Zachary Rolfe hearing: Seconds at heart of fatal shots

The 2.6 seconds between the first and second of three gunshots that allegedly killed Kumanjayi Walker may decide if Constable Zachary Rolfe faces trial.

Constable Zachary Rolfe. Picture: Andrew Taylor

What happened in the 2.6 seconds between the first and second of three gunshots that allegedly killed Kumanjayi Walker may make all the difference in deciding whether Constable Zachary Rolfe has to face a jury charged with murder.

On the final day of evidence in the policeman’s committal hearing, Alice Springs Local Court was told just 78 frames of body-worn video footage elapsed between the firing of one shot that may have been justifiable and two more that may not.

Lawyers and witnesses spent hours poring over those critical moments, arguing about how fast or slowly the injuries that ultimately killed Walker disabled him and for how long a 10cm pair of medical scissors in his right hand remained a potentially lethal threat.

The court heard the first gunshot rang out eight to 10 seconds after Constable Rolfe identified Walker in a darkened Yuendumu home and asked him to put his hands behind his back.

Officer Zachary Rolfe.

It heard firing once was an appropriate response to Walker, who was at that moment “winning a fight” with Constable Rolfe’s partner, Constable Adam Eberl, and had stabbed Constable Rolfe in the shoulder near an artery. But by 2.6 seconds later when Constable Rolfe allegedly fired again, Constable Eberl had “dropped” Walker to the floor and pinned the teenager’s flailing right arm beneath his body.

Experts testified that Constable Rolfe’s second volley of shots — fired at close range into Walker’s chest — was “excessive, unreasonable and unnecessary”. In those adrenaline-suffused 2.6 seconds when Constable Rolfe might not have known the extent of his injuries, the officer trained to handle difficult situations should have “reassessed” and gone “hands-on” or switched to firing his taser, the court was told.

Witnesses were questioned about a report from Andrew Barram, a detective senior sergeant with 23 years’ experience in the Northern Territory Police Force and attached to its professional standards command unit.

Senior Sergeant Barram laboriously stepped through “enhanced” body-worn video frame by frame to illustrate positions of Kumanjayi Walker’s body that were not obvious from the stock footage. He concluded that once Constable Eberl had pinned Walker on his right side, the scissors in his right hand were no longer dangerous.

Constable Rolfe’s defence barrister, David Edwardson QC, pointed out that Senior Sergeant Barram had no “training or expertise that goes beyond the rest of us mortals” when it came to evaluating video footage. Mr Edwardson also argued the body-worn camera did not show the scissors during the shootings nor reflect Constable Rolfe’s perspective so ought not to be used to infer what he thought.

“They (Rolfe and Eberl) had control of him (Walker),” Senior Sergeant Barram testified. “He (Walker) was face down on the ground, incapable of stabbing anyone, with an officer on top of him and with his arm pinned under him, jammed up by a mattress.”

Another witness, Andrew McIntosh, told the court Walker’s forearm and right hand could have remained free while his upper arm was pinned, but he agreed that Walker was “likely a low threat” at the time of the second and third gunshots.

American sociologist and criminologist Geoffrey Alpert, who had evaluated “hundreds” of police shootings, testified that Constable Rolfe “had the time, the distance and the opportunity to reassess the threat” Walker posed between gunshots and “could very easily” have acted differently the second time.

Judge John Birch adjourned the matter until September 25 when he will hear closing arguments, including a “no-case submission”. Constable Rolfe remains on bail.