‘We won’t give up’: Kumanjayi White’s family hold vigil demanding independent investigation | Indigenous Australians

The lawns of the Alice Springs courthouse have once again become a scene of grief and rage, amid calls for an “emergency intervention” following two Aboriginal deaths in custody in the Northern Territory in as many weeks.

The family of 24-year-old Kumanjayi White, a Warlpiri man with disabilities who died after being restrained by police at a supermarket last month, held a vigil on Wednesday, reiterating their demands for an independent investigation, the release of CCTV footage, and for the officers involved to be stood down while the investigation proceeds. It was their third vigil since he died.

“Hear us when we say: we won’t give up,” the man’s grandfather, Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves, told the crowd.

“We will fight for justice for our loved one. We will fight for justice for all yapa (Indigenous people) who have died in custody. Every single one.”

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As hundreds rallied across the nation in solidarity with the Warlpiri community on Saturday, another Aboriginal man died in custody in Darwin.

The 68-year-old from the remote community of Wadeye died in the ICU at Darwin hospital about a week after Australian federal police arrested him, following reports he was “intoxicated” and unable to board a flight out of Darwin. Northern Territory police said the cause of death was undetermined, pending a postmortem examination.

He has been remembered as a senior elder who lobbied for bilingual schooling and better education funding for his community.

One of the country’s largest legal organisations, the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, has since called for the federal government to stage an “emergency intervention”.

The organisation’s acting chief executive, Anthony Beven, told the ABC the government should hold a forum with First Nations leaders and federal and NT authorities to address the effects of the punitive justice measures enacted by the CLP government.

Asked about the request at the National Press Club on Tuesday, the prime minister said he would “need to be convinced that people in Canberra know better than the people in the Northern Territory to deal with these issues”.

Meanwhile in the NT, police responded to persistent calls for Kumanjayi White’s death to be investigated by an independent body.

“The Police Administration Act establishes the Northern Territory police force for the purpose of preventing, investigating and detecting crime, so that’s not something we can just hand to somebody else,” the acting commissioner, Martin Dole, said on Tuesday.

Warlpiri leader Karl Hampton, a spokesperson for White’s family, said the response was “just an excuse”.

“In terms of legislation, that can be amended,” he said. “But my concern is that we see the territory at the moment in a flux, almost to the point of a crisis … the systems are broken in the Northern Territory.”