Sounds of children playing filled the grounds of Moree's Jellicoe Park, sounds Gordon Copeland will never hear - yet it was for him that hundreds gathered.
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Dressed in shirts displaying visual tributes to the young Gomeroi father, the mass of people marched down the main streets on Saturday with one purpose: to ensure Gordon's memory remained vivid in the minds of those set to undertake a Coronial Inquest into his death.
Gordon's partner Josephine Brown said her boy, sitting alongside her, would grow up without knowing his father, and said they and the entire community needed to know why.
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"We don't want this to happen to any more black kids," she stated.
Elder Uncle Lyall Munro kicked off the proceedings in the park, painting pictures with his words of a race persecuted and fearful of authority for "good reason".
"It's good to see our young people here. Our young people need to be aware of what's before them every day of their lives," he said.
"Once you have one strike with the police they'll be on you for the rest of your life."
Jacinta Fernando, Gordon's aunt, told the crowds to "keep your children safe" as she called for "truth, justice and accountability".
"Keep your children safe - home - we don't want this to happen again."
The crowd wasn't just filled with family and friends, either. Kobie Dee, renowned rapper currently on his Gomeroi Nation Tour, said he'd use his platform to speak about injustice.
"How many young lives need to be lost for something to happen? We shouldn't have to be here today," he said.
"There needs to be change... I know that having a platform with my music, it's only right that I come down here and use that platform.
"These are the stories that need to be told. These are the stories that otherwise get swept under the rug."
According to police, Gordon was in a Toyota Corolla allegedly seen speeding along the Newell Highway.
When it was found bogged near the Yarraman bridge in the early hours of July 10, Mr Copeland allegedly fled and entered the river when officers tried to speak with him.
While a search was undertaken in the days immediately following his disappearance, his remains weren't discovered until a second official search of the Gwydir River, near the area known as the 'raft', in October.
The inquest will come to Moree for a week beginning on July 18, with Gordon's family resolving to up the ante in the lead up as well as during the proceedings.
"We need to stack that court house and cry out for justice for Gordy," Mr Munro said.
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