On Wednesday, around 2,000 people gathered at Sydney’s Town Hall, Warrang, Gadigal, to demand justice for Kumanjayi Walker, a 19-year old Warlpiri man who was shot dead by police in the remote Aboriginal community of Yuendumu in the Northern Territory last Saturday night. After a healing ceremony and speeches, the protesters marched from Town Hall to the Sydney Police Centre in Surry Hills where they were met by a large contingent of riot police.
Over 400 Aboriginal people have died in police custody since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
The policeman who allegedly shot Mr Walker has been charged with murder, one of the few police officers to be charged for the death of an Aboriginal person in the history of European occupation of the Australian continent, and since Captain Cook’s landing party shot a Gweagle man on the shores of what is now known as Botany Bay in 1770.
In anticipation of push back by the police, the NT Police Commissioner cryptically warned that officers should “remember their oath”.
Wednesday’s rally concluded peacefully with calls for justice and a statement by one of Mr Walker’s family members that “business was not finished”. The event was part of a nation-wide protest calling for an independent investigation into Mr. Walker’s death.
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