A relative of Kumanjayi Walker has told an inquest she feared for the lives of her family following the 19-year-old’s death and said the shooting had led to deteriorating relations between police and the Aboriginal community.
Walker was shot three times by police officer Const Zachery Rolfe during an attempted arrest in the remote Northern Territory community of Yuendumu in November 2019.
A three-month inquest is examining the events surrounding the Warlpiri man’s death. The inquest is also expected to probe the deployment of the tactical police unit and policies and training around weapons and the use of force.
A jury in March found Rolfe not guilty of murder and two alternative charges earlier this year after a six-week trial in the NT supreme court in Darwin.
Samara Fernandez-Brown, a cousin of Walker, said she began recording and live-streaming on Facebook, at the request of elders, a gathering outside the police station following the attempted arrest in 2019.
She said about a hundred family, friends and community members were waiting outside the police station for hours “desperate” for answers while police officers and the dying Walker were inside the police station.
She said she made the recordings because relatives were concerned about how the community would be depicted by the media.
The series of short videos uploaded to Facebook were shown at the inquest.
“My rationale around doing it was if we don’t, nobody’s going to believe that we were calm outside of the police station, asking for answers,” she told the inquest on Wednesday.
She said community leaders and elders were calm and making sure the situation did not escalate.
“We know that we have to be on our best behaviour … we believe that if there was a reaction, then it could have prompted another shooting.”
She said she feared in particular for the men and boys of Yuendumu when asked by the counsel assisting the coroner, Dr Peggy Dwyer, what she was afraid would happen.
“I was scared for men and boys, I genuinely feared for the lives of my family members,” she told the inquest.
Fernandez-Brown said family and friends believed Walker was being airlifted to receive medical treatment in Alice Springs for his injuries but only later found out his body had remained in the Yuendumu police station.
“That is what all of us were holding onto … I was devastated. I felt sick that he was never on the plane,” she said.
The court heard an aircraft had taken off with the attending paramedics and police officers over concerns about safety after a local nurse was reported to have been hit with a rock and a fire had broken out at the health clinic during the night of Walker’s death.
Asked by Dwyer why she thought that may have happened, Fernandez-Brown said it may have been the result increasing frustrations over a lack of information.
The inquest was told that the night after the shooting there was an increased police presence with patrols and officers with “large guns” in riot gear and camouflaged clothing.
“It wasn’t justified and it was a show of force,” she said.
“To have that reinforcement come in felt so disrespectful and insensitive [when] they were parading around in weaponry that had taken the life of our loved one.”
She told the inquest the Yuendumu community felt there was a lack of “respect and disregard” over Walker and the Yuendumu community because they were Aboriginal.
“A lot of conversations that I have had during and after that concerned systematic racism in the police force,” she said.
“It was a common theme that if this was a kardiya [white person] the treatment would have been vastly different.”
She said in the aftermath of the shooting she now lived with a new “fear” of police that she previously had never experienced.
“It provokes all of those emotions again and it feels like there is a very clear power imbalance in the way they operate in the community,” she said.
Yuendumu police officers are due to give evidence on Wednesday.
