No Charges Against Police Who Held Down Disabled First Nation’s Man Until He Died

The Northern Territory Police Force announced on Tuesday, 26 May 2026, that no charges will be pressed against the two officers who’d forcefully wrestled Kumanjayi White, a 24-year-old Warlpiri man with disabilities, to the floor of a supermarket in Mparntwe-Alice Springs and held him down in the prone position until he stopped breathing.

This news was delivered to White’s mothers’ family by the prosecutor and accompanying officers who flew out almost unannounced to the remote Aboriginal community of Lajamanu that same day, while NT police commissioner Martin Dole, announced the outcome to the press, on the day prior to the one year anniversary of the young man having died whilst being restrained on 27 May 2025.

Dole explained that the NT Director of Public Prosecutions said there are “no reasonable prospects of a successful prosecution”, which included an independent expert review on the use of force involved deeming it appropriate. So, the case is closed. And the top cop further explained on Wednesday that the cause of death is “equivocal” or unknown, and the use of force expert was Queensland police.

The announcement delivered on National Sorry Day continues an ongoing series of unjust and biased decisions regarding First Nations killings in the NT. It comes on the back of the August 2024-elected NT Finocchiaro government having unleashed a harsh law-and-order drive targeting First Nations peoples, and it’s whilst anti-Aboriginal sentiment has been on a steep increase continentwide.

White’s family is dumbfounded that two plainclothes police, who held their son down until he died, all over a misunderstanding about shoplifting in a Coles, can simply walk. The family have too been repeatedly denied updates on the progress of the case, and now it’s all over, there is no explanation as to why. And the family is now questioning how to continue on under such an oppressive system.

“Our trust is broken”

“Our hearts are breaking. We have no hope. When will we have our justice? How can we keep living like this? After this, how many of us will be crushed? Killed?” said Kumanjayi White’s mothers’ family in a 26 May statement. “We’ve been told by the DPP today that they are not charging any of those people who held down our son until he stopped breathing.”

“What does this mean? We don’t know. They did not tell us why. They haven’t given us the insight. Does this mean that this deadly force is ‘reasonable’? That we can expect even more of this from you now?” they asked. “He was just in the supermarket. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Because the police aren’t charging these men, how can any of us feel safe in these places where we have to go?”

The family explained that the police prosecutor and other officers arrived at Lajamanu to deliver the news at short notice. This failed to take into consideration White’s father’s side of the family. It also occurred as the broader community was dealing with sorry business, or grieving, over the recent and widely reported killing of a baby: Kumanjayi Little Napanangka.

The decision to deliver the message without consideration of the family revealed the NT authorities were only concerned for themselves, the statement further asserts, adding that it is as if those governing them consider First Peoples as “less than human”, and rather than any justice being served, the system is heaping more grief upon grief and trauma upon trauma in their direction.

“Some of us have worked for decades in and with your criminal justice system, trying to work with you to find justice for everyone,” the statement further underscored. “Our trust is broken. There is no justice in your system. We are sick of being treated unequally. Yapa life has become about enduring your injustice.”

Guaranteed outcomes

Australian police holding people face down on the ground, or in the prone position, whilst they apply the weight of their bodies upon them until they die is not an uncommon occurrence. There are numerous cases of law enforcement officers holding down Aboriginal people in this position until they stop breathing, but this practice and outcome is by no means confined to First Peoples.

Kumanjayi White died in police custody. There has always been a crisis of First Peoples dying in the custody of Australian authorities. The Royal Commission into this crisis delivered its final report in April 1991. Yet, there have been 634 more such deaths in police or corrections custody since. And no charges being pressed against officers involved is the normal outcome in response to these deaths.

The coming of the Finocchiaro Country Liberals ministry didn’t initiate the highly racialised, abusive and unjust approach that NT institutions take to the First Peoples of the land, but it has certainly heightened these biases in a purposeful and calculated manner, which has included numerous tough-on-crime laws targeting the 30 percent of the populace that is First Nations and especially, their kids.

The killing of Warlpiri Luritja teen Kumanjayi Walker by NT police constable Zachary Rolfe happened long before Finocchiaro took office. But despite Rolfe having fired two shots directly into Walker’s ribcage, whilst his partner was on top of him, this November 2019 act, according to a jury, did not constitute murder, nor manslaughter and it wasn’t even considered “violent act causing death”.

Another incident that highlights how the situation in the NT under Finocchiaro is shaping up for the sovereign peoples of the land involved then 24-year-old white man Jack Danby running over two First Nations men in Garramilla-Darwin, leaving 39-year-old Kunwinjku man Mr Whitehurst dead, and not stopping, then receiving no prison time but rather a 12 month community correction order (CCO).

Police backing police backing police

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Katie Kiss has condemned the outcome and the process that led to it, which saw Northern Territory police investigating Northern Territory police, only to find the forcible restraining of the Aboriginal man with disabilities was not excessive, which was backed by independent expert the Queensland Police Service.

‘We support the calls from Aboriginal community leaders and justice advocates for justice sector reform. This case underscores the urgent need for governments to fully implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission,” said the Kaanju and Birri/Widi commissioner. “Thirty-five years on from the Royal Commission, many of its recommendations remain unimplemented.”

The NT police commissioner initially declined to answer questions about the autopsy and the cause of death because of the upcoming inquest into Kumanjayi White’s death. However, on the day after the no-one-is-to-be-charged-in-relation-to-the-killing announcement, Dole elaborated that the cause of death remains unspecified and that will be a matter for the NT Coroners Court to determine.

In delivering her mid-2025 findings on the killing of Kumanjayi Walker by then acquitted former NT constable Zachary Rolfe, NT coroner Elisabeth Armitage found that the NT police has “all the hallmarks of institutional racism”, and it fostered Rolfe’s dehumanisation of First Peoples and was well aware of his violent propensity towards them, and it was complicit in the death of Walker.

Senator Lidia Thorpe said she was “devastated” and “shattered” by the news that neither of the NT police officers who wrestled Kumanjayi White to the ground in the “lolly section” of a Coles and held him there until he ceased breathing, would be charged. And she added that the struggle must continue, which includes getting the Royal Commission recommendations implemented.

“The police didn’t even have the decency to go through a respectful process to talk to the family,” the Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung senator continued. “No wonder people feel hopelessness. I’m starting to feel that hopelessness. Our people around the country feel this hopelessness, when no one is ever found accountable.”

“When police investigate police there is never going to be an outcome,” Thorpe made clear in ending. “They’re a club. They protect each other.”