The Northern Territory Police Commissioner has reacted to "blatantly racist" text message exchanges between Constable Zachary Rolfe and police colleagues, saying he believes the events are "isolated" and officers would be "quite shocked" reading them.
WARNING: This article contains extreme and offensive racist language heard in court and the image of an Aboriginal person who has died, with the permission of their family.
During the inquest into the death of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker, the coroner's court on Wednesday heard several text message exchanges between police officers, with references to "n***as", "c**ns, and "Neanderthals".
In one exchange, Constable Rolfe said he "likes" to "towel locals up", which the coroner heard meant "beat people up".
Mr Walker died in 2019 after he was shot three times by Constable Rolfe during an attempted arrest in the remote community of Yuendumu.
Constable Rolfe was found not guilty of all charges in relation to the shooting.
Commissioner Jamie Chalker said police officers would be "shocked" by the messages and it "would have come as news to them".
"You can appreciate that I think this is isolated and that's what we’re trying to make sure is the case," he told ABC Radio Darwin.
"You have to appreciate that those text messages and the people who are involved in those are all witnesses forthcoming in the coronial inquest so I’m very limited in what I can say in that regard.
"Those types of views aren't ones that we tolerate."
During the inquest on Wednesday, lawyers for police reminded the coroner the texts were a "modest number" that shouldn't be indicative of the "entire" force.
Commissioner Chalker said work was underway "reforming our police force and challenging culture", making reference to Aboriginal Liaison Officers in the force.
He said while he believed the views expressed in the texts were isolated, active work had been done since 2019 to mitigate that type of conduct.
"[The text messages were sent in] 2019, I think it's now starting to give people an insight into the legacy I’ve inherited," he said.
"And it goes to all the work we've been doing to try to overcome some of those things and try to make ourselves better.
"I trust the public have seen that we've acted in the best interests of them and all of our people, to make sure our employees are working in a workplace that is free of that type of behaviour."
Walker's family says 'racist remarks' cannot be tolerated
Yuendumu Warlpiri elder Elizabeth Katakrinja said she was pleased the text messages had been made public.
"It really hurts all the family members, and community after what has been done to our people and to find out what some people are calling us," she said.
Simon Fisher from the Parrumpurru Committee added that "these text messages are derogatory, bigotry, racist propaganda … we are human beings and we cannot tolerate racist people and their racist remarks".
Mr Walker's cousin, Samara Fernandez-Brown, called for a separate investigation into the text exchanges.
"It begs the question, why did they [officers] feel so comfortable expressing those attitudes?" she said.
"One would assume it is because those attitudes may be accepted, or at least go undisciplined."
Lawyers for Constable Rolfe and the Northern Territory Police raised objections to the messages being put to Sergeant Anne Jolley – who is the officer in charge of the Yuendumu police station - in court, without the "full context" of the "private messages".
Officer hasn't seen 'systemic racism' in police force
During the inquest on Thursday, Sergeant Jolley told Constable Zachary Rolfe's lawyer, David Edwardson KC, that she had never perceived "systemic racism" in the force.
She said she has never heard "patently racist" language used by her fellow officers, even when confronted with "the most violent offenders".
Under questioning from Mr Edwardson about whether "race or colour" had ever contributed to her decisions to use force, she said, "no, it's an incident that you're responding to, so it's not about the colour of the person, it's about what's happening".
The coroner heard concerns raised by North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency's counsel, Phillip Boulten SC that it would be "completely misleading" to consider the text messages the work of "bad apples" in the NT police.
"It would be a completely misleading approach if you were to ignore other evidence that suggests there are a lot of people in the police who have similar views," he said.
Coroner Elisabeth Armitage said: "Given Sergeant Jolley's reputation it is quite possible that certain views and attitudes that may or may not be held would not be shared with Sergeant Jolley or spoken of in front of Sergeant Jolley."
Review into force 'not a good use of resources'
Commissioner Chalker this morning also rejected calls for an independent inquiry into the Northern Territory Police force, following a union survey which found a majority of officers involved "do not have confidence" in his leadership.
He told ABC Radio Darwin a review would not be a good use of resources considering 80 per cent of the force's budget is spent on personnel.
"We have plenty of work going on and we can’t be undertaking a review with treasury, a lot of this links down to our budget and our budget constraints," he said.
"Government [is] keen for us to maintain our numbers and we continue to advocate every year to continue to see an increase in those numbers.
"The work we are doing is very transparent."
Mr Chalker said he thought a "belief" of the need for greater resources played a part in the low morale, and that he had put forward suggestions for initiatives to the NT Government
"That's why I continue to advocate, but I'm limited in what I can say: whatever I put forward to cabinet is cabinet-in-confidence," he said.
"Our demand environment has grown, there’s no great secret in that."
