The family of Kumanjayi White are asking for CCTV footage and an independent investigation a week after the 24-year-old died in police custody at a supermarket in Alice Springs, Central Australia.
“The young Warlpiri man who died in police custody in Coles [supermarket] in Alice Springs on Tuesday May 27 is my Jaja [grandson],” White’s grandfather, Warlpiri leader Ned Hargraves, said in a statement on Tuesday.
“We know that he was held down by two police until he lost consciousness and perished. But at the moment we are in the dark about what really happened,” Hargraves added.
“Family representatives need to see all available footage of this incident immediately – both CCTV and body cam so we can understand what happened to my Jaja,” he said.
“But so far they are refusing to grant this.”
While details are still emerging of the circumstances surrounding the death, Hargraves said his grandson had been living in supported accommodation because of disabilities.
“He needed support and not to be criminalised because of his disability,” Hargraves said.
Gene Hill, who previously worked at the supermarket, told public broadcaster ABC that he knew the victim.
“One glance at him and you can see he’s got special needs,” said Hill, adding that the supermarket required interpreters and Indigenous security guards to help with the language barrier between English and local Indigenous languages.
Calls for independent investigation
The Northern Territory Police Force (NTPF) said last week that White “stopped breathing” after he was “restrained” by two plainclothes police officers.
The “police will now investigate this matter on behalf of the coroner”, the NTPF added, in a statement.
Independent federal senator Lidia Thorpe, Northern Territory community group Justice Not Jails, and human rights organisation Amnesty International are among those supporting the family’s calls for an independent investigation.
Northern Territory Senator and federal Australian minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy last week acknowledged the “many traumas” the Warlpiri community in the remote Yuendumu area, where White hailed from, had experienced and said “calls for an independent investigation may be warranted”.
“It may be important to do that, given that there is such tension,” McCarthy, from the centre-left Labor federal government said, according to the ABC.
But Northern Territory (NT) Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro told ABC Radio Darwin “it is entirely appropriate” for the NT police to investigate.
“This is exactly what happens for all deaths in custody,” Finocchiaro, from the conservative Country Liberal Party (CLP), said.
Finocchiaro dismissed McCarthy’s comments as “really unhelpful” and “uneducated”.
“If she wants to support the people of Yuendumu and people concerned about this, then the best thing she can do is use her powerful voice to call for calm and confidence in the NT Police Force,” Finocchiaro said.
The Justice Not Jails advocacy group said the Country Liberal Party’s “tough on crime” approach in the Northern Territory had contributed to increased policing of Aboriginal people like White, in the lead up to his death.
“Kumanjayi White’s death has occurred in the context of the CLP’s relentless and racist attacks on Aboriginal families and communities,” Justice Not Jails said in a statement.
“These attacks include reforms to bail and sentencing that have significantly increased the number of Aboriginal people in prison, increasing the risk of further deaths in custody,” the group said.
A candlelight vigil was held for White in Sydney on Sunday, with more protests planned around Australia in the coming days.
Kumanjayi White’s death comes six years after nineteen year old Kumanjayi Walker was shot by Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe.
The two deaths at the hands of police have left the small community of Yuendumu, which has a population of about 870 people and is located some 293 km (182 miles) from Alice Springs, reeling.
Northern Territory coroner Elisabeth Armitage was due to deliver the findings of the inquest into Walker’s death in 2019 next week, however, at the request of the family this has been deferred.
The Northern Territory Courts said the findings will “now be handed down on July 7 in either Yuendumu or Alice Springs”.
The inquest into Walker’s death began after a jury found former soldier-turned police officer Zachary Rolfe was “not guilty” of murdering Walker in March 2022.
Walker’s death prompted widespread protests around Australia, as one of 595 Indigenous people to have died in police custody since a 1991 Royal Commission.
White’s grandfather Hargraves pointed out that his grandson died on the fifth anniversary of the death of George Floyd, whose death in the United States prompted worldwide Black Lives Matter protests.
White’s death also occurred during Reconciliation Week in Australia, he added.
“I am angry and frustrated that yet another one of our young men has lost his life at the hands of the police,” Hargraves said.
“Has our community not gone through enough?”
