‘I got ya, brother’: second-by-second drama as Zach Rolfe shot Kumanjayi Walker and then fought to save his life
For the first time, a detailed account of the heart-stopping drama as cops fought to save the life of Indigenous teen Kumanjayi Walker.
Acting Commissioner Michael Murphy was mid-speech at the inaugural Northern Territory Police Legacy Ball when news of an emergency unfolding in Yuendumu first reached Darwin.
The mobile of then-Acting Assistant Commissioner Travis Wurst lit up on the table of police brass and their partners seated in the Doubletree by Hilton ballroom.
It was 7.33pm on Saturday November 9, 2019 and Wurst had just cracked his second Corona when he glanced down at the incoming call from Southern Desert Division Superintendent Jody Nobbs.
Oblivious to the disaster 1500km away he silenced it with a default text “can I call you later?”
Nobbs immediately responded, “no urgent”.
“Arnold Walker shot at rear of police station,” he furiously tapped out.
“He was shot by police; we are working on him now.”
*****
Earlier that day, at 11.35am, Officer in Charge of Yuendumu station Julie Frost had called Nobbs in Alice Springs asking for an Immediate Response Team to arrest Arnold Walker.
The 19-year-old was wanted for assaulting police, criminal damage to a police vehicle, criminal damage of his electronic monitoring device and breach of his suspended sentence.
Two officers had already travelled 200km from Nyirripi that morning but Sergeant Frost wanted more resources to deal with the amount of crime in the community, a funeral that day and Walker’s imminent arrest.
Frost also wanted the IRT to provide respite to local police after days of non-stop jobs and around-the-clock call-outs.
Among those, they had responded to repeated successful and attempted break-ins at the homes of the medical clinic staff who, as a result, were evacuating the volatile central desert community due to serious safety fears.
Frost suspected Walker was either directly or indirectly involved in those break-ins given his influence on younger property offenders.
Frost sent an “ops order” to Nobbs stating that Walker was a high risk offender with a propensity for both violence and flight.
Police emails outlined the objectives of the IRT deployment as to “provide a local presence of armed police to uphold law and order in the community, provide support to local members, arrest Walker and transport him back to Alice Springs”.
At 11:45am Nobbs called Wurst, who authorised the deployment of a police dog and four members of the IRT.
*****
At 2.30pm Alice Springs Constable Zachary Rolfe was getting ready for his 3pm shift when Sergeant Shane McCormack called, asking him to pack a bag because he was being sent to Yuendumu to arrest Walker for assaulting police with an axe three days earlier.
Rolfe, then 28, threw clothes in a bag and raced into work.
Dog handler Adam Donaldson had already left Alice Springs for Yuendumu.
Donaldson and his German Shepherd Loki would provide support and protection to the IRT, as well as track Walker if he fled into the bush as he was known to do.
Once assembled at the station in Alice Springs, McCormack gave Rolfe and the three other IRT members – Constable James Kirstenfeldt, Constable Anthony Hawkings and Constable First Class Adam Eberl – a “quick briefing”.
They watched the body-worn video of Walker attacking two Yuendumu police officers with an axe three days earlier before stepping off from Alice Springs just shy of 4pm.
*****
Donaldson arrived at the community, about 300km north-west of Alice Springs, at 5.30pm and began performing high-visibility patrols.
Rolfe and Kirstenfeldt got to the police station about 6.30pm and received a quick briefing from Frost who said she did not know where Walker was now.
She provided the pair with a folded paper map and oriented them to the community.
When Eberl and Hawkings arrived soon after, she provided them with the same information.
Local cop Constable Felix Alefaio told the IRT members that Walker “always wants to fight”.
Frost said she wanted the IRT to perform general policing duties throughout the night and arrest Walker early the next morning with Alefaio unless they came across him sooner.
The IRT planned to gather intelligence throughout the evening – the houses he frequented, the petrol sniffers and other “breakers” he hung out with and talk to the relatives who wanted him locked up – before executing the dawn arrest.
*****
Just after 7pm the five members left the station and headed to house 577 at West Camp where the axe assault had occurred.
That was where Walker had been staying with his girlfriend Rickisha Robertson and her family since fleeing the Central Australian Aboriginal Alcohol Programmes Unit in Alice Springs on October 29 and returning to the community.
When the group arrived at 7.05pm Rickisha’s father Ethan told them that Walker was at another group of houses including 511 and 518, before showing them on their map.
The officers drove the short distance to that location, where Rolfe and Eberl started talking to people in the yard outside 511.
Hawkings moved to the rear of 511 while Kirstenfeldt remained outside the boundary of the property and spoke to people in the yard of 518.
Donaldson stayed inside his car until a woman started banging on the fence to attract attention.
“I don’t know where they all came from but people were already making their way over,” Donaldson later told detectives.
“They were quite loud as they were coming in.
“That was when I exited my vehicle and started coming in, to provide support to these guys, just by myself. The dog wasn’t out.”
Relatives outside 511 denied having seen Walker that day or even knowing who he was.
Then Eberl spotted someone inside shutting the back door.
He told Rolfe and the pair asked those in the yard who was inside the house.
Walker’s relatives, including the partner of Walker’s adoptive mother who was just outside the front door, said they did not know.
At about 7.18pm Rolfe asks a woman if they can search the house and she consents.
“Can we go check inside? Go check inside? All right,” the young cop says.
*****
The light is beginning to fade.
“Me and Adam are going to clear this red house,” Rolfe says into his radio.
Eberl takes the lead as they step through the open door.
Eberl flicks on his torch and illuminates a man walking towards them with his hands in his pockets.
“Hey mate, what’s your name? Hey mate, we’re just asking a question. No need to keep walking,” Eberl says.
The man hesitates before providing a cousin’s name.
“I’m Vernon Dickson,” he says.
“I’m just telling you the truth.”
Eberl speaks into his radio saying that he and Rolfe are “just inside the front door of the red house”.
Rolfe calmly directs the man to stand against the wall.
“Just come over here for a sec, up here,” Rolfe says.
“All right. Don’t stress. Be calm. I’m going to put a photo next to your face and see who you are.
“Relax. I need this hat off; I need this hat off.”
It is now 7.21pm and Rolfe tells the man to “look straight ahead” while he compares his face to the mugshot saved on his iPhone.
“That’s not me,” the man says.
“My name is Vernon Dickson.”
Rolfe responded so calmly that it sounded like he believed him.
“Oh, good man. OK, cool,” Rolfe said.
“Easy mate, easy. Just put your hands behind your back.”
*****
Walker hesitated, said ‘um’, and in a split-second the situation escalated from calm to complete chaos.
In darkness, the offender pulled a 10cm-long pair of stainless steel surgical scissors from his pocket in a dagger grip.
He allegedly tried to strike Rolfe twice in the head but the punches didn’t connect properly.
Rolfe then saw a flash of blade before it penetrated his left shoulder.
The former soldier hit Walker and stepped back to create distance but Eberl, who had not seen the weapon, went “hands on” with Walker to effect the arrest.
“Stop it mate,” Eberl commanded as he tried to restrain him.
“Don’t f--- around!”
Rolfe says he saw Walker try to stab multiple times at Eberl’s neck and chest area so drew his Glock and fired one round into Walker’s back.
Eberl, unaware that Walker had been shot, wrestled him onto a mattress on the floor.
Rolfe says he then saw Walker continue to strike at Eberl so fired two more shots, in quick succession, into the offender’s torso.
He then holstered his Glock, pushed Eberl out of the way and rolled Walker onto his stomach.
“Give me your arm, give me your arm,” Rolfe commanded.
The officers outside heard bangs followed by “shots fired!” and ran towards the house.
“He’s got scissors in his hand, he was stabbing me, he was stabbing you. He’s got scissors right here,” Rolfe told Eberl.
“He’s got scissors right here.”
Walker continued fighting.
“Let go of the scissors! Let go of the scissors!” Eberl yelled.
“Drop the scissors!”
The officers struggled to handcuff him.
“Nan, nan, nan,” he cried. “You mob been shoot me. I’m gonna kill you motherf..kers.”
Hawkings manoeuvred to the doorway.
“The male was still wrestling with them during this time,” Hawkings told detectives.
“I turned around and at that stage all hell had been let loose with the community. People were coming out of nowhere.”
Rolfe declared they needed to “glove up” to provide first aid.
“No, we’ve gotta leave,” Hawkings said.
“Let’s get him out of here.
“We’ve got the scene here but at this point we gotta get out of here for our safety.”
Donaldson said the situation went from calm to “dangerous” within seconds.
“There could have been fifty to sixty people all of a sudden coming and I could also see a bus coming,” he said.
“I knew we were in a bit of trouble there at that time so we needed to leave.”
Rolfe and Eberl picked Walker up by his arms and carried him through the screams and wails.
“You mob got no respect! Shame on you. Shame on you,” they yelled.
Camp dogs went berserk and one latched on to Eberl’s leg. He kicked it off.
Police lifted Walker into the cage on the back of the Hilux.
“I’ll get in with him for first aid. I’ll lift him up. We’re going to try and do first aid on you OK?” Rolfe told Walker.
Eberl climbed in with them and Hawkings closed the cage doors.
“I don’t feel good,” Walker said.
“Help me please.
“I’m too young.”
Rolfe reassured him.
“Yeah, we got ya brother,” he said.
“Once we get to the station, we’ll get ya first aid.
“I got ya, I got ya. I got ya.”
*****
Senior Constable First Class Christopher Hand was writing a statement about Walker attacking him with an axe three days earlier when he heard “shots fired” over the radio.
Frost marched out of her office to his desk in the open-plan office area of Yuendumu police station.
“What the hell’s going on? Why would anyone be shooting at the police?” she asked.
They confusedly looked at each other, stunned, and listened.
“We were just going ‘f---’ and we just couldn’t believe it,” Hand told detectives.
Frost’s mobile shrilled.
“I got a phone call to say ‘Arnold’s been shot’,” Frost recalled.
“I was married to a police officer and living in Port Keats when Rob Whittington shot that bloke 17 years ago.
“I knew what was coming … and I’ve never felt fear like that in my life”
*****
Once inside the police compound, the IRT lifted Walker out of the back of the cage and lowered him on to the gravel.
“Come on, let’s get it flat out here. Get it flat out here and do some first aid. Let’s get some first aid kits. Let’s go, let’s go. First aid kits,” Rolfe instructed.
“We’ll get you outta here and we’ll do some first aid aye?
“It’s all good mate, we’ll just help you out.”
Frost phoned Nobbs.
“Arnold’s been shot, I need resources, as many as you can get, as soon as you can get them,” she said.
“We’re gonna be under siege soon.”
Rolfe performed a head-to-toe assessment.
“Entry wounds, two entry wounds, we need to seal these up,” he said.
“We’ve got an exit wound here.
“We need the three-sided bandages.”
They reassured Walker he would be OK.
“I need you to chill out my brother,” Rolfe told him.
They requested the RFDS and considered meeting an ambulance from Alice Springs halfway.
“Let’s get search and rescue in,” Rolfe said.
“All right we’ll do what we can, so we’ll seal it up,” Rolfe said
“Then we’ll cover this up with a long bandage. A pressure, long bandage aye.
“So, we come long. So, we get this tight over those two plastics aye. And we just keep doing that. So, we hold that there. We need some more bandages then just do the same thing. We just gotta make this tight.”
Once the wounds were sealed, they carried Walker into the watch house – the safest and most sterile area of the station – and continued first aid.
“Now all we can do is hematomas control, wait for pulse to go, breathing,” Rolfe said.
“I’m gonna set the defib up on him for when that happens.
“Someone go find a defib and we’ll set it up on him.”
They monitored Walker’s vital signs and tried to make him comfortable while Frost made frantic calls for medical and police reinforcements.
Nurses were coming from the remote community of Yuelamu, also known as Mount Allan, but were at least 80 minutes away.
By 7.45pm there were about 200 upset and angry community members outside the Police Station yelling, throwing rocks and demanding information about Walker’s condition.
Frost “knew we were in a world of hurt”.
“To say that I was scared is an understatement,” she said.
Someone called and said there was a large group of armed men headed for the station.
“I was worried … that the police station could get stormed. There’s only glass doors out the front,” Hand said.
“All it takes is one person to go through and then a whole mob will go through.”
A local resident called to tell them the medical clinic was on fire.
At 7.50pm Frost called Alice Springs Acting Senior Sergeant Alistair Gall.
“She was very stressed, just advising me of the situation out there, how volatile it was,” he later recalled to detectives.
“Essentially Julie told me that they had to get out of there as quickly as they could.”
Back in Darwin the bosses were worried that the station would be breached and more people would get hurt.
“We were of the opinion that the only thing that was keeping us safe at the time was that (Walker) was still alive,” Hand said.
*****
Kirstenfeldt had experience with gunshot wounds from his 13 years in the military.
He knew Walker was suffering from a tension pneumothorax which was causing his lung to collapse.
Walker was also becoming less responsive, gasping for air and his abdomen had started to bloat, like those the former soldier had seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The police tried to position Walker on his side to drain the blood from his lungs but he kept thrashing. They tried to prop him up on a mattress but he wanted to lay flat.
When Walker complained he was hot, police wet a CHUX – the only clean cloth they could find – with cold water and placed it on his forehead, but he pushed it away.
They talked to him, asked him questions and pleaded with him to keep breathing.
He had gone into shock and needed surgery to survive.
The cops called triple zero for medical advice.
When – at 8.16pm – Walker went into cardiac arrest, the IRT members started chest compressions.
They applied the defibrillator but it kept sounding a “check the pads” warning.
Someone ran from the room to find another defib machine, more pads, and – failing that – masking tape to hold them on.
They finally resorted to super glue in a desperate attempt to maintain Walker’s pulse.
The officers took turns performing CPR, swapping out as fatigue set in.
By about 8.30pm, they believed Walker was gone but continued compressions until the medic on the phone told them to stop.
They all knew that there was nothing more they could do.
*****
Senior Aboriginal Community Police Officer Derek Williams – unaware of Walker’s passing – called Wurst and said that Walker’s family, outside of the police station, were becoming increasingly upset and angry.
Williams, Walker’s relative himself, told Wurst that the community “might try and hurt the police”.
As a result, Wurst made the critical decision to not inform Walker’s family of his death until the Territory Response Group — coming from Darwin — was on the ground.
Donaldson said that when Walker died, “we all felt that we were in a lot of trouble”.
Frost feared that the community would set the police station alight with them inside.
“Julie was quite adamant that she wanted to evacuate,” Nobbs said.
“Anxiety and fear experienced by police in the station was escalating given Walker’s passing.
“If the station is breached and Walker is identified as being deceased then police members’ safety is compromised with retaliation expected.”
Nobbs authorised their evacuation.
*****
The members loaded their kit, guns, ammunition and even the safes into police vehicles.
They retrieved pets from the police accommodation at the back of the compound and placed Walker’s body in their car before forming a convoy to drive out the back gate.
At 8:43pm their evacuation was imminent. Minutes later, the Incident Management Team in Darwin directed them to stay.
Superintendent Shaun Gill had “strongly objected” to Nobbs’ decision to evacuate.
“In my view, there was a responsibility for Yuendumu Police to stay and protect the community first and foremost,” he told detectives.
“And I said ‘this will be a bad look if police left the community’.”
Wurst also wanted the officers to stay in the station until reinforcements arrived.
“I did suggest that the police at Yuendumu needed to develop plans for themselves, (for) if the station was breached and they did lose control,” he said.
“They were tasked to develop plans to extract themselves as required for their own safety as a last resort contingency.”
Assistant Commissioner Narelle Beer called Frost to convey the new directive.
“We were told ‘no, go back, defend the station, or just lock ourselves in the station’,” Donaldson said.
“I don’t think any of us were happy about it at the time.”
*****
Just after 9pm the headlights of an ambulance pierced the darkness.
As the Troopy approached the Yuendumu police station, community members started yelling at the two remote area nurses inside.
“You’re f..king late! It happened two hours ago!” men yelled at them.
The female nurses – aged 62 and 73 – made it inside the police compound where they declared Walker deceased.
They then turned their attention to Rolfe.
His police shirt and the T-shirt underneath were blood-stained from the stab wound on his left shoulder.
The nurses cleaned it and applied a dressing.
A colleague confiscated Rolfe’s Glock and put his shirt in an exhibit bag.
The police then focussed their efforts on security, fanning out around the compound, ready to fall back inside if violence erupted.
*****
At 9.45pm NT Police Air Wing pilot Graham Cooke took off from Alice Springs with seven members on board.
As the small plane approached Yuendumu at 10.50pm, police and the nurses convoyed out to the airstrip to provide protection to land and collect the arriving officers.
“On the way out, I had to keep ringing them to see if … the airstrip was clear to land on,” Cooke told detectives.
“Within 30 nautical miles … I called them again and they said, ‘no don’t land yet, don’t land because it’s not safe yet’.”
The 66-year-old circled above Yuendumu for 15 minutes before gliding down to the airstrip.
“We didn’t mess around,” he said.
The police members jumped off the plane and grabbed their gear.
“Then Zach threw his bag in the back and I quickly tied it down,” Cooke said.
“Zach hopped in the copilot’s’ seat, started up and away we went.”
Rolfe was removed from the community due to the impending investigation and to receive medical treatment.
As the police and nurses drove back to the station, locals smashed their vehicles with rocks, hitting a nurse in the head.
Rolfe was silent during the flight back.
“He didn’t say much,” Cooke said.
“He was very quiet, subdued.”
They pulled up at the Hangar in Alice Springs just before midnight.
A few minutes later, detectives appeared for Rolfe.
*****
News of the shooting reached Alice Springs before Rolfe did.
When he arrived at the hospital just after midnight a crowd of Warlpiri people and media were gathered outside.
They pulled into the Ambulance Bay of the Emergency Department and Triage nurse Hannah Dailey let them in through the air-locked doors.
She could hear people outside shouting and was worried they might enter the waiting room so moved Rolfe into a more secure area where she assessed his stab wound.
“He was wearing a bulletproof vest, the wound was outside of the margins of the vest … so further towards his neck,” she later told detectives.
Dailey said Rolfe seemed distracted, as people – including the lawyer that the Northern Territory Police Association had organised – kept calling him.
“He just responded to the questions I’d asked,” she said.
“I needed to elicit what he’d been stabbed with.
“He’d said that he was stabbed with scissors but I hadn’t asked who it was.”
After that, Registered Nurse Rebekah Redden gave Rolfe a tetanus shot.
“There were multiple police officers present. I could see them conducting a photo shoot, removing his clothes for evidence,” Redden said.
Detectives questioned Redden about Rolfe’s demeanour.
“I thought he was very level-headed,” she told them.
Senior Doctor Kerrie Veiling also assessed him.
“His main thing was he wanted a Tetanus shot and then really to get home,” she told detectives.
“He didn’t tell me the full details and we didn’t ask about the full details of the incident.
“He just said he was involved in the incident at Yuendumu and that’s all we knew.”
*****
About 1.30am on Sunday November 10, the TRG landed in Yuendumu.
Soon after, investigators from Alice Springs arrived and started interviewing the remaining IRT members.
The detectives told those involved that Walker’s death had been declared a ‘death in custody’ so had to obtain audio statutory declarations from all of them.
The officers involved were offered the opportunity to contact lawyers, but none did.
They had no idea that by the end of that day, senior police would be contemplating a murder charge.
–
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