NT police say ‘the man stopped breathing’ shortly after officers restrained him in a supermarket.
A 24-year-old disabled Aboriginal man from the remote Yuendumu community has died after he was restrained by police at a supermarket in Alice Springs, Central Australia, according to Australian media reports and Indigenous advocates.
Australia’s National Indigenous Television (NITV) said the incident occurred on Tuesday after shop staff reported the man for placing items inside his clothes.
He was then “restrained” by two plainclothes police officers, according to the Northern Territory Police Force (NTPF) which did not give details on what the restraint involved.
The NTPF then said “the man stopped breathing” shortly after he was restrained.
An NTPF statement described his death as a “death in custody”.
Australian senator Lidia Thorpe said the man was a disabled man under state guardianship.
“He was hungry, and he needed care. Instead, he was met with brutal force,” Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab-Wurrung woman Thorpe said in a post on X on Wednesday.
“This is not an isolated tragedy – it’s part of a brutal pattern where our people die at the hands of police and in prisons,” she added.
The NTPF said that “police will now investigate this matter on behalf of the coroner”.
My heart is with Warlpiri mob, the Yuendumu community, and all those grieving the shocking death in custody of a young Aboriginal man in Mparntwe yesterday, who died while being restrained by police outside a supermarket.
— Senator Lidia Thorpe (@SenatorThorpe) May 28, 2025
The National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls called for “a full and immediate independent investigation into this death, with no involvement from NT Police”.
Assistant Northern Territory Police Commissioner Travis Wurst told ABC Radio Alice Springs that police had tried to reach out to the man’s family “to make sure that they’re aware of the situation and circumstances as best as we can tell them at this stage”.
First Nations people in Australia have long been disproportionately harmed by deaths in custody, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
The death comes as the Yuendumu community prepares for the findings of an inquest into the fatal police shooting in 2019 of 19-year-old Warlpiri man Kumanjayi Walker near Alice Springs.
In March 2022, Police Constable Zachary Rolfe was acquitted of Walker’s murder.
The coroner’s findings are due to be handed down next month.
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