AUSTRALIANS PROTEST DEATH OF INDIGENOUS YOUTH IN POLICE CUSTODY

Fri 06 June 2025:

Australians held a rally in the Northern Territory on Friday to demand justice for a 24-year-old indigenous youth who died after being restrained violently by police in a supermarket the previous week, according to local media reports.

Hundreds of people, including Kumanjayi White’s relatives and friends, as well as members of the Alice Springs community, gathered 10 days after the young man’s death to mourn and demand “justice,” ABC News reported.

The death of a 24-year-old Indigenous man in police custody in Australia’s Northern Territory has sparked widespread outrage, as authorities have rejected calls for an independent investigation.

Kumanjayi White, a Warlpiri community member from Yuendumu, died last week after being restrained by two plainclothes police officers during an altercation with a supermarket security guard in Alice Springs. He was taken to Alice Springs Hospital and pronounced dead.

White’s family, friends, and the indigenous community have already announced that they will hold more rallies across the country in the coming days as part of their “national week of action.”

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First Nations leaders and advocates are calling for immediate accountability and an independent investigation into the incident.

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.

According to national broadcaster ABC, 594 Indigenous people have died in custody since 1991, including nine so far this year.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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