A police officer involved in the attempt to arrest Kumanjayi Walker before his death has told a court he was “surprised” other officers had not used their guns when the Warlpiri man threatened them with an axe during a seperate incident days earlier.
Remote Sgt Adam Eberl was the other officer in the room when Constable Zachary Rolfe shot dead Walker on 9 November 2019 in the remote community of Yuendumu, about 300km from Alice Springs.
On Tuesday, Eberl started his evidence in Rolfe’s murder trial in the Northern Territory supreme court.
He said that on the day of the shooting, when he, Rolfe, and two other officers were preparing to depart Alice Springs, the group watched footage of a previous incident involving Walker which had occurred on 6 November 2019.
During that incident, Walker rushed at two Yuendumu-based officers with a small axe. The court has previously heard this incident was one of several factors that led to the Yuendumu deployment of Rolfe and the other officers from the Immediate Response Team (IRT), which had been trained to arrest dangerous targets.
Eberl said that, after watching the footage, he remarked to the other officers he was surprised the two local police who had been threatened with the axe had not used their firearm. Later in his evidence, he clarified that “I said, ‘Wow, I’m surprised they didn’t use the firearm’.”
Eberl said he was not angry at what had occurred during the axe incident. He could not recall Rolfe making any comment about it, or mentioning what he would do if threatened with a weapon by Walker.
On Tuesday, the court was again shown footage from Eberl’s body-worn camera of the moments immediately before the shooting.
It shows Eberl and Rolfe entering a property known as House 511 at about 7.20pm. Eberl agreed he suspected Walker was inside, because of information police had been given by community members only minutes earlier, but said he and Rolfe had not had any discussion about what they would do if Walker confronted them with a weapon.
Eberl described the lighting in House 511 as very poor, and said he switched on his torch. Soon after the officers entered they saw Walker walking towards them.
Eberl was asked a series of questions by Philip Strickland SC, the crown prosecutor, about his recollections of these moments immediately before the shooting. Eberl told the court he noticed Walker was trying to walk past the officers, but he did not notice him putting his hands in his pockets.
He agreed he had been trained to ask suspects to show them their hands, but that he did not do it on this occasion, and that he had been trained that weapons could be hidden in hats.
Eberl said that at this time he did not consider Walker to be dangerous, did not consider withdrawing from the house and setting a cordon or the need to put distance between himself or Walker, and did not consider grabbing Walker by an arm or both arms or the need to gain physical control of him.
The officers were about 2m from the only door to the property when they came across Walker, Eberl said.
Strickland told the court in the prosecution opening earlier this month that soon after the officers confronted Walker, he stabbed Rolfe with a pair of scissors.
Eberl has not yet given evidence about the critical moments in which Rolfe shot Walker, and his evidence is expected to continue on Wednesday.
Strickland says Rolfe then shot Walker once while he and Eberl were standing about a metre away. This shot is not subject to any charges. Prosecutors say Walker then fell or was wrestled to the ground by Eberl, and the pair struggled on a mattress which was on the floor of House 511.
The prosecution alleges Rolfe then walked across the room to the pair, placed his left hand on Eberl’s back, extended his right hand until the barrel of his handgun was within 15cm of Walker’s body, and pulled the trigger twice more. It is the second and third shots which are subject to the murder charge.
Rolfe has pleaded not guilty, with one of his barristers, David Edwardson QC, saying the officer acted within his training as he feared for his safety and that of Eberl when he fired the shots.
Strickland has previously told the court the prosecution alleges Eberl, a larger man than Walker, was in control of him at the time Rolfe fired the second and third shots, a claim that the defence disputes.
Eberl was not questioned on Tuesday about wrestling with Walker, but gave evidence that he had more than a decade of experience in a variety of martial arts disciplines including jujitsu, kung fu and aikido, that he was 184cm tall, and that at the time of the shooting he weighed about 95kg.
