Child’s murder sparks riots as crowd sets fire to police van in…

Violent crowds clashed with police outside a hospital in a remote Australian outback town on Thursday evening, demanding the handover of an accused child killer.

According to CNN, police officers were seen dodging rocks and sticks in dramatic footage as rioters smashed police cars and set fire to a police van. Officers can be seen firing tear gas into the crowd and some smoke canisters are picked up and thrown back.

Northern Territory Police Commissioner Martin Dole described the scene in Alice Springs, considered the gateway to Uluru, the former Ayers Rock, in the country’s desert heartland, as “absolute anarchy”.

CNN also reports that Jefferson Lewis, 47, was arrested Thursday for the alleged murder of a five-year-old girl now known as Kumanjayi Little Baby, a pseudonym given by her family as custom among indigenous Warlpiri people to avoid saying the name of a deceased person during a period of mourning.

Continuing, Lewis had been the subject of an intense manhunt in central Australia since Saturday night, after he was seen holding the little girl’s hand in the hours before she was reported missing.

The report, however, states that after a four-day search that saw close collaboration between the indigenous community and local police, the girl’s body was found on the bank of a river about five kilometers from where she was last seen.

CNN also reports that it wasn’t the police who tracked down Lewis, but an angry mob, who officers found beating the accused killer in an act of “vigilante justice.”

“At the time of our arrest, he was unconscious and was being treated by St John Ambulance when they came under attack, as were the police,” Commissioner Dole said.

Lewis received “a pretty severe beating”, Dole said, before being taken to Alice Springs hospital, where a crowd of hundreds of people arrived to demand that the alleged killer be handed over to them.

In a statement, a Warlpiri elder and a family spokesperson called for calm following the violence.

“What happened this week is not our style.”

“This man was captured, thanks to community action, and now we must let justice take its course as we take time to mourn Kumanjayi Little Baby and support our family,” Yapa (Warlpiri) elder Robin Granites said in a statement. (Taken down/adapted from CNN)

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