A police officer has told the Northern Territory coroner he "regrets" making an "unprofessional" comment to a member of the Yuendumu community, minutes before Kumanjayi Walker was fatally shot.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains an image of a person who has died, used with the permission of their family.
Then-First Class Constable Adam Eberl was deployed alongside Constable Zachary Rolfe to the community in November 2019, as part of the Immediate Response Team (IRT).
He was struggling with Kumanjayi Walker when Constable Rolfe fired his gun, and has described the 19-year-old's final moments to Coroner Elisabeth Armitage.
Constable Rolfe was earlier this year found not guilty of all charges relating to the death, and a three month inquest into the Mr Walker's death has entered its sixth week.
Sergeant Eberl told the coroner he understood the team's mission was to arrest Kumanjayi Walker, after he brandished an axe at local police three days earlier.
His body worn video, captured minutes before Constable Rolfe would shoot Mr Walker during an attempted arrest, showed Sergeant Eberl speaking to a female member of the Yuendumu community, after she noticed another police officer carrying an AR-15 rifle.
"I'm just figuring out why you have a gun. Why he's got a gun. He's like got it aim[ed] to shoot someone," the woman asks him in the video.
"We don't have a holster for that one, so we have to carry it … Someone probably shouldn't run at police with an axe, hey?" Sergeant Eberl replies.
Under questioning from counsel assisting the coroner, Dr Peggy Dwyer, the officer conceded police "don't normally walk around any communities in Australia carrying an AR-15".
Dr Dwyer told the coroner an early coronial report into Mr Walker's death found the comment to be "entirely inappropriate" and "suggested retaliatory policing".
The officer agreed the comment and display of the gun "might look like police were there to retaliate for [the axe incident]".
Sergeant Eberl told the coroner "in hindsight" the comment was "not required" and he should have been more "empathetic".
"If I saw her, I'd apologise for saying that, and it would have been a little bit scary for her children," he said.
Officer not aware of arrest plan
Sergeant Eberl also told the coroner it was not clear to him who had been the officer in charge of the response team mission to Yuendumu on November 9 2019, but said he received a "little bit of a briefing" from Constable Rolfe prior to the team leaving Alice Springs.
The coroner heard despite an email being sent to the IRT, including then-Constable Eberl, he was not aware of an arrest plan crafted by local Yuendumu police and approved by superior officers that dictated the response team was not supposed to start work until 11pm that night.
Mr Walker was shot just after 7pm that evening, shortly after the officers arrived in the community.
Sergeant Eberl told the coroner he would have wanted to know about the plan and would not have wilfully disobeyed orders, if he'd known they existed.
"You have to follow orders," he said.
Knowledge of Mr Walker's health conditions 'crucial'
The officer's knowledge of Mr Walker also came under scrutiny, as the coroner heard Sergeant Eberl had not been made aware the 19-year had difficulty hearing and likely suffered from foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).
"Given your experience as a police officer, particularly with youth engagement, that somebody who has who is suffering from FASD may well have problems with impulse control?" Dr Dwyer said.
"Definitely," Sergeant Eberl said.
He further agreed with Dr Dwyer that knowing this information would have been "crucial" to effectively planning an arrest, however this information had not been communicated.
"You would probably try and get the family members to assist you with trying to put together a plan to mitigate the risks, so they're going to have less anxiety," Sergeant Eberl told the coroner.
Barbecue after shooting was a 'debrief', Sergeant Eberl says
The coroner also heard further information about a barbecue hosted at Constable Rolfe's house after the shooting and included officers involved in the incident.
It was held before Constable Rolfe gave his official version of events to police.
Dr Dwyer told the court a police-commissioned report into the shooting was critical of the event, and found it violated a requirement that officers involved in use-of-force investigations be separated to prevent them from contaminating each other's evidence.
Sergeant Eberl told the coroner he did not know about this rule and believed the event was supposed to be a "debrief" to support officer's "mental health".
"The debrief wasn't really a debrief … it was changed, I think, to Zach's house," he said.
The court heard he had never been told it was important for him to isolate himself from the other officers involved in the shooting.
Sergeant Eberl met with elders over incident
Following Mr Walker's death, Sergeant Eberl took on a remote sergeant role in the communities of Arlparra and Ampilatwatja, three hundred kilometres north-east of Alice Springs.
On Monday, the coroner heard the communities held concerns about his association with the shooting, because they feared "that sort of thing" could happen again.
In response, Sergeant Eberl met with elders in both communities to explain his "involvement in the incident."
"In community when someone's being questioned by community members for something they might have done that's questionable, they often present in front of the community members in a meeting of elders," he told the court.
"Out of respect to the community I also did the same thing."
Coroner Elisabeth Armitage heard the communities retired to consider his explanation before telling the officer they "accepted him" and "were happy to keep him there".
He told the court the meetings resulted in a stronger relationship between himself and the community.
"We could all learn from what the community in Ampilatwatja has suggested," he told the coroner.
