How a coroner’s inquiry into a police shooting uncovered a culture of racism in the ranks

Zachary Rolfe only wore a Northern Territory police uniform for three years, but the impact he left on the force — and the community — will be felt for generations.

WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the name and image of an Indigenous person who has died, used with the permission of their family.

The former officer killed 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker in a remote community 300 kilometres from Alice Springs, in November 2019.

Exactly how Kumanjayi Walker died has never been in question.

Zachary Rolfe fired three shots during an attempt to arrest the Warlpiri-Luritja man, after Mr Walker stabbed Mr Rolfe in the shoulder with a pair of scissors.

Four days later, the then-officer was charged with murder.

In 2022, an NT Supreme Court jury acquitted him, after it found he acted in self-defence and in line with his police training.

In her inquest, coroner Elisabeth Armitage was never seeking to just determine what happened on the night of the shooting, but how and why Kumanjayi Walker and Zachary Rolfe ended up face-to-face in a dark room of House 511 in Yuendumu.

She described what she uncovered in the process as “deeply disturbing”, after examining allegations of racism, cover-ups and excessive use of force within the NT police ranks – which went well beyond junior constable Rolfe.

Yuendumu on November 9, 2019

Zachary Rolfe and his Immediate Response Team (IRT) colleagues were deployed from Alice Springs to Yuendumu.

The officers told the coroner they were under the impression they were required to track down and arrest a 19-year-old man, who had cut off his ankle bracelet and fled from rehab to the community.

Other senior police said that was only part of their assignment — the other was to provide respite to overworked local officers.

Kumanjayi Walker – who had days earlier confronted local police with an axe, when they attempted to arrest him – was in community for funeral ceremonies, in breach of a court order.

The coroner heard conflicting evidence about a “plan” to effect the safe arrest of Mr Walker — and she will be tasked with making findings about what should have happened to prevent the tragedy of his arrest just after sunset on November 9, 2019.

There were no health staff in the community — they had evacuated due to their own safety concerns — so after having been shot three times, Mr Walker was taken to the police station where ill-equipped officers did everything they could to save his life.

Outside, his family waited in the dark.

No one told them he had died until the next morning.

A culture of racism

The coroner was privy to a brief much larger than the one shown to the NT Supreme Court during Mr Rolfe’s murder trial, and evidence the criminal court ruled inadmissible was accessible to the 16 interested parties at the inquest.

It meant a trove of private text messages from Mr Rolfe’s phone were made public and previous use-of-force incidents were examined.

Evidence of the use of racist and homophobic language among even senior police officers was clear.

As the inquiry continued, a major question hung over the courtroom: was Zachary Rolfe an exception to the rule, or a product of his environment?

He told the coroner it was the latter – then brought evidence to prove it.

After spending the better part of two years filing legal challenges and appeals to avoid answering certain questions, the former officer finally took his seat in the witness box and then turned on a police force which he felt had turned on him, long ago.

“Racist language was normalised in the NT Police Force,” Mr Rolfe told the court.

“In the muster room … I could hear something racist every day.”