Protesters carrying banners saying “Tell the truth” and “Justice for Walker” have marched on parliament in Canberra and Darwin, with other rallies scheduled for later on Wednesday in Sydney and Melbourne.
It’s the fourth day of protests since police shot dead 19-year-old Warlpiri man Kumanjayi Walker at a home in Yuendumu, 300km north-west of Alice Springs, on Saturday night.
Questions have been asked about the way police and health officials dealt with the immediate aftermath of the shooting, and their ensuing treatment of the community, including Walker’s relatives, who had waited outside the police station for hours seeking answers about his condition.
Walker died in the station from his injuries but did not receive critical emergency care, and his family were not notified until hours after his death.
On Tuesday, Northern Territory health officials defended their decision to leave Yuendumu in the hours before the police shooting , saying health staff “raised safety concerns” on Saturday morning after a period of “community unrest”.
The Medical Retrieval and Consultation Care Centre, which handles all medical emergencies across central Australia, provided clinical advice to police at the time of the shooting but did not immediately call for an airlift.
By the time staff from nearby Yuelamu health centre arrived, Walker had died.
He is the second Aboriginal person to die after being shot by police in the past two months. In September, 29-year-old Yamatji woman Joyce Clarke was shot outside a house in the Geraldton suburb of Kaloo and died soon after in hospital.
At a rally in Canberra, a Labor senator for the Northern Territory, Malarndirri McCarthy, told Warlpiri families she was “sorry for their loss” and called on “the strength of country to bring you peace in your hearts right now” to “heal such hurt and hate that’s going on across the country”.
In Darwin, about 60 protestors marched to parliament chanting “justice for Walker” and were met by security guards on the front steps.
Protesters in Darwin have marched to Parliament House, which is being guarded by police. Chants of #JusticeForWalker pic.twitter.com/lCULUX9Rc2
— Jacqueline Breen (@Jacqueline_E_B) November 13, 2019
On Tuesday, the NT chief minister, Michael Gunner, met Warlpiri elders at Yuendumu and promised that the coronial investigation would be independent “and consequences will flow as a result”.
“Saturday night was an awful night and we will be working together for a long time about how we deal with that together,” Gunner told people gathered at Yuendumu. “But there are important things I can promise today. One of them is to guarantee there will be an independent investigation.”
Gunner said the other key requests of the community – that the investigation be quick and that it take place in Yuendumu – were not matters he could decide but were “reasonable questions that the coroner will listen to”.
“Because the coroner is independent, even I can’t tell the coroner to do that, but I know the coroner will listen to you ... and seek to answer those questions you have about what happened and why, so that justice can be done,” Gunner said.
Other rallies will be held in capital cities later today.
