Vic: Tyler's boss denies racist links at pub

AAP General News (Australia)
12-15-2008
Vic: Tyler's boss denies racist links at pub

By Greg Roberts

MELBOURNE, Dec 15 AAP - The Melbourne publican who employed the 15-year-old boy shot
dead by police last week has strongly rejected claims his pub plays host to white supremacists.

Leinster Arms Hotel licensee Glenn McGee said it was "rubbish" that racists groups
visited his "family hotel".

Mr McGee said he had employed Tyler Cassidy as a casual kitchen-hand at the Collingwood
pub for a year.

Tyler was shot and killed by three officers in a Melbourne skate park on Thursday night
after allegedly threatening to kill them with two knives.

It has been reported that white supremacists in Melbourne favoured the hotel as a drinking spot.

Tyler's MySpace page revealed he was involved with the white pride group, the Southern
Cross Soldiers.

"We knew Tyler's family, including his mother Shani and father Ian, and his brother
Blake had progressed to being a cook with us," Mr McGee said.

"Tyler was only ever exposed to the kitchen, his mother picked him up and dropped him
off, he was only 15 and might have had a soft drink before he left."

Mr McGee said if white supremacists drank at the hotel he did not know about it.

"It's rubbish, we are an award-winning family hotel recognised for what we do," Mr McGee said.

Tyler's late father, Ian, was a friend of the pub's chef and regularly visited the
pub before he died of cancer four years ago.

Mr Cassidy had been a pub licensee and Blake and Tyler were following in their father's
footsteps doing hospitality studies and working in the industry, he said.

"Just because something is on Facebook or MySpace doesn't make it true, he was just
a kid," he said.

Notorious criminal turned artist and author Mark "Chopper" Read regularly visits the
Leinster Arms and said he would often say hello to Tyler.

Read told News Limited he did not understand why police would have opened fire.

"Why would the police shoot a 15-year-old? I mean he looked 15, you couldn't mistake
he was a teenager," he said.

"(But) police usually shoot someone if their life is in danger. They don't go shooting
people because they don't like them, otherwise half the people in Melbourne would get
shot."

Investigations have been launched into Tyler's death.

AAP gr/pmu/bwl

KEYWORD: SHOT PUB

2008 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.