A police officer charged with the murder of an Aboriginal man has been called to give evidence in his own trial.
Constable Zachary Rolfe has begun giving evidence about the events leading up to the attempted arrest of Kumanjayi Walker. He was called as the first defence witness in the Northern Territory supreme court on Wednesday after the prosecution finished its case.
The court previously heard that Rolfe shot Walker three times while trying to arrest him on 9 November 2019 in the remote community of Yuendumu, about 300km from Alice Springs.
Walker, a 19-year-old Warlpiri man, had stabbed Rolfe with a pair of scissors shortly before the first shot was fired. Rolfe is not charged in relation to this shot.
He is charged in relation to the second and third shots fired at Walker but has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have argued his actions on the day were justified in light of the risk that Walker posed to him and a colleague, the then-constable Adam Eberl.
Rolfe, 30, told the court that on the day of the shooting, when he was travelling from Alice Springs to Yuendumu, he recalled one comment he made in the car to a colleague from the Immediate Response Team (IRT) about the “mission”. The IRT was a semi-tactical unit staffed by general duties officers who had received additional training and was often used to contain high-risk incidents or arrest high-risk offenders, Rolfe said.
Rolfe said he told constable first class James Kirstenfeldt that he believed the IRT should have “been sent out earlier”, and clarified that he meant days earlier, because of the threat posed by Walker.
Rolfe had earlier told the court that he had watched body-worn camera footage on 7 November 2019 of an incident involving Walker that had occurred the previous day.
During that incident, Walker used an axe to threaten two Yuendumu police officers who had been attempting to arrest him.
Rolfe told the court he formed the opinion from watching the video that Walker was “extremely violent” and had the potential to use “lethal weapons” against police.
He said he also felt the Yuendumu officers involved displayed “a perfect example of a human fear-based reaction” when Walker threatened them with an axe.
Rolfe said he then spoke to Sgt Evan Kelly, who was his manager on the shift, about the axe incident, as he was concerned it was “being swept under the rug”.
He clarified that what he meant by this was that it was the type of incident all officers in Alice Springs should be alerted to, as travel between Yuendumu and Alice Springs was common, and Walker therefore posed a threat to local police. Rolfe said Kelly agreed with this assessment.
Rolfe said he also spoke with Sgt Lee Bauwens, the officer in charge of the IRT, that day. He said he informed Bauwens about the incident, and told him “I was of the mind that it was the sort of job” the IRT should be called to. He said Bauwens agreed.
Rolfe said that later that day he attended a house in an area of Alice Springs known as the Warlpiri camp, looking for Walker.
Rolfe said he had found information on Walker’s police file linking him to the house in Warlpiri camp, but there was no indication when police attended that anyone was inside.
Rolfe said that on the day of the shooting he received a phone call about half an hour before his shift was going to start from acting Sgt Shane McCormack informing him that he was being deployed with the IRT to Yuendumu.
He said he asked McCormack twice what the mission in Yuendumu was, and was told on both occasions that it was to arrest Walker.
He said McCormack told him there was no intelligence about the location of Walker since the axe incident, but that it was hoped Yuendumu sergeant Julie Frost would provide them with intelligence once they arrived.
Rolfe told the court he met with the other three IRT officers who were being deployed to Yuendumu at Alice Springs police station and told them about this mission, Walker’s criminal history, and that nurses in the remote community had been evacuated earlier that day because of a spate of break-ins at their sleeping quarters.
He said two of the officers did not know about the axe incident, so he played them footage of that before the team all left the station about 3.30pm.
Rolfe’s evidence finished on Wednesday before he was asked about the shooting. His evidence will continue on Thursday.
Earlier on Wednesday, David Edwardson QC, for Rolfe, continued his cross-examination of Det Sr Sgt Andrew Barram.
Edwardson asked Barram, an experienced officer who has held senior positions in NT police training and professional standards departments and wrote four reports on the shooting for the prosecution, about evidence he had given on Tuesday.
Barram had said that Rolfe could have used “empty hand” techniques to restrain Walker rather than shooting him a second and third time, as Walker was under the control of Eberl at the time. The court has previously heard that the second and third shots were fired while Eberl attempted to restrain Walker on a mattress after he stabbed Rolfe.
Edwardson asked Walker about a police training manual that has been extensively referenced during the trial. In a section about officers being confronted with an edged weapon, under the headline Points That May Save Your Life, it stated “do not use empty hand techniques unless it is not possible to use a firearm”.
Edwardson asked Barram whether Rolfe had therefore acted consistently with his training when firing the second and third shots.
Barram disagreed, saying Rolfe could have disengaged rather than shot Walker.
“He could have, and if he disengaged, Constable Eberl could be dead,” Edwardson said.
“No he couldn’t, no,” Barram responded.
Edwardson asked what would have happened if Walker had stabbed Eberl in the carotid artery.
“How was that going to happen in that position?” Barram said.
Edwardson responded, in reference to previous evidence Barram had given about not being able to see the arm holding the scissors in body-worn camera footage of the incident, “oh, senior sergeant, we’ve been through that before, nothing further your honour”.
The trial before Justice John Burns continues.
