Police say Tennant Creek death in custody was result of 'medical episode'
Northern Territory Police say the death in custody of an Indigenous woman in Tennant Creek on Saturday was the result of a "medical episode", while admitting there was no nurse on duty at the time.
Northern Territory Police say they believe the death in custody of an Indigenous woman in Tennant Creek on Saturday was the result of a "medical episode", while admitting there was no nurse on duty to check her records.
Police say officers were conducting cell checks at the Tennant Creek watch house about 1pm when they found the 44-year-old unconscious, and she was rushed to hospital but could not be revived.
Speaking to the media on Sunday, Acting Assistant Commissioner Peter Malley said the woman underwent a "custody health assessment" after her arrest for an alleged aggravated assault about 6pm on Thursday.
Acting Assistant Commissioner Malley said officers had conducted a cell check at 12.30pm and it was at the next scheduled check that she was found unresponsive.
Police say the woman was found unconscious in a cell at the Tennant Creek watch house and could not be revived. (ABC News: Stephanie Zillman)
"At one stage she was in a cell with another lady, there was no interactions between the two and the other lady was released from custody 20 minutes before the episode occurred," he said.
"We reviewed the CCTV and at 12.34 she was in the cell alone and was seen to fall to the ground, so at this stage we believe it's a medical episode, but we won't have a post-mortem conducted until later on in the week."
Acting Assistant Commissioner Malley said, unlike in Darwin and Alice Springs, the Tennant Creek police station did not have a custody nurse on duty who could have checked the woman's medical records.
"For a normal arrest, a custody incident, we don't do that," he said.
Tennant Creek is 500 kilometres north of Alice Springs and almost 1,000 kilometres south of Darwin on the Stuart Highway. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
"The police officer that accepted her into custody conducted that [assessment] and there was no disclosures, no visible injuries to the female at that stage and so everything was believed to be OK.
"It's really about those underlying issues that we can't see and obviously, with a custody nurse, they have the medical records there so they can have a look and see what the history actually is of the prisoner coming into custody."
Acting Assistant Commissioner Malley said the woman's cell was "still currently locked down" as a crime scene and would remain so until after the post-mortem was conducted.