‘The wails of my family’s cries still haunt me’: Kumanjayi Walker’s cousin tells inquest

Samara Fernandez-Brown has told an inquest Kumanjayi Walker’s family is still traumatised after Zachary Rolfe shot him dead in a remote Indigenous community.

Warlpiri elder Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves arrives at Alice Springs Local Court. Picture: Jason Walls

Community members have told an inquiry they were terrified as they waited outside a police station on the night a police officer shot a man dead in a remote Indigenous community.

On the first day of the coronial inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker, his cousin Samara Fernandez-Brown said his family was still traumatised by his death in Yuendumu on November 9, 2019.

“The wails of my family’s cries still haunt me,” she told Coroner Elisabeth Armitage. “The images of devastation, of pain, and most importantly the fear.”

After he was shot, Kumanjayi Walker was taken to the Yuendumu Police Station where officers performed first aid.

Constable Zachary Rolfe shot Walker dead during a botched arrest attempt, after Walker stabbed the police officer in the shoulder with a pair of surgical scissors.

In March, Constable Rolfe, 30, was found not guilty of all charges relating to the shooting, including one of murder.

After he was shot, Walker was taken to the Yuendumu Police Station where officers including Constable Rolfe performed first aid but Walker’s family and other community members were locked out of the building.

“In the dark we waited, pleaded for answers and begged for the smallest amounts of information and we got nothing,” Ms Fernandez-Brown said. “Kumanjayi died in Yuendumu that night. He was 19 years old. I imagine he was in pain, he was scared and he was robbed of comfort.

“His family gathered metres away from him yet we were all robbed of the opportunity to say goodbye. I can’t imagine any circumstance where this was acceptable or excusable.”

Ms Fernandez-Brown said since his death, Walker’s life had been picked apart by people who did not know him.

Samara Fernandez-Bron speaks to the media during a press conference outside the Alice Springs Local Court in Alice Springs in December 2019. Picture: AAP Image

She asked Ms Armitage to “give us the truth, not a sample of the truth or what you want us to hear … We are past the point of asking for change, we have an opportunity before us to action change.”.

Counsel assisting the coroner, Peggy Dwyer, detailed Walker’s upbringing after he was born at Alice Springs Hospital in October 2000. He was admitted to hospital several times as a baby and had been diagnosed with failure-to-thrive when he was eight months.

In June 2001, he was placed in the care of Leanne Oldfield, his ­father’s domestic partner.

His father moved to Western Australia and died in 2005. His biological mother died in 2012.

Dr Dwyer told the inquest Ms Oldfield had been the victim of serious domestic violence by a subsequent partner, much of which Walker had witnessed. “I say that not to shame anybody but to understand what it was like for Kumanjayi and the challenges he had even though there was a lot of love there,” she said. “The early exposure to violence and alcohol had a negative impact on Kumanjayi and may have affected his cognitive development.”

In March, Zachary Rolfe, 30, was found not guilty of all charges relating to the shooting, including one of murder. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Walker lived in Katherine between the ages of 4 and 11 where he attended MacFarlane Primary School before moving to Yuendumu. He suffered learning difficulties and hearing issues and spent just one year in school at Yuendumu. By the age of 13, he was struggling with substance abuse and starting to commit crimes – mostly property offences.

Walker had spent more than 890 days in custody between in 13th birthday and the day he was shot dead.

Constable Rolfe was one of four members of an NT Police Immediate Response Team sent to arrest Walker, who’d chased two local police officers out of a house with an axe when they tried to apprehend him three days earlier.

The inquest is expected to hear from up to 100 police witnesses and another 100 civilian witnesses over the next three months.

Ms Armitage said the inquest would examine what policing looked like in Yuendumu.

“Are there examples of policing where the risk of this type of confrontation can be minimised or even avoided altogether,” she said.

On Friday, the inquiry will hear legal argument after Constable Rolfe’s lawyers objected to 13 of the 54 issues due to be explored at the inquest.

The hearing continues.

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Matt Cunningham is the Sky News Northern Australia Correspondent