“We’re here to grab [Kumanjayi] up.”
That was the introduction of constable Zachary Rolfe into the lives of the Yuendumu community members four years ago. He was outside house 511 in the remote central Australian Aboriginal town, four hours drive north-west of Alice Springs, on a Saturday evening in November 2019.
Zachary Rolfe leaves the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory in Darwin after an appearance in 2019.Credit: AAP
What followed in the minutes after, which resulted in the shooting death of a young Walpiri man who would come to be known as Kumanjayi Walker, was interrogated in the Northern Territory coronial court this week, with Rolfe seated in the witness box.
Over five days of testimony emerged an alarming insight into the policing methods of officers on the ground in central Australia at the time – their viewpoints on the job, station culture and professional standards.
The complex issues and cultural sensitivities that arise in policing largely Indigenous communities were also cast in vivid light over the marathon examination, as was the disposition and general attitude of Rolfe.
The goal was to arrest Kumanjayi Walker, transport him to Alice Springs and “provide a local presence of armed police to uphold law and order in the community and provide support to local members”, coroner Elisabeth Armitage heard.
The township of Yuendumu was in sorry business, a period of highly charged emotions in any Indigenous community.
Walker, 19, who had been eluding police arrest – and had been characterised by Alice Springs police as a “high-risk offender... extremely violent [and] willing to use potentially lethal weapons against police” – was present in the community.
A regional unit known as the Immediate Response Team (IRT), containing Rolfe and four other officers, was deployed to Yuendumu from Alice Springs. The IRT team was not full-time and would get called up from general duties. Members had received specialist training for high-risk jobs.
“It’s a sweet gig, just get to do cowboy stuff with no rules,” Rolfe explained to a former army mate in a text message provided as evidence to the coronial inquest. Rolfe arrived at the local police station ahead of other members of the IRT and met with Yuendumu officer-in-charge, Sergeant Julie Frost, who had made the support request, the inquest heard.
The remote community of Yuendumu in central Australia.Credit: Alamy
According to evidence previously heard by coroner Armitage, Frost had devised and distributed via email an arrest plan that involved working with members of Walker’s family to safely detain him at 5am the next morning.
However, after Rolfe learnt that Frost did not know where Walker would be at 5am, he told the inquest this week that he “took a leadership role”, advising his superior officer how the IRT would go about apprehending Walker.
“You assumed, didn’t you, that you had more tactical experience and skill than Sergeant Frost?” counsel assisting the coroner, Dr Peggy Dwyer SC asked Rolfe on Wednesday.
“Yes,” he responded.
Dwyer asked: “So you took charge of that briefing, did you? In your words, ‘the absence of other leadership, or a leadership vacuum’, I think you said?”
Rolfe responded: “No, I believe at that point I’ve had the discussion with Julie Frost and informed her how IRT would usually go about business in this scenario. And she agreed that that was a good way in which to handle this situation.”
CCTV footage taken from inside the Yuendumu police station at around 7pm shows the bulk of the IRT team members, including Rolfe, heading out into the community with a map of select houses and carrying high-powered tactical assault rifles.
After visiting the first house identified on the map provided in Frost’s original arrest plan, entering the premises without explicit permission from the resident Eddie Robertson, and with Rolfe “releasing the retention device on [his] Glock” sidearm, the heavily armed group of constables drove to a nearby street containing house 511, according to evidence heard.
Numerous police officers from commanders to assistant commissioners, including Senior Sergeant Meacham King, provided evidence to the inquest after watching body-worn video of the search of Robertson’s home. They said what Rolfe and the now disbanded IRT did was “not gathering intel”.
Also interrogated across the week were over half a dozen complaints and internal reviews against Rolfe in the years and months leading up to November 2019 for alleged incidents of excessive use of force.
The inquiry was provided with police body-worn camera footage of some of the alleged incidents. In one of the videos referred to as the Araluen Park video, Rolfe violently pushes two elderly inebriated Aboriginal men to the ground in an Alice Springs park, and refuses to allow them to stand to answer questions from the police officers attending.
According to evidence heard at the inquest, one of the elderly men required urgent medical attention for heart-related complications after the incident.
The coroner also heard how that video footage and numerous others were often copied by Rolfe from his body-worn camera using his personal telephone and then shared with colleagues at Alice Springs police station – as well as sent in text and social media messages to friends.
Despite the repeated complaints, there were never any findings made against Rolfe and he and others present at these incidents only ever received “remedial advice” from their superiors.
Later in the week, under questioning from Phillip Boulten SC who was representing the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, Rolfe agreed that the vast majority of serving NT Police officers thought, and continued to think “in private”, that his policing methods were “above average”.
Boulten examined Rolfe’s extent of cultural awareness, asking him if he knew who the traditional owners of Mwpartne/Alice Springs were. Rolfe declined to respond because he was worried he would pronounce Arrernte incorrectly.
He admitted to not understanding the concept of Country, songlines, Indigenous kinship systems, or funerary rites like sorry business. Rolfe said he never received any cultural awareness training before being posted to Alice Springs police station.
The coronial inquest also heard how Rolfe and another IRT member dragged Walker out of house 511 by the arms and drove the fatally wounded man to Yuendumu police station, where Walker struggled for about 60 minutes before dying.
During that period, the IRT squad were advised to perform CPR on Walker by the emergency medical service they radioed. No member of the IRT team did so, the inquest heard.
Outside the police station, as word of the police shooting spread across Yuendumu, the angry and frustrated community gathered in front of the station and began throwing rocks onto its roof. Inside the station, Walker called out for his mother. His requests were refused.
“The option of allowing his family into the station never passed my mind,” Rolfe told the coroner on Friday. “So in lieu of that, all I did was give him – provide him the highest level of comfort that I could provide.”
Boulten asked: “[Do] you accept that that was hardly a humane response to his situation at that point?”
Rolfe responded: “I disagree. I believe our response was extremely humane.”
In a criminal trial that ended in early 2022, Rolfe was found not guilty of murdering Walker after shooting him three times subsequent to Rolfe being stabbed with a pair of scissors.
In early 2023, Rolfe was fired from the NT Police for “serious breaches of discipline during [his] policing career”.
The coronial inquest continues.
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