Zachary Rolfe, who comes from Canberra, was found not guilty of murdering Kumanjayi Walker. Photo: File
CONTENT WARNING: This article refers to the name of a First Nations person who has died.
A former police officer’s racism may have affected his actions in a remote Northern Territory community before he fatally shot a First Nations teenager, a coroner found at the end of a long-running inquest.
Former Constable Zachary Rolfe, who is from Canberra, was accused of murdering 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker in the small community of Yuendumu on 9 November 2019.
He pleaded not guilty, arguing he acted in self-defence, and a jury acquitted him of all charges following a trial in 2022.
Jurors heard that after Mr Walker stabbed Mr Rolfe in the shoulder with a pair of scissors, Mr Rolfe shot him once before Mr Walker and Remote Sergeant Adam Eberl got into a struggle and ended up on the ground. Mr Rolfe then shot Mr Walker two more times and he later died from his injuries.
In the months after Mr Rolfe’s acquittal, an inquest began into Mr Walker’s death.
Almost three years later, Coroner Elisabeth Armitage returned to Yuendumu on Monday (7 July) to deliver her findings.
“I have found that Mr Rolfe was racist and that there is a risk that this racism affected his interactions with the community of Yuendumu on 9 November 2019, including his entry into their houses and his perception of, and possibly his response to, the young Aboriginal man he shot and killed in a way that increased the likelihood of a fatal outcome,” she said in her published decision.
“It was plain that at the time of Kumanjayi’s death, Mr Rolfe was a 28-year-old man who expressed, and therefore held, attitudes that were racist, sexist and contemptuous of ‘bush cops’ and certain persons in authority who had not earned his respect and who he considered had inferior skills, regardless of their rank.”
However, she did not find he shot Mr Walker because he was motivated by racism.
“Rather, that his racist attitudes may have influenced (consciously or unconsciously) his failure to take adequate steps to minimise the risk of a fatal interaction and his perception of the risk posed,” she said.
She noted two sergeants supposed to be supervising him had joined in his use of racist language and praised his superiority over “bush cops”.
Mr Rolfe had spoken himself about the normalisation of racism in Alice Springs Police Station and the coroner said there was a modest amount of evidence regarding racism in the station.
She found he worked in and was the beneficiary of an organisation with hallmarks of institutional racism.
Coroner Armitage said Mr Walker’s death was avoidable and a case of “officer induced jeopardy”. This is when an officer makes themselves and others vulnerable, creating a situation that justifies deadly force.
“[On] 9 November 2019, [Mr Rolfe] behaved in a way that did not prioritise safety in the arrest of a vulnerable teenager like Kumanjayi,” she said.
An arrest plan was prepared, but rather than follow it, he “deliberately ignored it”. He thought he knew better than a superior, a female “bush cop”, who briefed him on the plan, the coroner said.
“Mr Rolfe believed himself to be a direct, decisive and effective police officer,” Coroner Armitage said.
“The evidence satisfied me that his uses of force were linked to his self-esteem and his self-image (or his ego). He also thought he was a superior, yet under-appreciated, police officer.”
She said these aspects of his personality and beliefs affected his behaviour that day and contributed to the disastrous arrest of Mr Walker.
The coroner said when Mr Rolfe and Sergeant Eberl found Mr Walker in a house, Mr Rolfe ignored his training on minimising risk and placed himself close to Mr Walker in a position where he could not clearly see the latter’s hands.
Coroner Armitage said Mr Rolfe never issued a standard warning before firing his gun and fired the second two rounds into Mr Walker’s chest at close range when the latter was on the ground with Sergeant Eberl on top of him.
She said by mid-2019, NT Police knew Mr Rolfe needed closer supervision as there had been multiple complaints of him using excessive force on First Nations arrest targets. These complaints were, or ought to have been, under investigation.
“It should have been obvious that action was required to minimise the potential risk to the public posed by what appeared to be (at best) Mr Rolfe’s ‘overexuberance’, his tendency to rush in and his reluctance to follow rules,” the coroner said.
“In the absence of appropriate oversight, Mr Rolfe’s tactics were tacitly (and sometimes expressly) approved.”
The coroner made recommendations for the NT Government, NT Health and NT Police Force, including using the case as an example of “officer induced jeopardy” when training new police recruits.
“Kumanjayi’s passing, particularly in the circumstances in which it occurred, is a tragedy for him and for those who knew and loved him,” she said.
Mr Rolfe was dismissed from the NT police in 2023.
"the content of his emails demonstrated a limited understanding of economics, costings and logic."… View