [with] tan skin …’ that doesn’t narrow it down very much,” Mr Craig told Channel 7’s Sunrise this morning.

That vague characterisation, provided to the media by Queensland Police and reported widely, avoided any clarification that the man is Asian.

It was a day until CCTV images of the alleged attacker were released.

“When a baby has been injured, attempted murder if you like, then we need to call out exactly who we’re looking for,” Mr Craig said.

“He should’ve been called out as a man of Asian appearance, just as we do people of caucasian appearance. It didn’t happen quickly enough in this case.

“This is not racial vilification terms. These are identifying terms.”

Tip-offs from members of the public were necessary in this instance, Mr Craig said, so the hesitance by police could have lost them valuable information.

That’s especially true given the suspicion that the man had “some kind of counter-surveillance experience”, he added.

“He knew what he was doing. He was obviously avoiding electronic trails so he couldn’t be followed so easily.”

On Monday, police revealed the man made several calculated movements immediately after the attack, travelling on foot and by train, zigzagging across several suburbs.

He then travelled by car to Sydney, arriving on August 28, it’s believed.

Queensland Police confirmed his identity on September 1, six days after the attack and some 12 hours after he boarded an international flight and left Australia.

Police know where the 33-year-old foreign national flew to and have issued a warrant for his arrest, triggering a complex legal process to bring him back to Australia to face justice.

Mr Craig said he’s confident the extradition application will be successful.

The devastated parents of baby Luka, who has already undergone multiple surgeries, said they were heartbroken to learn the alleged attacker had escaped.

“It sounds like they were very, very close in catching him,” his mum told the ABC.

“This obviously means that we’re going to have to wait who knows how long to get justice for our son.”

The woman said she has been “living in fear” and suffering anxiety and stress since the incident, which police say resembled an “ambush”.

“I had no idea where this person was, I didn’t want to leave this hospital because it became our safe space,” she told the ABC.

“Returning home I had panic attacks, and still continue to do so. I do feel relief that he’s not in this country, in some sense, but I will always have fear and anxiety being out in public with my son. It’s affected my mental health for the rest of my life.”

In a post shared to social media, the first-time mum said she’s searching for answers, writing: “Constant questions eating away at me, Why? Why him? Why not me? Why an innocent defenceless baby.”

Speaking to the media on Monday, Queensland Police Detective Inspector Paul Dalton described as the investigation as one of the most “complex and frustrating” in his career.

He said the alleged attacker had entered and exited Australia several times since 2019 and had been an “itinerant worker”.

In addition to possessing both working and holiday visa, he lived at a number of addresses across the country’s east, but none in Queensland.

Detective Inspector Dalton said the 30 officers working on the case were “devastated” the man managed to flee the country.

“They are devastated that they missed this person by 12 hours,” he said. “I think only the family would be more upset about that.”