COPS SHOOT TEENAGER

Young man, 18, shot in NT community

AN 18-year-old teenager was last night in a critical condition after he was shot by police in a remote community late yesterday.

The incident happened in Yuendumu, 300km northwest of Alice Springs.

Late last night, the man was being flown to the Alice Springs Hospital by the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

The incident was initially shared on the NTPFES Facebook page. People claiming to know the shot man responded, demanding to know why family members had not been allowed inside the Yuendumu police station to see him.

“Why can you post this on Facebook but not come outside and let people know how he is?” one commenter wrote.

“This young man has already suffered so much so much in his life. Let family in to see him,” another said.

In a video posted to Facebook, dozens of people can be seen milling around the community’s police station shouting. The person holding the camera says “... f**king police shot an innocent man”.

The man claims the person was shot “while he was sleeping” and says it took the ambulance “three hours” to arrive in the community after the shooting. The NT News was told the man was acting aggressively towards staff at the community’s health clinic before he was shot.

Elizabeth Snape told The Australian she witnessed the incident. “They came with two police cars; one parked on the other side of the house,” Ms Snape said.

“They questioned me, asked me where he was. They found him there; they put him in against the front door, but the wall part. “He tried to fight off their restraints, and they hit him. He was hit and thrown onto the bed, and that’s when the three gunshots went off.”

Ms Snape also described seeing officers “drag” the man out after he had been shot.

NT Police Association president Paul McCue said the union would offer support to affected members. “The Police Association are aware of an incident there and we’re heading there offering assistance on the ground,” he said.

Newly appointed Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker is scheduled to have his first day on the job tomorrow.

Yuendumu, a town of less than 800 people, was a hotbed of violence from 2010 to 2012. Riots were a common occurrence, during the long-running and bloody feud between two warring families.

In an incident in 2012, a young man was beaten so severely he was almost scalped during a melee involving up to 70 people.

At the height of the violence in 2010, dozens of people took to the street armed with nulla nullas and makeshift weapons and cars were set alight.