As the sun set on a week the Yuendumu community will never forget, their thoughts turned to each other, even if they weren't together.
For five weeks a Darwin jury heard evidence about the night in 2019 when Constable Zachary Rolfe fatally shot Kumanjayi Walker as he attempted to arrest him.
Constable Rolfe was later charged with murder and on Friday, March 11 was acquitted in a Darwin court of all charges.
The verdict was live streamed to a packed court in Alice Springs, where Constable Rolfe served as a police officer.
As members of the public poured out of the Alice Springs Supreme Court, some let out sighs of relief over the verdict.
Members of the Yuendumu community, many of whom had spent five weeks holding a vigil on the court lawns, expressed audible frustration and deep disappointment.
Yuendumu in mourning
Fifteen hundred kilometres from the Supreme Court in Darwin, Mr Walker's aunt, Belinda Napaltjarri Wayne, watched the verdict with more than 40 other members of the Yuendumu community.
That night, the community — including non-Indigenous service providers and local police — came together for a barbecue in front of the house where Mr Walker died to mark what she called a "sad day" in Yuendumu's history.
A 12-person jury found Constable Rolfe not guilty of all charges, but Mr Walker's family still has questions about the situation surrounding the 19-year-old's death.
Following the verdict, his family expressed frustration and grief over a system they say is underwritten by racism.
Ms Wayne said the Friday night barbecue was an opportunity for everyone to share their feelings about the verdict and offer support to Mr Walker's family.
Peggy Brown, Mr Walker's grandmother, said the community's thoughts that night were with the more than a dozen community members that travelled to Darwin for the court case.
Parties travelled to Alice Springs and Darwin to watch the case, splintering the close-knit community.
"We as a community were thinking about them, we wanted to be calm for them," she said.
Loss of trust
Over the five weeks of the trial, the number of Justice for Walker supporters on the Alice Springs court lawns fluctuated between a handful and several dozen.
Members of the community would take turns watching the trial's live stream inside the courthouse.
Warlpiri people were often joined by Aboriginal community police officers, who said they came to show their support for the community of Yuendumu and to build a bridge between police and community members who had lost trust in the institution.
Responding to this concern, Paul McCue from the Northern Territory Police Association said it was sad to hear.
"There's some wonderful people in these communities and you know, the police themselves have done a lot of work over the last couple of years to obviously work with people from Yuendumu," he said.
"We can't throw the blame at the police to because of what happened."
But on the Alice Springs court lawns, Aboriginal community police officers said the importance of their roles had come to the fore following Mr Walker's death.
Mr McCue said Aboriginal community police officers were "making a terrific impact."
'A national shame'
As the verdict was handed down and Mr Walker's family addressed the media, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, June Oscar AO, followed from afar.
In 1991, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down its final report and in the following three decades nearly 500 Indigenous Australians have since died in custody.
Dr Oscar believes Australia already knows what the solutions are.
"The challenge for states and territories is implementing those solutions," he said.
The Royal Commission made 339 recommendations but three decades on some need updating, some have only partially been implemented and others not at all.
She said it was "a national shame" that First Nations rates of imprisonment have increased "markedly" since 1991.
Dr Oscar commended the "bravery," "courage" and "determination" of Mr Walker's family "to bring the trial to public attention during this painful period" and to "call for urgent reforms."
Among these, she said, are the removal of police guns from remote communities, more Indigenous jurors and fully independent oversight of police misconduct in all jurisdictions.
When asked about calls to remove guns from the holsters of remote community police, NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner said he would take the police force's lead on the issue.
"We support police to make decisions they need to about their kit ... whatever kit police feel is appropriate to wear, we back police in on that."
Reconciliation means action
Human rights lawyer and Noongar Woman Hannah McGlade said the issues raised by the trial showed the need for an urgent, practical commitment to reconciliation.
She praised the family's Justice for Walker campaign which put Indigenous deaths in custody in the national spotlight.
"'Reconciliation' often looks like lip service to the issues."
She said genuine reconciliation should include "tangible law reforms" and "genuine dialogue" with Aboriginal leaders and activists, like Mr Walker's family.
"We need to have a voice that is listened to where we can influence policy and legislative reform," she said.
A coronial inquest investigating Mr Walker's death is scheduled to begin in Alice Springs on September 5.
