Kumanjayi Walker inquest: Sergeant denies experiencing racism despite ‘shocking’ texts

A sergeant has told the Kumanjayi Walker inquest she did not see “systemic racism” in the police force despite “blatantly racist” text messages sent between officers.

The sergeant in charge of the Yuendumu police station says she has never experienced “systemic racism” in the police force, despite the revelation of “racist” and “patently abhorrent” text message exchanges between Zach Rolfe and other police officers.

Sergeant Anne Jolley resumed her evidence in the Alice Springs Local Court on Thursday at an inquest into the death of Warlpiri man Kumanjayi Walker, who was fatally shot by Constable Rolfe during a bungled arrest in 2019.

Under questioning from Constable Rolfe’s barrister David Edwardson KC, after the texts were read out in court on Wednesday, Sergeant Jolley said she had never heard any other officer using such “abhorrent or patently racist terms”.

“So the private, appalling messages that were read into the transcript are not, in your experience at least, a reflection of the way any police officers in your presence have behaved in all the years you’ve been in the force?” Mr Edwardson asked.

Current Sergeant in charge at Yuendumu police station, Anne Jolley. Picture: Jason Walls

Sergeant Jolley said “no” and that she had never “had a perception of systemic racism at all in the police force”.

“Even when confronted with potentially the most violent of offenders, have you heard police officers respond in racist terms at all?” Mr Edwardson asked and again Sergeant Jolley said “no”.

“Apart from ‘drop your weapon’ or maybe a swear word but not like those words,” she said.

Mr Edwardson asked whether in her “vast years of experience in the community and elsewhere”, she had “ever had the sense that race or colour played a part in the decision to use force”.

Sergeant Jolley replied: “No, it’s an incident that you’re responding to, so it’s not about the colour of the person, it’s about what’s happening.”

Zach Rolfe's lawyers David Edwardson KC and Frank Merenda outside the Alice Springs Local Court. Picture: Jason Walls

But Sergeant Jolley agreed that police officers might “express, from time to time, uncharitable remarks or opinions about their superiors”.

The cross examination came after Mr Walker’s family said they did believe Constable Rolfe’s text messages with the other police officers suggested “systemic racism” was a problem in the force.

Responding to the messages read to the court during the inquest into Mr Walker’s police shooting death in 2019, the teen’s cousin Samara Fernandez-Brown said the comments were “absolutely horrific, though not surprising”.

“In my opinion these text messages very clearly outline his attitudes, and the attitudes of some of his peers, towards Aboriginal people,” she said.

“It is woeful that among the authors of some of those text messages are high ranking officers like a sergeant – if high ranking officers hold these attitudes, you can only expect that they are filtered down the ranks.”

Ms Fernandez-Brown said the revelations showed “systemic racism does exist in the police force”.

“And if that continues to be ignored then there will never be meaningful change, and Indigenous people will continue to feel unsafe and ignored,” she said.

>>How the messages came to be public

The inquest continues on Thursday when Senior Constable Lanyon Smith is expected to give evidence.

It comes as the sergeant in charge of the Yuendumu police station rejected any suggestion that her officers stop carrying guns in the community.

Coroner Elisabeth Armitage is presiding over the ongoing inquiry in the Alice Springs Local Court after Constable Zach Rolfe was acquitted in March of any wrongdoing over the fatal police shooting.

On Wednesday, Sergeant Jolley said despite having never drawn her Glock in the field during her 16-year career, “it doesn’t mean I might not”.

Sergeant Jolley said while “obvious, large weaponry” like the assault rifle and shotgun brought into Yuendumu on the night Mr Walker died could be “frightening” for residents, the Glock was a vital part of an officer’s kit.

“I might get into a situation and I don’t have it and I can’t protect my community and my colleagues or myself,” she said.

Earlier, Sergeant Jolley, who was not present when Mr Walker died, told the court she had returned to the community a month after the shooting “because I cared about the people”.

Sergeant Jolley said there was an eerie calm over the police station when she arrived in December 2019, highlighting an air of “distrust” among locals since the tragedy.

“The biggest thing I noticed was that the station was really quiet, and I was used to the station, people coming in like a rotating door, in and out, in and out, phone ringing constantly,” she said.

“That’s probably the biggest thing that I noticed when I first went back, no one was ringing us, no one was really coming up, no one was really talking to us.”

“It did bother me that clearly, you know, there was a distrust, otherwise they would have been up there.

“(We) made sure we went out every single morning and just – we spent our whole morning just engaging, engaging, trying to bring some trust back.”

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