Latest news with #Warlpiri
ABC News
2 hours ago
- General
- ABC News
Crowds attend Sydney vigil for young Warlpiri man Kumanjayi White's death in custody
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the names of Indigenous people who have died, used with the permission of their families. Crowds have gathered at Sydney's town hall for a candlelit vigil in response to the death in custody of a young Warlpiri man in Alice Springs last week. The 24-year-old Yuendumu man — known now as Kumanjayi White — died on Tuesday after being restrained by police officers on a supermarket floor following an altercation. Kumanjayi White's family said the young man was vulnerable, had disabilities and was living away from his home community of Yuendumu because he required supported accommodation in Alice Springs. NT Police said plain-clothed officers responded after Kumanjayi White allegedly assaulted a security guard, who had confronted him about shoplifting in the store. His grandfather, Warlpiri elder Ned Jampjinpa Hargraves, said his jaja (grandson) had "needed support and not to be criminalised because of his disability". As Reconciliation Week draws to a close, those speaking at the event on Sunday evening said they wanted to bring First Nations people together to reflect on and mourn Kumanjayi White's death. Dunghutti man and activist Paul Silva said there should be a national spotlight on the systems that were continuing to fail First Nations people. Mr Silva is the nephew of David Dungay Jnr, who died in custody at Sydney's Long Bay Prison Hospital in 2015. "This man was vulnerable," Mr Silva said. "Tonight we mourn and we stand with his family and community. The incident involving Kumanjayi White is being investigated as a death in custody, with an initial autopsy on Wednesday finding the cause of death to be "undetermined". On Friday a vigil for Kumanjayi White was held in Alice Springs and later that afternoon NT Police rejected calls for an independent investigation. Assistant Commissioner Travis Wurst said he was leading the police investigation and would "provide oversight" along with NT Police's Professional Standards Command.
ABC News
14 hours ago
- General
- ABC News
After another Yuendumu death in custody, Australia must confront some harsh truths
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the names of Indigenous people who have died, used with the permission of their families. In November 2019, the shooting death of a 19-year-old Aboriginal man in the remote Central Australian community of Yuendumu by a police officer sent shock waves around the nation. Kumanjayi Walker's shooting was investigated as a death in custody and the officer who pulled the trigger, Zachary Rolfe, was charged with his murder before being acquitted by a jury in 2022. The Supreme Court trial was followed by the longest-running coronial inquest in the Northern Territory's history — an inquiry which brought to the surface shocking allegations of racism in the NT Police Force (NTPF). The findings from Mr Walker's inquest are due to be handed down in less than a fortnight, on June 10, but whether that goes ahead as planned in Yuendumu is now up in the air. On Tuesday, a 24-year-old Warlpiri man with a disability, also hailing from Yuendumu, died after being restrained by police officers in aisle four of one of Alice Springs' main supermarkets. The NTPF has said plain-clothed officers were responding after Kumanjayi White — Kumanjayi being a western desert name for somebody who has died — allegedly assaulted a security guard in the store, after being confronted for shoplifting. This incident is now also being investigated as a death in custody. Police say forensic pathology results pinpointing the man's cause of death could still be weeks away after an initial autopsy was inconclusive. In the shadow of the Kumanjayi Walker inquest, a number of similarities stand out — more than just the men's young age and the fact they came from the same remote First Nations community. Both men also faced continued interaction with the justice system during their young lives. Mr White had faced court on charges of aggravated assault and assaulting police as recently as this year, which were ultimately withdrawn due to his disability. He had previously spent time on remand over charges related to dangerous driving and a police pursuit. Both men's deaths have also rocked the wider Central Australian community with ripples of grief and outcry. The political reactions to each man's death have also borne some similarities, as well as some starkly different approaches by the leaders of the NT government. In 2019, then-chief minister Michael Gunner travelled to Yuendumu in the wake of Mr Walker's shooting and gave a speech to community members promising justice. His promise that "consequences will flow" led to accusations of political interference when it came to a murder charge being laid against Mr Rolfe, which haunted the NT government. Since Mr White's death, current chief minister Lia Finocchiaro has chosen her words more carefully. Ms Finocchiaro has offered her condolences and said she wants the investigation to run its course but has not yet travelled to Central Australia. Instead she spent the week attending a gas conference and the NRL State of Origin in Brisbane. While there have been calls for an independent investigation to take place at arms length from police, Ms Finocchiaro is yet to give any indication that proposal will be taken up. The NTPF has been firm in rejecting calls for an external inquiry. A coronial inquest into Mr White's death will likely eventually look into the broader circumstances that led to it and perhaps seek to answer some pertinent questions. One such question being, how did a young man with a disability and on a guardianship order manage to come into contact with the criminal justice system multiple times during his young life, including stints behind bars on remand? If anything has been learned from Mr Walker's inquest, it is that during the months that follow this latest death in custody, Australia must be prepared to confront multiple uncomfortable truths about systems in place in the remote NT.
The Guardian
17 hours ago
- Health
- The Guardian
A shameful death after a supermarket scuffle shines a light on Australia's unfinished business
In the middle of Reconciliation Week a young, disabled Warlpiri man died following a scuffle in a Coles supermarket in Alice Springs after he was 'placed' on the floor by two plain-clothed policemen. People are not 'placed' on the floor – that is what you do with bags, boxes and rubbish. But that was the word used by the Northern Territory police to describe the sequence of events to the media. Tragically, painfully, I think it says a lot. I try to imagine a similar scene at my local Coles, where many people who have not been winners in life's lottery also shop for little items to keep hunger at bay, but no image comes to mind. I think the situation would most likely have been quietly defused, no one would have been 'placed' on the floor and died, the shop would not have become a crime scene. On the same day in Western Australia, the state government decided to provide $85,000 to those remaining stolen people who had spent their lives wondering and suffering because of cruel policies that removed children from their families. A measly lump sum from a state treasury grown fat from mineral resources, many from native title lands. First Nations people have a life expectancy decades lower than others, so the numbers are much smaller than they were. Delay is the most effective way of maintaining the status quo – people die, responsibility is diminished, the mistake no longer has a human face. The WA announcement came, inexcusably, nearly three decades after the profoundly revealing and moving Bringing Them Home report. It landed in the national consciousness and triggered a heartfelt realisation of the long-term consequences of bad policy for those who paid attention; people marched across bridges, signed petitions and wept watching Rabbit-Proof Fence. It also provided a pretext for a cruel and cynical, politically led culture war that has put Australia in aspic for decades. Then prime minister John Howard's rejection of the recommendations of that report was crystallised as a refusal to say sorry. This was the headline and the source of his global humiliation when Midnight Oil, their jumpsuits stamped with the unmissable word 'sorry', sang and danced in front of him on the stage of the Sydney Olympics closing ceremony. Saying sorry then gave Howard's successor Kevin Rudd his greatest political triumph. But saying sorry is not enough – actions must follow to fix the foundational flaw. Behind the moral dilemma about where responsibility ended was a crass calculation. Among that report's many, and largely still not acted on, recommendations, was that compensation be given for the thousands of lives that had been deliberately upended with tragic and traumatic consequences for generations. It was this recommendation that galvanised Howard and his minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, John Herron. Compensation for individuals was out of the question and would be impossible to calculate anyway, they declared. That gave way when Ken Wyatt was the minister for Indigenous Australians in the Morrison government, and with little fanfare, compensation of $75,000 was allocated to stolen children survivors in the territories. Pat Turner, a long-term Indigenous public servant, told Dan Bourchier on The Elders that an appropriate amount in 1997 would have been a million dollars each, enough then to buy a house and provide families that had been deliberately destroyed with some ongoing intergenerational security. Queensland has yet to provide redress, and is now, as it has done for more than a century, locking up another generation of children. What bit of this don't they understand? Crime is not innate, it is mostly caused by circumstances – such as poverty, family dysfunction and trauma – that can be addressed. Locking people up hasn't worked in the past, and it won't now. There is unfinished business in this country, and there can be no excuses for not knowing or understanding. We need to change direction and remove the burden from the most vulnerable. Endless consultations have been conducted, reports have been written, deep studies of the intergenerational impact of trauma have become part of everyday language. The thing that has not been tried is to listen, and act, on the advice and wisdom of those closest to the problems. To really listen, deeply and seriously to the elders and those who have been working on the ground for years to restore hope. The evidence shows this works – top-down solutions don't. Almost a million more people voted yes in the referendum than voted for the Labor party in the recent election. The combined Liberal National party vote was about half the no vote. While the majority rejected the voice proposal because they didn't know, didn't care or thought it was unfair, this cannot be mapped on to the political snapshot that the election provided. The referendum was not a proxy election. The door to meaningful, symbolic and practical recognition can and must be opened again. I have written here before that this government has an historic opportunity at a time of crisis. It needs to work with the states to grasp it in relation to First Peoples so they can be relieved of trauma, live fulfilled and meaningful lives, so that children are not taken away and locked up, and the whole nation can achieve its potential. In a land of home improvers surely the principle of fixing the foundations first if you want to really close the gaps is obvious. Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support; or call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 Julianne Schultz is the author of The Idea of Australia, the co-editor of First Things First (Griffith Review) and the librettist of the multi-award winning opera Black River
ABC News
2 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
Reconciliation Week feels particularly hollow after another death in custody
In Australia's centre, a young Aboriginal man is held down by police officers in plain clothes on the floor of the confectionary aisle in Coles in Alice Springs. There is much we don't know, and may never know, but several important pieces of information are apparent. Kumanjayi White, a vulnerable young Warlpiri man with a disability, is dead in Reconciliation Week, at 24 years of age. Another seismic trauma for a family already in agony. NT Police say Kumanjayi White had put items down the front of his clothing at Coles, when he was confronted by a security guard on Tuesday. In a town where impoverished Aboriginal people live hand-to-mouth, Indigenous disability advocates have questioned whether he was hungry, and how a young man on the NDIS could have ended up dead on the floor of a supermarket. Damian Griffis from the First Peoples Disability Network says his death is devastating. "We're talking about some of the most vulnerable people in Australian society. "First Nations people with disability experience intersectional discrimination based on race and ableism, and too often they are treated as criminals when they should be supported." Police will conduct an investigation into his death. The Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy suggested she'd like to see a probe take place independently — NT Police "respectfully" told the minister it didn't want the inquiry to go to an external body. The relationship between NT Police and Warlpiri elders was already shattered after the high-profile death of Kumanjayi Walker, a 19-year-old man who was shot dead in Yuendumu in 2019. Now the community has another young man to mourn. The NT coroner was due to hand down her findings of the inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker in 10 days. It has been one of the longest-running coronial investigations in Australian history, with a focus on systemic racism in the police force. Kumanjayi White's grandfather, the well-known elder Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves, described his community's devastation at seeing his "jaja" (grandson) become another Aboriginal man to die in custody. Add his name to the list of hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have died in custody in the past three decades. Young men and women with unrealised dreams and loved ones left behind. Frequently these mob have been in and out of the care of the state since birth, often parented by cold, hard systems which re-traumatise the grandchildren of survivors of the Stolen Generations and the assimilation era. The cases are each unique and tragic in their own way: they have been shot in the dead of night, ignored while they screamed out in pain, dismissed by medical staff, restrained and left unsupervised in jail cells. The pipeline from cells for teenagers to prisons for grown men is often pre-determined. On an average day in Queensland, 70 per cent of young people in prison are Aboriginal. In the NT, prisons are almost exclusively full of blackfellas. This week, Yawuru elder and the former Labor senator Pat Dodson decried Australia's Aboriginal youth justice crisis as an ongoing genocide and an "embarrassing sore". He knows better than anyone what has led to so many Indigenous people coming into contact with police and prisons. A commissioner for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, he played a role in the seminal investigation which found "a familiar pattern of state intervention into and control of Aboriginal lives." The commission meticulously examined the stories of the Indigenous people who had died, finding they had lived life pushed to the margins, and, crucially, had come into contact with police and prisons frequently. From 1991 until now, we're in the sorry and shameful position of seeing hundreds more die in similar situations. Almost 35 years on, not one single government has felt compelled to properly reckon with the Black deaths inquiry and its broad recommendations to revolutionise the way in which First Nations people are treated in this country. Police reform would be a start. No state or territory leader has dared question whether police forces — with barely any Indigenous officers in their ranks — are capable of properly serving First Nations people who live with high levels of trauma. The South Australian Police Commissioner had the courage this week to admit that police are ill-equipped to attend mental health crises. Indigenous people often live with a disability, a fear and lack of trust in authorities, mental health conditions and a history of institutionalisation. What's the media's role in drawing attention to deaths in custody? This man's death has barely raised an eyebrow in many publications. Crime waves plaster front pages and lead stories on TV news bulletins leading to swift policy change from state and territory governments — new prisons, weapons bans, bail laws, 'Adult Crime, Adult Time'. What about the Black victims of the residual effects of mass human rights abuses gone by? They cannot expect detailed media coverage, seismic policy change or bold leadership. It's never come. The blueprints are there, and so are the well-publicised governmental agreements to do better. It's two steps forward and two steps back. In New South Wales, for example, the Minns government signed a major agreement to close the gap, but it also toughened bail laws to the despair of the Aboriginal Legal Service. The ALS says Aboriginal children are now being locked up in remand for minor crimes that would never attract jail sentences. Ask Yorta Yorta and Ngarrindjeri lawyer Nerita Waight, the Chief Executive of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, why justice reform for Indigenous people has never come and her answer is, "because it's extremely tough work to implement and sell." "That's a long process, not a quick process. Saying you're going to change bail laws, putting more investment into prisons, those are easy decisions, quick fixes." Every single day, dozens of Aboriginal people are arrested in Victoria alone. "We're seeing people picked up because they're stealing food because they can't put food on the table. They're treating mental illness through substance abuse because there's no adequate mental health support. "We're talking [about] people with intellectual disabilities," Nerita tells me. The problems that have led to vast numbers of deaths are so complex, so multifaceted, that it is not credible to expect a few terms of government to solve them. Yet it's almost 35 years since the Royal Commission into Black deaths in custody, and the country is so far behind, something must change. Off the back of a highly charged referendum that has largely left Aboriginal communities with reduced political capital and attention, perhaps this is the issue that the prime minister could take up in his second term. It seems unlikely, but Indigenous leaders across the country are mobilising, distressed at the sense that things seem to be going backwards, fast. Aboriginal people are grieving another round of sorry business this Reconciliation Week — supposed to be a time for all Australians to consider their part in the enormous schisms between Black and white communities. It feels particularly hollow this year.
Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘It's gotta stop': Mourners' plea at vigil for Indigenous man who died in custody
Hundreds of mourners gathered for an emotional vigil at the Alice Springs supermarket where a young man died while in custody, as the Northern Territory Police rejected calls for an external investigation into the incident. Warlpiri elders have called for witnesses to Tuesday's tragedy to come forward and help understand what led to the death of 24-year-old Kumanjayi White – named in this masthead with the family's permission – who first had an altercation with a security guard before being restrained by two police officers. Ned Hargraves, a Warlpiri elder, called the vigil for his grandson at the Coles supermarket from noon on Friday, leading to an outpouring of grief and anger among the mourners. 'Every day our black fellas, yapa, getting stopped,' Hargraves told the vigil. 'It's gotta stop. We respect you – how about us? Respect us. 'We were meant to be working together, but we're not.' Hargraves thanked the community for their support and said he hoped it wouldn't happen again. 'Hear our words,' he said. 'Hear us, this cannot keep going.' Messages and tributes of bouquets and gum leaves were left at the front of the store where mourners comforted each other and wailed with grief.
