She had last been seen on Saturday, when she was put to bed at an Aboriginal town camp near Alice Springs just before midnight.<\/p>\n
Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, reported that some in the crowd outside the hospital yelled that Lewis needed to face “payback” and accused the police of protecting him.<\/p>\n
“Payback” is term for traditional punishment under Aboriginal customary law in Central Australia \u2013 usually carried out by elders to try and achieve harmony between Indigenous families and groups.<\/p>\n
But at a press conference Michael Liddle an Alyawarre man and Alice Springs local said that traditional payback was “carefully constructed and carried out” rather than seeking quick revenge.<\/p>\n
“Bringing the word ‘payback’ into this scenario just fuels violence,” he said,<\/p>\n
“There’s a system set up here, where there is a person in custody and the Western rules will deal with that person.”<\/p>\n
Video from the scene shows crowds throwing items towards police and items being thrown. Several police vehicles appear to have been damaged.<\/p>\n
Northern Territory Police Commissioner Martin Dole said in an update on Friday morning Lewis had been subjected to a “sustained attack” and was unconscious when police arrived and arrested him.<\/p>\n
Dole said about 200 people turned on police and paramedics as they responded to reports Lewis was being assaulted. <\/p>\n
Several people including members of the emergency services were injured, and at least one person had been arrested for attempting to set fire to a police vehicle with more arrests expected.<\/p>\n
Dole said the scenes outside the hospital “cannot be explained away, excused or accepted”. He earlier told ABC they were not “reflective of what we’ve seen from the community of Alice Springs in the last five days”.<\/p>\n
Lewis’s injuries were not “significant enough to keep him in hospital” and he has been flown from Alice Springs to Darwin and taken into police custody, Dole said.<\/p>\n
Charges are expected to be laid against Lewis in the coming days, Dole said. He also said that police were certain somebody in the community had been helping him, and warned “we’re coming for you as well”.<\/p>\n
Forensic test to confirm the young girl’s identity and cause of death will continue on Friday.<\/p>\n
Kumanjayi Little Baby’s grandfather called for calm on Friday.<\/p>\n
“What has happened this week is not our way,” Robin Granites, a senior Yapa (Warlpiri) elder, said in a statement. “Our children are precious, of course we are feeling angry and hurt at what has happened.<\/p>\n
“This man has been caught, thanks to community action, and we must now let justice take its course while we take the time to mourn Kumanjayi Little Baby and support our family.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She had last been seen on Saturday, when she was put to bed at an Aboriginal town camp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-560057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}