Warlpiri woman Samara Fernandez-Brown is a long way from home.
But her journey 1500km north to turquoise and green Larrakia Country, from her remote red desert home of Yuendumu, is one she had no choice but make.
She needed to ensure her family and community's voices were heard, and to see justice prevail.
"You can't begin to plan for the emotions you are going to feel, because we've been on this journey for the last two years, and for the last two year's there's pent-up emotion," she told NITV's The Point program during the five-week trial.
Kumanjayi Walker was 19 when he was shot dead by police in Yuendumu (Supplied) Source: Supplied
"He is dearly, dearly missed"
That journey started two years ago, on November 9 2019, when her 19-year-old cousin Kumanjayi Walker was shot as police attempted to arrest him.
She grew up with her cousin, and remembers him as a shy, quiet young man who loved his family, his homelands, animals, and music.
"He was just a 19-year-old man, and he had so much more ahead. That was a life that was taken away from him far too young. He is dearly, dearly missed."
Samara Fernandez-Brown remembers the night of his death vividly.
It was also the night of her grandfather's funeral.
Confused and overwhelmed, family and friends gathered outside the police station to try and find out what was going on.
"We were just pleading with the police to see if they could just give us any answers, just to let us know if he was shot, if he was okay," she says.
"(We wanted to know) if his mother, his grandmother or his partner could go in and just support him and sort of check on him and help him with his pain, because we all thought he's probably quite lonely and quite scared."
When she received no answers, she started live streaming what was happening on social media.
"I remember thinking are people going to believe us, if we were to tell them this," she says.
"We need to live stream this, we need to just to prove that its happened. And that we as a community and he as an individual are being so mistreated right now."
It was only later she found out that Kumanjayi was inside the police station all night. It wasn't until the next day that his body was taken by road to Alice Springs, hundreds of kilometres away.
An exhausting process
Over the past five weeks, the family have revisited the pain of that night again, and again, as the policeman who killed Kumanjayi Walker faced trial for murder.
Every night after court, Samara Fernandez-Brown would relay the day's proceedings back to the community in Yuendumu.
"I'll give somebody a call in the community, and they'll often put the phone through a car, on the bluetooth speaker in the car," she says.
"I'll just describe the events of the day, if there were any key points, who the witnesses were, and then at the end I'll ask if there's any questions.
"For me, that's one of the key priorities, making sure the community and family are kept informed because it happened to us in Yuendumu and they are very much affected."
Samara Fernandez-Brown had desperately hoped the family would get justice in the wake of Kumanjayi Walker's death. Source: Sarah Collard: The Point
Elder’s plea: No guns, no veterans
Each day, senior Warlpiri man Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves prepares for the court with a ritual of sorrow and grief; marking his face with white ochre. More than two years on, the community remains in mourning.
He is demanding a change to policing in remote communities - that officers put down their guns, and preferrably not have a military background.
"If you're gonna come to my community — put your guns down. We don't want guns in our community, you come with no guns," Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves says.
He fears it could happen again.
Senior Warlpiri man Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves is calling for all remote police officers to be stripped of their weapons. (The Point: Sarah Collard)
"I don't want to see another young man or young girl to be shot. I don't want that. We want justice to be done. When are we gonna see it?"
Kumanjayi Walker's grandmother Jean Brown says his death has left a big hole in the community.
"We were still feeling sad inside, we had that trauma," she says.
"Each one of us wept.
"From that shooting, when he was gone, we were so frightened and thinking something like this could happen to us."
Relative Louanna Williams testified at the trial and said she had hoped the police officer charged over Kumanjayi Walker's death could have apologised. (Sarah Collard: The Point)
A traumatic experience
Kumanjayi Walker's aunt, Louanna Williams, says the two-year wait for the trial, delayed by the pandemic and legal argument, has been difficult.
She says her nephew had a traumatic past marred by his experiences in the Don Dale youth detention centre and exacerbated by the lack of support services available in the community.
"We don't have any counseling. He didn't have no one to talk about how he was feeling, there are no facilities there," she says.
Louanna Williams says Zachary Rolfe has never said a word to the family.
"If he would just come up and say sorry to us — we will forgive," she says.
"It will loosen our anger towards him. He [would be] showing that he's a man and can take that responsibility and come up to us and say sorry."
Senior Walpari man Ned Jampijinpa Hargrave speaks outside the Darwin Supreme Court after the verdict. Source: Tim Anastasi: The Point
'Not guilty'
On Friday, it took the jury seven hours to acquit Zachary Rolfe of all charges.
After two years of pain, hope and patience, the family is broken.
"We are deeply saddened by the result, and cannot put our grief into words. We are all in so much pain," Samara Fernandes-Brown told reporters.
The process continues, with an inquest into the teenager's death expected to look at the actions of police and the emergency response surrounding the teenager's death.
Despite their grief, the family remains determined to be heard.
Watch the story here:
