Crowd Riots Outside Australian Hospital After Girl's Murder

An angry crowd rioted outside an Australian Outback hospital where a man accused of killing a 5-year-old girl was treated for a vigilante beating. The suspect, Jefferson Lewis, allegedly abducted the girl at an Indigenous community near Alice Springs in central Australia over the weekend. The body of the girl, publicly identified only as Kumanjayi Little Baby because of an Indigenous ban on naming the dead, was found on Thursday, the AP reports. Lewis had been beaten unconscious by a mob before police arrested him at an Indigenous community later Thursday, police said.

He was taken to Alice Springs Hospital, where hundreds of people late Thursday demanded he face so-called "payback" under customary law, which can involve spearing or beating. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd. Several police vehicles were damaged and several personnel were injured. The hospital discharged Lewis to police, who flew him to the Northern Territory capital Darwin, 1,500 kilometers to the north, for his own safety to be detained.

Lewis, jailed multiple times for domestic violence offenses, was released from his latest sentence just six days before the girl disappeared, the BBC reports. He is reportedly a distant relative of the girl.

• Lia Finocchiaro, head of the Northern Territory government, said she hoped the unrest was an "isolated incident" that would not overshadow the "incredible community effort" after the girl's disappearance, the Australia Broadcasting Corporation. "We've seen this town come together like never before, hundreds of people walking shoulder to shoulder through the long buffel grass, through the bush, to make sure we left no stone unturned," she said. "I don't want last night to take away from that extraordinary effort that we have seen."
• Michael Liddle, an Indigenous elder and manager of local health service Congress, said what happened outside the hospital wasn't "payback." "Traditional payback is just that, it's carefully constructed and carried out," he said.
• In a statement, the girl's mother thanked those who joined the search, CNN reports. "It is going to be so hard to live the rest of our lives without you," she said. "Me and your brother will meet you one day."