Overview

• On May 27, a 24-year-old Warlpiri man under a guardianship order was restrained by plain-clothes NT police at an Alice Springs Coles supermarket, lost consciousness during the scuffle and later died at the hospital.
• A preliminary autopsy on May 28 found the cause of death undetermined, spurring the family to seek immediate access to CCTV and body-cam footage and to call for an investigation separate from the NT Police.
• Grandfather and elder Ned Hargraves led demands for transparency and signaled that the June 10 coronial inquest into the 2019 death of Kumanjayi Walker may be postponed amid renewed community trauma.
• Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy, Senator Lidia Thorpe and the First Peoples Disability Network have backed calls for an independent inquiry, citing systemic failings and over three decades of unimplemented Royal Commission recommendations.
• Hundreds of mourners held a vigil outside the Coles supermarket on May 30, reflecting widespread grief and renewed urgency for accountability in Indigenous deaths in custody.