Northern Territory police will not lay any charges against officers after the death of Kumanjayi White, a 24-year-old Warlpiri man who died while being restrained in an Alice Springs supermarket last year.

Police commissioner Martin Dole said on Tuesday that the department of police prosecutions had declined to pursue charges after a thorough investigation found there was not enough evidence. A brief of evidence was sent to the director of public prosecutions, who concluded there were no reasonable prospects of a successful prosecution.

White died on 27 May last year during a confrontation with police in a Coles supermarket in Alice Springs. Police alleged he was shoplifting, and said plainclothes officers stepped in after an altercation with a security guard. His family is now suing NT police over the death, saying two officers involved acted unlawfully when they apprehended him and took him into custody.

Dole said the decision would cause “significant distress, pain and anger” for White’s family and for many Aboriginal people across Central Australia and the territory. He said, “Every effort was made to ensure the investigation was appropriately resourced and conducted in a thorough and fair manner,” and added that the DPP’s view followed consideration of all available evidence, including an independent expert report.

The family’s response was immediate and raw. “We have got no hope. When will we have our justice? How can we keep living like this?” they said, after police flew to the remote community of Lajamanu to inform White’s mother and maternal relatives. The family also said, “Today the police turned up in Lajamanu with the acting director of public prosecutions and told the family that they are not proceeding with any charges.” reported the family would hold a week-long blackout after being told the news via senior officers.

White’s death sparked outrage, rallies and calls for accountability and an independent probe, with federal MP and member for Lingiari Marion Scrymgour among those echoing that demand. Leanne Liddle said White’s family was being provided with support as the community mourned. The decision now leaves the family’s civil case and the wider public debate to carry the burden of a death that many Aboriginal families in the territory had already come to see as a test of whether police can be held to account when a restraint ends in tragedy.

For White’s relatives, the question is no longer whether charges will be laid. It is whether any forum left to them will deliver the justice they say the criminal process has now closed off.