Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following story mentions people who have died.
First Nations leaders and advocates are demanding urgent answers after a 24-year-old Warlpiri man died in police custody at a Coles supermarket in Alice Springs (Mparntwe) this week.
The man, who lived with disabilities and was staying in supported accommodation away from his Yuendumu community, died on Tuesday after being restrained by police.
His family and community are devastated, with many saying he was failed by both the justice system and disability services.
What happened?
According to Northern Territory Police, the incident started when security guards approached the young man for allegedly placing items down the front of his clothes. Police allege he assaulted one of the guards, which led two plain clothes officers to intervene and restrain him. The man lost consciousness during the restraint and, despite CPR and ambulance attendance, was pronounced dead at Alice Springs Hospital shortly after.
Assistant Commissioner Travis Wurst said, “Detectives have collected a considerable amount of evidence and the public can be assured that a full and thorough investigative report will be prepared for the Coroner.” The cause of death is still undetermined, pending a forensic investigation.
Family and community demand respect and transparency
The man’s grandfather, respected Warlpiri Elder Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves, has strongly rejected the police account and criticised how the story has been handled in public. “It is disgraceful that police are already putting out stories that portray my jaja (grandson) as a criminal. We demand they stop spreading stories and show some respect,” he said in a statement on IndigenousX.
Hargraves also questioned why his grandson was alone in a public place without carers and called for the immediate release of all available CCTV and body-worn camera footage. “He was very vulnerable. He needed support and not to be criminalised because of his disability,” Hargraves said.
Calls for accountability and systemic change
Worimi man Damian Griffis from the First Peoples Disability Network told the ABC’s Indigenous Affairs Team that Australians “need to be outraged by this”. He highlighted that First Nations people with disability are far more likely to end up in the criminal justice system than in supported care, and called for better training for first responders.
“Community members with disability — who have intellectual disability, hearing impairment, acquired brain injury for example, or even when English is not a first language — may not understand directions, and this is why things like this can escalate rapidly and get out of hand,” Griffis said.
Senator Lidia Thorpe, a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman, said governments have “empty words with no action” regarding deaths in custody.
“These police officers who have ultimately ended this young man’s life should be held accountable,” she said, adding, “We’ve just lost another innocent Aboriginal person to the system, the system that commits everyday ongoing violence against our people”.
Thorpe also pointed out that, since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, 594 Indigenous people have died in custody, with nine deaths already this year. She said, “We have governments who basically are complicit in the ongoing genocide of our people because they won’t implement the recommendations.”
Push for independent investigation
Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy has suggested that the Northern Territory should consider an independent investigation, separate from the NT Police. “Calls for an independent investigation may be warranted. It may be important to do that, given there is such tension,” she told the ABC.
However, Acting Commissioner of NT Police Martin Dole rejected calls for an external investigation in a statement, saying the Major Crime Division is handling the case under strict protocols and that the NT Coroner will independently review the incident.
“I respectfully reject calls for the investigation to be handed to an external body,” Dole said.
Ongoing trauma for First Nations communities
Nerita Waight, deputy chair of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service, told ABC News Breakfast that governments must implement not only the Royal Commission’s recommendations but also those from numerous coronial inquests into deaths in custody.
“It’s their choice to fail to invest in their systems. It’s their choice to continue to fail Aboriginal people. It’s their choice to make sure this is a recurring issue for our community,” Waight said.
Senator Thorpe added, “Right across this country, every family who’s lost a loved one is still reeling in the trauma and the loss, and every death in custody only re-traumatises our people.”
For Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves and the Yuendumu community, there are still too many unanswered questions. “I am angry and frustrated that yet another one of our young men has lost his life at the hands of the police. Why was he there alone, where were the carers who were supposed to be responsible for him? We are demanding answers and justice,” Hargraves said.
As the investigation continues, First Nations leaders are calling for real action, accountability, and respect for the lives and rights of Indigenous people with disability — and for the cycle of deaths in custody to end.
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Lead image: AAP
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