The jury ultimately believed the NT police officer’s account of the killing of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker. But while the trial is over, many matters remain unresolved
Speaking after the verdict, members of Kumanjayi Walker’s family have called for police guns to be banned in rural communities.Speaking after the verdict, members of Kumanjayi Walker’s family have called for police guns to be banned in rural communities.Derek Williams was beside a grave in Yuendumu when he heard the news. He had just buried his uncle.supreme court last month.
Walker rushed out of a bedroom with a small axe held high above his head, threatening the officers, before fleeing.“Next time he does that, he might get shot,” one of the officers, senior constable first class Christopher Hand, told Lottie Robertson, Rickisha’s grandmother, when he returned.At 3pm the next day, in Alice Springs, Rolfe started his shift. He checked his emails, and noticed a report about the so-called axe incident in Yuendumu.
Later that day, Rolfe and other officers on the general duties roster decided to search a house in Warlpiri camp, Alice Springs, where Walker had been known to stay. Walker also said he never wanted to hurt anyone during the axe incident, but just wanted to escape the house, and told Williams he wanted to be arrested after the funeral “because he knew that he was in trouble”.
McCormack was in the process of rounding up people to deploy to Yuendumu, after Frost’s request had been approved. Rolfe arrived in Yuendumu with constable James Kirstenfeldt about 6.30pm, and introduced himself to Frost. The other officers were all in the station together within half an hour. The officers drive to houses 518 and 511, which are next to each other, on the other side of the Yuendumu football oval from house 577.
After a quick comparison, Rolfe is convinced he has his man. He asks Walker to put his hands behind his back. But he has not noticed Walker’s right hand reaching into his pocket for a pair of scissors. Rolfe puts his left hand on Eberl’s lower back. He extends his right arm so that the barrel of his gun is within five centimetres of Walker. And he pulls the trigger twice more.
Rolfe was charged in relation to the second and third shots. The second was fired 2.6 seconds after the first, and the third 0.5 seconds later.It was therefore not surprising that the body-worn camera footage of the shooting was played countless times in real time, slow-motion and frame-by-frame. In real time, the sound of the incident boomed through court room two of the NT supreme court.
He also wanted to portray Rolfe, who spent five years in the army, applied to join the SAS, and paid for his own private security course in the US to “upskill” himself with weapons and tactical training prior to joining the NT police, as someone who sought out “direct action” jobs, such as the arrest of high-risk targets like Walker.
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