SYDNEY: Hundreds of protesters clashed with Australian emergency services workers in a remote town following the arrest of a man suspected of murdering a five-year-old Indigenous girl, police said on Friday (May 1).
Australia’s Prime Minister, the Northern Territory’s police commissioner and a spokesperson for the victim’s family all appealed for calm after an angry crowd of roughly 400 Indigenous people gathered on Thursday night at the hospital where the suspect was taken after being beaten unconscious by locals.
Footage of the protests from public broadcaster ABC showed members of the crowd calling for payback, which refers to traditional, mostly physical, punishment in Aboriginal societies.
They threw projectiles and lit fires, injuring a number of police officers and medical workers, while also damaging police vehicles, ambulances and fire trucks. Police used tear gas to disperse the protesters.
GIRL WAS MISSING SINCE LATE ON SATURDAY
Jefferson Lewis, a 47-year-old man who police say they believe abducted and killed the girl, presented himself to one of the town camps in Alice Springs, Northern Territory Police Commissioner Martin Dole said at a news conference.
“As a result of presenting himself, members of that town camp decided to inflict vigilante justice upon Jefferson,” he said.
The girl, now referred to by her family as Kumanjayi Little Baby in line with Indigenous customs, went missing from her home on the outskirts of Alice Springs late on Saturday.
Her body was located on Thursday by one of hundreds of people searching the dense bushland around the town, a popular tourist destination in Australia’s Northern Territory.
Lewis, who was identified as a suspect by police earlier in the week, has past convictions for physical assaults and was recently released from prison.