A Northern Territory judge found constable Zachary Rolfe lied about a violent arrest that left a man unconscious and gave evidence that “lacked credibility” and parts of which were “pure fabrication” in a criminal case before he was involved in the shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker.
In November 2019, Rolfe shot Walker three times during an attempted arrest in the remote community of Yuendumu. He was found not guilty of murder and two alternative charges earlier this month after he argued that he had acted to protect his safety and that of his colleague after Walker had stabbed him with scissors.
In an unrelated matter in 2018, Indigenous man Malcolm Ryder was charged with hindering Rolfe in executing his duties as a police officer and unlawfully assaulting Rolfe following an incident at Ryder’s house in Alice Springs.
But a judge dismissed the charges against Ryder and found his version of events – that Rolfe had punched him in the face and then slammed his head into the ground, leaving him unconscious and in a pool of blood during the arrest – was the “more likely” version of how the injuries occurred than the evidence provided by Rolfe.
At Ryder’s trial in the Alice Springs local court, the court heard Rolfe and five other officers had attended Ryder’s house after a report of a disturbance and sought to arrest his stepson. Ryder was alleged to have interfered in this attempt by attacking police. The stepson was not charged with any offence.
But in May 2019, Judge Greg Borchers found Ryder not guilty, and strongly criticised Rolfe’s evidence in an Alice Springs local court decision that can now be reported after the lifting of a suppression order made during Rolfe’s trial in the Walker matter.
Borchers said in his decision that Rolfe and another constable “blandly stated” in their statutory declarations that the stepson had been arrested “but that’s not what happened”.
Instead, Borchers said the stepson had been found hiding by Rolfe, and was then punched by another officer while Rolfe and other colleagues tried to arrest him.
“This was a violent arrest on a man lying on the floor trying to hide. He was punched and had two police officers place their knees into his back.” Rolfe was not one of those officers.
According to Borchers’ decision, Ryder said in his evidence that after police entered the house and told him to leave they had found his stepson inside.
“I heard Bentley screaming while I was outside; a crying type of noise. I went inside because I wanted to tell the police not to get rough,” Ryder said.
Borchers said Ryder agreed he was angry when he ran back into the house. Borchers found that the interactions Ryder and his partner had with Rolfe and two colleagues prior to this had been “less than civil” as each officer had been “rude” to them.
“They had reason to believe from what they’d heard and what they’d seen that [the stepson] was being roughly dealt with,” Borchers said.
“When they entered their home and arrived at the back bedroom there were five police officers in that room and [the stepson] had already been handcuffed and was under control.”
Borchers found that Ryder and his partner were in the rear bedroom, where the stepson had been arrested, for four seconds. During that time they were sprayed with OC spray by one of Rolfe’s colleagues.
Two of the officers in the room said Ryder and his partner were aggressive and shouting loudly when they entered the room. According to evidence referred to by Borchers, one officer said he saw a phone being thrown at police, and another believed a phone was about to be thrown at him.
Borchers said that in Rolfe’s statutory declaration he referred to seeing Ryder holding a phone in his right hand, raise both hands in a fighting stance, and throw a number of punches at a colleague before Ryder was sprayed with OC spray. Rolfe said the spray seemed to have no effect on Ryder and he kept trying to strike the officer.
Rolfe gave similar evidence in court, but said that Ryder had left the room as soon as the spray was deployed, though he did not appear affected by it.
Another officer gave similar evidence to Rolfe, Borchers found.
Ryder agreed in his evidence that his action in entering the bedroom quickly and yelling “hey” was aggressive and that he was holding his phone when he entered the bedroom.
Borchers said he could “not accept” the evidence of Rolfe or another officer that they had seen Ryder throwing punches, given two other officers had not seen them, and they were not captured on body-worn video.
“Constable Rolfe and [the other officer’s] evidence is wrong and is a pure fabrication,” Borchers found.
He also found that Ryder did not throw his phone at police, and that police had been warned he was coming.
“The mere entry into a bedroom in their own home and calling out ‘Hey’ does not within those first four second[s] constitute a hindrance of police,” Borchers said.
Borchers said that after Ryder left the bedroom there was a 27-second period which was not captured on body-worn camera footage. When Ryder is seen again, he is being handcuffed while facedown on the lounge room floor.
Ryder said that after leaving the bedroom he could not see from the OC spray.
He said he was grabbed by the collar at the back of his neck by a police officer and was then pushed roughly to the ground, before he was punched to the left eyebrow. He said he then turned away and the police officer then grabbed his hair and pushed his head into the floor.
“He didn’t remember anything after that as he was rendered unconscious,” Borchers said.
“His next memory was being decontaminated by having water poured over his face; being taken to hospital by ambulance and having three stitches applied to the cut above his left eye and 13 stitches applied to the cut above his right eye.”
Rolfe said that once Ryder left the bedroom he threw his mobile phone at him and another officer, and then punched him in the face, causing “immediate pain” to his forehead.
He said he and another officer then tackled Ryder to the floor and attempted to gain control of him, but Ryder then scratched his right forearm and attempted to scratch his face.
“I was fearful that he was going to gouge my eyes and in order to defend myself I struck him once on the left side of the face with my closed right fist,” Rolfe said.
“This gained subject compliance and Ryder stopped fighting.”
He said he and a colleague then arrested Ryder.
In court, Rolfe said Ryder had swung punches wildly at him, as he had done in the bedroom.
No other witnesses supported this, Borchers said.
Borchers said only Rolfe gave evidence it was he and another officer that tackled Ryder and brought him to ground, as the other officer said this did not happen.
He said Rolfe was also the only person to give evidence that Ryder tried to scratch him, and that another officer had only seen Ryder’s arm raised. He noted Ryder had said he had his arms up to his head because of the OC spray.
“I find that Constable Rolfe’s evidence lacks credibility. He lied. He has lied in a statutory declaration about what happened in the bedroom,” Borchers said.
“Nobody can say how Malcolm Ryder was knocked out but him.”
Borchers said Rolfe had surmised that Ryder may have hit his head while being tackled to the ground. He said if that was the case it is likely he was unconscious when Rolfe punched him. However, it was more likely he said Ryder was punched first to the left eyebrow by Rolfe’s right fist and then he received the injury to his right eyebrow when his head was pushed into the floor.
He said that “how the injuries occurred and in what sequence of events is more likely than not to be in the manner consistent with Malcolm Ryder’s evidence”.
Two breach of bail matters regarding Ryder were withdrawn by the prosecution immediately after Borchers delivered his decision.
