By Matt Garrick and Raveen Hunjan, ABC
A riot erupted in Alice Springs after Kumanjayi Petrick died in a car crash. Photo: Screenshot / TVNZ
Kumanjayi Petrick died after the stolen car he was riding in crashed in the Alice Springs CBD. His family doesn't want that to be his legacy.
"We all feel very upset and heartbroken," the 18-year-old's grandmother, Priscilla Ferber, told ABC's 7.30 programme.
"We won't see our grandson, son, uncle and dad again.
"And we have a great-grandson left behind."
On the basketball court of an Aboriginal town camp on Alice Springs' fringes, Kumanjayi Petrick's family has gathered - grandmothers, grandfather, uncles, aunties, his father, mother, and three-year-old son, to share memories of a man described as a "happy, friendly, lovable little person".
The eastern Arrernte man, who the family have asked to be referred to as Kumanjayi for cultural reasons, was killed after the car he was travelling in flipped at 3.40am in the Alice Springs CBD on 8 March.
His family spoke publicly for the first time to 7.30 to tell of their ongoing pain over the incident.
"We want people across the country to know, this is not just about youth problems," another grandmother, Alison Ferber, said.
"We are grieving and it is impacting the little ones and the adults."
Kumanjayi Petrick's uncle, Julius Bloomfield, said he was devastated by the loss of his nephew.
"The devastation lies on the family, altogether," he said.
The fallout from the incident that took his nephew's life remains raw.
Eight other people were in the car alongside Kumanjayi Petrick when it crashed. They allegedly fled the scene, leaving their friend behind. Kumanjayi later died in hospital.
A mixture of grief and anger between families saw the aftermath of a cultural ceremony for Kumanjayi on 26 March turn violent, with riots exploding at a town camp and at a tavern in the Northern Territory town.
Relatives say those who attacked the tavern were searching for someone drinking inside.
The violence was a catalyst for the NT government to order an immediate youth curfew and send 60 extra NT Police officers to Alice Springs in a bid to try and restore law and order.
Tensions between some families continue to simmer, although mediation efforts are under way.
The fallout from the fatal crash has rocked the town of Alice Springs. Photo: AFP/Greg Wood
"I'd like the trouble to reduce," Bloomfield said, before adding that he was saddened by what was happening with the town's youth.
"We need to work with the young people because they're lost - they need someone there to guide them," he said.
"The country needs to listen because we need things out here for the youth, to keep them occupied, to keep them off the streets.
"If the options were here, things could've been different.
"This would never have happened."
Crossbows, knives stolen from store
It is not just Kumanjayi Petrick's family who have been left broken-hearted by the situation in Alice.
Victims of the town's high rates of violent crime - those who have had cars stolen, properties vandalised, homes broken into or been threatened and robbed - are also grappling with their personal losses.
A long-standing family-run camping supplies business in Alice Springs, Desert Dwellers, was hit by a horrifying break-in at 5am on 29 March.
Even though the restrictions were already in place, the store stands outside of the curfew zone.
Co-owner Carly Anderson watched the attack from her home on the store's CCTV cameras.
"Both my husband and I got on the phone to triple-0 to let them know someone was in the store," Anderson said.
"I woke my eldest kids up to look after the youngest kids who were still asleep so we could get down to the store. And I just thought, 'not again'."
Around 50 knives and two crossbows were stolen in what Anderson described as a "free-for-all" allegedly committed by up to eight offenders, some of them under 18 years old.
A 21-year-old, 18-year-old and 14-year-old have so far been arrested over the incident, with NT Police saying the crossbows and many of the knives have since been recovered.
Anderson said she had found it difficult to explain the incident, the store's second break-in in just over 12 months, to her young family.
"Explaining to them that not everybody's the same, just because these [Aboriginal] people did it, doesn't mean that everybody else you see is going to do it," she said.
"There needs to be no divide between everybody.
"That's the problem in this town, that one person will call this person racist … but we're not.
"We just want this to stop."
The violence and more than $100,000 in damage has left Anderson on the cusp of leaving the place where she was born and bred.
"I don't want to have to take my kids out of here for them to feel safe," Anderson said.
"I don't want to leave.
"I've built my whole life here, but it's very, very hard to want to stay when this keeps happening.
"When does it end? When is enough?"
'Little bandaids on big wounds'
NT Police have been keeping a large and visible presence on the streets of Alice Springs since the emergency laws were enacted, alongside agencies like Territory Families and private security guards.
Despite the curfew, dozens of children have been coming into contact with the nightly patrols though no arrests have been made.
Senior Sergeant Robert Griffiths said the emergency restrictions had helped keep the township calm in the wake of the riots after Kumanjayi Petrick's ceremony.
"Anything the police can use in our kitbag to better protect the community is a worthwhile process," Griffiths said.
The latest NT Police data shows alcohol-related assaults dropped 13 percent between 2022 and 2023 across Alice Springs, but break-ins, sexual assaults, car theft and domestic violence have all risen - although spikes in places like Darwin, Tennant Creek and Katherine were comparably higher.
Although authorities are heralding the Alice Springs curfew as a "circuit breaker" for the short term, many are questioning what plans are in place after the emergency declaration period comes to an end.
One is Armani Francois, a Central Eastern Arrernte teenager and support caseworker at youth rehabilitation service BushMob.
"There's all these little bandaids, all these little bandaids on big wounds that [require] huge solutions to them that could possibly take years," Francois, 18, said.
"It's not going to take days to fix them.
"I think it's really hard trying to help your people when they are so stuck in things that they didn't cause and that they can't escape from, and when I say that, I mean intergenerational trauma."
She believes the Aboriginal community in Alice Springs should lead in pursuing change.
"We need to want it, we can't just think it and just hope for it," she said.
"It's about trying to realise, as a community, that this is a problem.
"We need to identify it as Aboriginal people that, yes, we are doing wrong things … but how do we try and fix it?
"How do we try and seek things that are going to better us in the long run, instead of temporary fixes like alcohol and drugs, which don't lead us anywhere and just keep us in that cycle?"
Trying to break the cycle
Of those focused on long-term solutions to the social woes facing the territory, BushMob has been working with young people to try to break the cycle of substance abuse and crime since 1999.
The organisation received a funding injection of $2,570,129 in February 2023 as part of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's emergency measures to quell a spike in crime and alcohol-fuelled violence.
The 16-week residential program houses a dozen young people aged between 12 and 25, engaging them in bush trips and horse riding.
BushMob's acting chief executive Jock MacGregor said youth offending was often driven by a combination of boredom, a desire to fit in, financial pressures and a lack of safety at home.
"What we're trying to do with young people is give them an idea of the support network they can access wherever they are to avoid this stuff," he said.
"We can't fix the greater issue - and the greater issue is that everything's not OK.
"You go to some of the communities or even some of the houses, and you think, 'I wouldn't want to stay here either - I don't have safe family, there's not regularly food, there's not regularly power'.
"You still make people responsible for what they do, but you understand what brings them to that point and how you can prevent it in the future."
One of those hoping for a positive change in his life is JD, a 21-year-old from remote Yuendumu, who has been coming into contact with the law since he was 15.
He has previously been convicted of aggravated assault and break and enters.
In his final days of the BushMob program, the young Warlpiri man is preparing to return to his community.
"My plan is to go back home and start making the right choices, try to find a job and stay out of trouble," JD told 7.30.
"I didn't know what I was doing, I just got in too much trouble, I just made a mistake.
"Now it's time to make a change."
JD said the programme had equipped him with essentials like an ID and a bank account.
For MacGregor, JD is typical of the young men he sees coming through the rehab facility's doors.
"He's not some drug-crazed gangster wannabe delinquent," Macgregor said.
"He's a young man, figuring out how he's going to fit in in the world."
This story was originally published by the ABC.
