Alice Springs: Second death in custody shatters tiny outback community, Yuendumu

An Aboriginal community reeling after losing a second young man in a fatal police incident wants funding restored for programs to help youths avoid the criminal justice system.

Widespread anger has been sparked after a 24-year-old mentally disabled man was forced to the floor of an Alice Springs supermarket by two plain-clothes police officers and fell unconscious.

The man, originally from the small desert town of Yuendumu, died about an hour later at Alice Springs Hospital on Tuesday, sparking a police investigation.

The man, who is understood to have been under a guardianship order and on an NDIS plan, allegedly assaulted a security guard who accused him of shoplifting.

Police late on Thursday alleged the man assaulted a woman not known to him in the Alice Springs CBD before the Coles incident.

The cause of the man’s death was still undetermined, police said.

The Yuendumu community lost a young man in police custody in 2019 when 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker was fatally shot by then Northern Territory Police Officer Zachary Rolfe during a bungled arrest.

Mr Rolfe was found not guilty on all charges over the death in 2022.

The latest death has prompted the Yuendumu community to consider postponing a June 10 visit by Northern Territory Coroner Elisabeth Armitage to announce her findings in the Walker case.

Yuendumu elder Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves, the grandfather of the man who died on Tuesday, has called for CCTV and security guard body-worn camera footage to be released to the family so they can understand what happened.

Mr Hargraves told AAP his shattered community was talking about postponing the June 10 coroner’s event “because of all these troubles happening right now, it’s too much”.

He said his community had put forward many solutions to improve relations with the justice system, but they had been ignored.

In 2024, Yuendumu was approved under a Northern Territory Government Act to establish a law and justice group and was given a small grant, but the new Country Liberal Party government removed the funding without consultation, he said.

A Yuendumu cultural authority based on traditional decision-making had been set up to be the front door to the community “but sadly our continued requests for resources to develop this authority had been ignored”, Mr Hargraves said.

Northern Territory Police said they had been in contact with the man’s family and visited the Yuendumu community to provide an update.

“Our thoughts are with the deceased’s family, our members and the entire Alice Springs community and we thank them for their patience as we work through this investigation,” Assistant Commissioner Travis Wurst said.

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