Former NT Police officer Zach Rolfe to face public grilling on racist texts in February
Zach Rolfe will soon be forced to face questions about his use of racist slurs in the months before he fatally shot a 19-year-old Aboriginal man during a botched arrest in 2019.
Police & Courts
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Former NT police officer Zach Rolfe will be forced to face a public grilling next month more than a year after refusing to discuss racist text messages he sent prior to fatally shooting an Aboriginal teenager.
Mr Rolfe was acquitted on all charges by a Supreme Court jury in 2022 after fatally shooting 19-year-old Warlpiri-Luritja man Kumanjayi Walker during a botched arrest in Yuendumu in 2019.
His phone was seized during the police investigation, with Coroner Elisabeth Armitage later hearing he had referred to Aboriginal people as “c**ns” and “neanderthals” in messages sent in the months leading up to the shooting.
“I’m out at Borroloola, a random community on the coast, because they’re rioting,” he said in a text message sent in March 2019 and tendered at the inquest into Mr Walker’s death last year.
“But we came up last time they did this and smashed the whole community, so this time, as soon as we arrived they started behaving.”
Then in April 2019, Constable Rolfe texted another colleague saying “if you’re hungry you’re definitely allowed to towel locals up”.
“I do have a licence to towel locals, I like it,” he said.
But when called to give evidence by Ms Armitage in November 2022, Mr Rolfe refused to answer any questions about the texts on the ground his answers could expose him to internal police disciplinary action.
He was subsequently sacked by NT Police in April last year after publishing an open letter on social media defending his ”playground language”, saying “when I have used these terms in the past, they have meant nothing”.
“In private, I talked shit about nearly every group at times,” he wrote.
“Yet they released just a tiny snippet to make me out to be a racist, a few messages out of thousands.”
After several failed appeals of Ms Armitage’s ruling compelling him to testify, Mr Rolfe launched another last ditch legal bid to have her recuse herself from presiding over the inquest, which was also knocked back in November.
It is understood no appeal has been lodged against that decision and the Coroner has now formally ordered Mr Rolfe to return to the witness box for a week of hearings beginning on February 26.
Serving NT Police Sergeant Lee Bauwens, who had also objected to being forced to testify on the same ground as Mr Rolfe, is now also due to give evidence for two days from February 22.
Final submissions in the long running inquest are now due to be heard in May.
Mr Rolfe’s solicitor Luke Officer was contacted for comment.
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