Kumanjayi Walker inquest: Police chose culture above safety for teenager

A senior NT policeman has admitted that while it ‘did not sit well’ with him, he made the ‘painstaking’ decision to elevate ‘cultural sensitivities’ above the safety of Kumanjayi Walker’s girlfriend.

Kumanjayi Walker and Rickisha Robertson.

A senior Northern Territory ­policeman has admitted that while it “did not sit well” with him, he made the “painstaking” decision to elevate “cultural sensitivities” above the safety of Kumanjayi Walker’s girlfriend by allowing the Indigenous teenager to remain free for days to attend a funeral.

The first month of the coronial inquest into Walker’s death has frequently heard the premise that Walker fled custody in late 2019 to attend his great uncle’s funeral at remote Yuendumu and that he had a significant role to play there.

Counsel assisting the coroner, Peggy Dwyer, said during the ­inquest’s opening in Alice Springs that Walker fled the Central Australian Aboriginal Alcohol Programs Unit on ­October 29 that year to attend the funeral.

“Your Honour, it would subsequently become clear that Kumanjayi left CAAAPU at that time because there was important sorry business being scheduled in Yuendumu,” she said.

However, Walker’s girlfriend Rickisha Robertson has previously told The Australian that she and Walker did not attend the funeral on November 9, 2019.  “We went for a walk,” she said.

“Only thing, he was crying out for gunja. He was going to his family to ask them (for gunja).”

Senior Aboriginal community policeman Derek Williams and Walker’s cousin Samara Fernandez-Brown have both told the ­inquest they did not see Walker at the burial.

In early 2020 Ms Robertson said that Walker had escaped from CAAAPU because other girls – who the Australian has decided not to name – encouraged him to flee.

“The girls who were talking to him (told him) to run away from CAAAPU,” she said.

Constable Zachary Rolfe fatally shot Walker during an arrest at the outback community northwest of Alice Springs on the evening of November 9, 2019, after the 19-year-old stabbed him in the shoulder with a pair of scissors.

Earlier this year a jury found the policeman not guilty of all charges related to Walker’s death.

Ms Robertson also told The Australian that she did not believe Walker had stabbed police before he was shot, although the fact he did has never been disputed as Walker gripping a bloodstained pair of scissors was captured on the officers’ body-worn cameras.

“I know because I’m the one who saw him walking and he didn’t have anything in his hand,” she said.

“Not even scissors. Not even a knife. He was just walking. He was just really stoned and he doesn’t know what he is doing when he is stoned.”

The first four weeks of the inquest in Alice Springs has exposed the position NT Police often finds itself in, having to dance between respecting Aboriginal culture and fulfilling its duty to enforce the law and maintain community safety.

Barrister Andrew Boe – representing the Walker, Lane and Robertson families – has put to all police witnesses so far that Walker’s arrest was “non-urgent” ­because Walker was not a threat to the community.

But Superintendent Jody Nobbs this week told Coroner ­Elisabeth Armitage that when Walker fled from CAAAPU “safety concerns loomed large in my mind” for Ms Robertson.

On November 6 Walker threatened two police officers with an axe when they tried to arrest him. The next day, Yuendumu officer in charge Julie Frost learned that a funeral was planned for the weekend.

Despite their fears for Ms Robertson, Sergeant Frost and Superintendent Nobbs hatched a plan for elder Eddie Robertson to surrender Walker after the funeral.

“We actually bounced backwards and forwards quite substantially around the pros and cons of both and the risks inherent within it, as it relates to Rickisha, and we reached a consensus that we would place greater weight on the cultural sensitivities and the impending funeral,” Superintendent Nobbs told the court.

“It didn’t sit well with me and I wasn’t comfortable, notwithstanding that I elevated the cultural sensitivities over the safety issues, but it just didn’t sit well with me at all.

“I drew a line in the sand that once the funeral … occurred, that’s when the surrender was going to take place and the subsequent ­arrest.”

Superintendent Nobbs said police were duty-bound to detain Walker as soon as possible but were also trying to be “culturally respectful”. “There were ultimately five things that were concerning me, but if I had to elevate one over the others it was the Rickisha safety concern in my mind,” he said.

“They were such a challenging couple and it just did not sit well with me in terms of the fact that he continued to be at large, notwithstanding it was for a genuine bona fide cultural reason.”

The inquest will resume on ­October 10.