Content Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised the following includes the names of First Nations people who have passed away.
More than a year after the death of 24-year-old Warlpiri man Kumanjayi White, his family has commenced proceedings in the Northern Territory Supreme Court to obtain answers about the decision not to prosecute the police officer involved in his death.
Kumanjayi White died in May 2025 after being restrained by Northern Territory Police officers inside a Coles supermarket in Alice Springs.
On the eve of the first anniversary of his death, while his family was gathered in Lajamanu for sorry business, representatives of the Northern Territory Director of Public Prosecutions and Northern Territory Police travelled to the community and informed the family that no charges would be laid.
The family was given no reasons for that decision. They were not told who made it. They were left with the impression that the decision had been made by the Director of Public Prosecutions when, as the family later came to understand, it had been made within Northern Territory Police.
Northern Territory Police have refused to identify the officer responsible for that decision. The family is now seeking orders from the Supreme Court to release of documents identifying the decision-maker or, if those documents cannot be produced, to require police to identify that person before the Court.
Once the family knows who made the decision, and the basis on which it was made, they will consider whether to challenge the decision not to prosecute.
George Newhouse, Chief Executive Officer of the National Justice Project, said:
“Kumanjayi White’s family has waited for more than a year for answers. Instead, they were told that no one would be prosecuted, without any proper explanation of who made that decision or how it was reached.
“The refusal to provide this basic information compounds the family’s grief and reinforces the concern they raised from the outset: police should not be left to investigate police and then make decisions about whether one of their own officers should be prosecuted without giving the family of a deceased person any reasons for that decision.
“The family is also entitled to ask how a decision concerning possible criminal charges arising from a death involving police came to be made within the police force, rather than transparently by an independent prosecuting authority. The apparent institutional conflict requires a clear explanation and proper safeguards.
Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves, speaking on behalf of the family, said:
“We said from day one that we did not trust this process.
“Now the authorities keep pointing at each other and none will take any responsibility or speak straight to us. Police point to the DPP, the DPP points back to police, nobody will tell us who actually made the decision.
“Kumanjayi was my Jaja and his life was violently cut short. We deserve to know all the information about his death and about the process including who decided that no one should be charged and why.
“We will keep fighting for a genuinely independent investigation”.
