Source : Perth Now news
Nearly a year after a young disabled Aboriginal man’s death, an external police review of the use of force by officers who held him down has been completed.
Kumanjayi White, 24, died in an Alice Springs supermarket in May 2025 after being forcibly restrained by two plain-clothes officers, sparking national outrage and rallies calling for an independent investigation.
Northern Territory Police rejected the calls and refused to stand the officers down or release CCTV footage of the incident, as demanded by Mr White’s family led by his grandfather Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves.
An undisclosed interstate police force was asked to review the use-of-force investigation ahead of prosecutors deciding whether to lay charges against the officers.
NT Police confirmed to AAP that the independent use-of-force review had been completed and received on Wednesday.
“This report is currently being assessed and will form part of an evidentiary brief that is supplied to the Department Public Prosecutions,” the statement said on Friday.
Mr White, who had a mental disability and was in care, died on May 27 in the Alice Springs supermarket’s confectionery aisle.
Police allege he was shoplifting and assaulted a security guard.
NT shadow attorney-general Chansey Paech this week wrote to Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro seeking clarity around the investigation, given the family’s concerns over the time it has taken.
In the federal senate this week, independent Senator Lidia Thorpe said NT Police had made no prosecutions and given no resolution to Mr White’s family.
“It follows a long, long history of violent police investigating themselves,” she said.
In October, NT Coroner Elisabeth Armitage expressed her condolences to Mr White’s family, saying the inquest was a “slow but careful and considered process”.
“We will continue to work consistently and thoroughly to ensure there is a full investigation and that as much of the truth can be uncovered as possible,” she told an Alice Springs courtroom.
Mr White was originally from the same outback Yuendumu community that lost 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker in 2019, when he was shot by then-NT police officer Zachary Rolfe during a botched arrest.
Mr Rolfe was found not guilty of all charges over the death in 2022 but Ms Armitage said in her coronial findings she could not exclude the possibility racist attitudes contributed to his decision to pull the trigger.
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