But sitting inside the Alice Springs Police Station three decades later, he has returned to the town he spent his formative years, and where he will be based as the Territory’s newest police commissioner in an historic first.

But he has inherited a force which has recently been in the spotlight for the wrong reasons: evidence of racism within the ranks was uncovered in long-running coronial inquest; the previous commissioner was sacked in a “job for mates” scandal; and the outcome of an investigation into how a 24-year-old disabled Warlpiri man died 70 minutes after he was restrained – allegedly by two plain clothes officers – inside an Alice Springs supermarket, looms large.

However, Mr Dole doesn’t shy away from addressing the challenges facing his force – while also outlining his plan to tackle them.

The man himself: From managing a bar to becoming NT’s top cop

Mr Dole relaxes and speaks with a sense of nostalgia when he delves into his childhood – one which took him all over the Territory, spending time in remote communities in the Red Centre.

The son of Baptist Christians, Mr Dole’s parents ran the Yuendumu store while he was a young boy, leading to him spending time in the community before completing his schooling in Alice Springs.

“Living out at Yuendumu, we had close family friends that were police officers out there, so I’ve always grown up looking at and knowing the Northern Territory police to be a symbol of respect, someone to be trusted,” he said.

“But it wasn’t until a little bit later in life that I thought, yeah, ‘I’d like to join the police force and make a difference myself’.”

It wasn’t a direct path out of school and into the police force for Mr Dole, who instead spent a few years working in the hospitality industry before making the career change at age 21.

“I actually ended up as the bar manager at the local police club here in Alice Springs for about 12 months before I actually joined the police force,” he said.

Since joining the force, Mr Dole has worked as a remote community cop, a detective for 18 years, as the Territory and regional controller during bushfires and cyclone emergencies, and also travelled to Quantico – in the United States – to train with the FBI national academy in 2017.

“Probably some of my fondest memories are working as a remote police officer. I think the rewards that you get from being a remote bush copper are really hard to describe,” he said.

The one-time bar manager turned bush cop to now commissioner said he “never in a million years” thought he’d be in the top job.

“Honestly, this is the biggest privilege of my career to be in this position,” Mr Dole said.

“I started after school in a service orientated industry and I look at the police as a service orientated industry as well – that’s what it is: we’re here to serve the community.”

The ‘cautious journey of improvement’

Mr Dole was formally sworn in as NT Police Commissioner in Darwin on October 31, after spending more than seven months as the acting commissioner.

He’s planning to be based in both the Top End and the Red Centre, leading an organisation NT Coroner Elisabeth Armitage said contained “significant hallmarks of institutional racism”.
Ms Armitage’s statement comes from her findings from the inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker, a 19-year-old Warlpiri man who was shot during an attempted arrest in Yuendumu in 2019.

Former NT Police constable Zachary Rolfe was later of acquitted of murder in a Supreme Court trial for shooting Mr Walker, and Ms Armitage could not make any finding which went against the Supreme Court verdict in her findings, which were delivered in July this year.

When asked about Ms Armitage’s assessment of the NT Police, Mr Dole is quick to address there has been change in the force.

“What’s important is that coronial investigation examined behaviours and practises and mistakes that were made more than five or six years ago now,” he said.

“Now over that period as well, there was a lot of internal churn and change and I could probably quite confidently say more than 80 per cent of the population of the Alice Springs police station has changed since the times of what was being examined during that coronial.”

Mr Dole said “what was accepted before will no longer be tolerated”, but when asked of the Coroner’s 18 recommendations to NT Police, Mr Dole said the force had been on a “cautious journey of improvement” since the inquest.

“I’m being careful with my language because there’s certain nuances in some of those recommendations that we may just not be able to deliver,” he said.

“I just have to be careful about committing to something or putting a policy in place that talks about ‘everyone has to do remote service’ because we’ll get to a stage in three years where there won’t be jobs available.

“So I’ve got to be very careful about putting a policy in place that in two years time becomes redundant.”

Mr Dole said the NT Police force’s anti-racism strategy – developed with Leanne Liddle, who is the force’s community resilience and engagement command executive director – was evidence the Territory’s police force is changing and better understanding racism itself.

“If we understand what racism is in all its forms: in our structures, in our systems, in our policies, in all of the things that lead to disadvantage to certain classes of people, then we have to look at ourselves and go, of course it exists and of course it has probably existed for a long time and our institution has enabled these things to foster and survive,” he said.

“That’s why the anti racism strategy, the action plan, the anti racism training is so important to me because it’s about teaching our people what it actually looks like, what it means, understanding it, and not just saying you’re a racist person.”

The strategy is due to be released this week.

‘How we’ll be judged’: The challenges Dole wants to tackle

Issues around retention, better support for staff, rebuilding trust in the force, earning respect back to the NT Police name, and improving officer welfare are key issues on a “not exhaustive list” Mr Dole said he wanted to address.

“My real aim is to make a difference to the welfare of our people, because healthy cops make better cops – mentally healthy cops serve the community better,” he said.

“There’s a lot of internal work we need to do to make our members not only feel supported, but actually be supported.

“You can feel supported, but if we don’t have the systems in place and we don’t have the mechanisms available for referrals, and we don’t have the education and the clinical supports available, then you soon won’t feel supported.

“You can say all the nice words, but unless you’ve got something backing that, it doesn’t make a difference.”

An “early intervention policy” in the force was one example of this, Mr Dole said – but he’s adamant it should not be viewed as a negative thing if an officer is recommended for the policy.

“I don’t want people to think the early intervention policy is about poor behaviour that could lead to risks taken by a cop – that’s a small part of what the policy is,” he said.

“It’s not just about risky behaviours that leads to cops making mistakes that can affect the public, it’s about identifying things that could be hurting our cops into the future.”

“Transparency guidelines” prevent Mr Dole from disclosing how many officers have been flagged under the program.

Another topic Mr Dole is reluctant to discuss is the investigation into the death of Warlpiri man Kumanjayi White.

Mr White died after he was restrained by two plainclothes officers inside Coles in Alice Springs on May 27.

His death is being treated as a death in custody, with the DPP receiving the brief of evidence from police on September 22.

Mr Dole confirmed the two officers who allegedly restrained the man were still working and “turning up to work regularly”.

No charges have been laid over the death, and under NT Law, any death in custody is subject to a mandatory coronial inquest.

Mr White was from Yuendumu, the same community where Mr Walker was shot in 2019.

It’s in the shadow of another death in custody coronial inquest which Mr Dole will aim to deliver on his commitment to the public: “to keep Territorians safe; uphold the highest standards of fairness and accountability; commitment to be visible, responsive and transparent in our decision making; and a commitment to reform”.

“Trust isn’t earned through words,” he said.

“Trust is earned through actions – and that’s how we’ll be judged.”