Kumanjayi Walker’s family calls for Zach Rolfe ‘retrial’, defunding of NT Police

The community of slain Yuendumu teenager, Kumanjayi Walker, is calling for NT Police to be ’defunded at large’, following Zach Rolfe’s acquittal over the 19-year-old’s death.

THE community of slain Yuendumu teenager, Kumanjayi Walker, is calling for NT Police to be “defunded at large”, following Zach Rolfe’s acquittal over the 19-year-old’s death.

In a lengthy “list of demands” issued on Thursday, the Warlpiri Nation also called for a ban on police carrying guns and “only Warlpiri governance and authority in our community”.

In the statement, the group condemned a recent $10m cash injection for NT Police, saying funding should instead be directed to “community-controlled alternatives, like night patrols and community mediation”.

“We will not tolerate any further ex-military postings or external police units from elsewhere in the NT or Australia,” it reads.

“Only First Nations police liaison officers, elders and our community should have decision making powers over policing.

Kumanjayi Walker (used with permission).

“This includes being able to evict police who do not co-operate with local community or respect our decision making authority.”

Other demands include for customary law to be “considered in all court processes and in the application of colonial law”, as well as an independent investigation into Rolfe’s trial.

“We saw a jury with no Aboriginal person on it,” it reads.

“There was no consideration of our cultural needs or our customary law. The trial should have taken place in Mparntwe Alice Springs, not 1500km away. We were unheard and disrespected.”

The group has demanded a “retrial” to allow Rolfe “to face our customary law at Yuendumu”.

Senior Warlpiri elder, Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves, said “more funding for police means more police violence against our people”.

Zach Rolfe. Picture: Glenn Campbell

“The NT government has no shame increasing the police budget after the fatal police shooting of our loved one, Kumanjayi Walker,” he said.

“This funding increase is a direct threat to our lives in our community. Yapakurlangu Warnkaru Matters, Black Lives Matter!”

The group is also calling for “an end to youth detention” that sees children as young as 10 years old locked up for “minor things” and “abused by the system”.

The group is planning a “national day of action” for June 18 “to demand justice for Walker, justice for the many deaths of First Nations people in custody, an end to the discriminatory Intervention powers and reassertion of community control”.

Yuendumu elder Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves outside court. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

“We want other First Nations families, communities and supporters to join us in protest again, amplify our voices and put forward your own demands for justice,” the statement reads.

“Let’s come out in big numbers and build collective power together to force change.”

The group issued a further public demand for the NT government to hold an urgent community cabinet meeting at Yuendumu after claiming to have received no response to a letter sent late last month.

The demands come just a day after Police Minister Nicole Manison announced the government would pour an extra $10.1m into remote and regional policing in its May budget.

The NT News revealed funding for NT Police would increase by $6.4m in the 2022-23 financial year, to $510m.

The extra remote policing funding will go towards 21 additional police officers and another 30 Aboriginal liason officers, who will be established permanently within communities.