A coroner says she wants to understand why police shot an Aboriginal teenager, three weeks after a court cleared the Northern Territory officer who killed him of any wrongdoing.
Kumanjayi Walker, 19, was shot three times in November 2019 as he resisted being handcuffed in Yuendumu, northwest of Alice Springs.
Magistrate Elisabeth Armitage says the inquest cannot undo the past but will give the teen's family and community the chance to express their distress, concerns and hopes for the future.
"We will endeavour to not simply hear them, but understand them," she told the Northern Territory Local Court in a directions hearing on Tuesday.
"In a fair and balanced way we will seek to better understand what happened ... and why it happened, with the goals of determining the truth and and making recommendations that may assist in preventing future deaths in similar circumstances."
Ms Armitage said the continued grief and shock over the teen's traumatic death was likely adding to feelings of anger, fear and confusion.
"The family's and the community's voices have not yet had an opportunity to be heard and understood," she said.
Mr Walker died after Constable Zachary Rolfe, 30, fired three shots into him as the pair and another officer scuffled inside his grandmother's home.
The teen had stabbed Const Rolfe in the moments before he was shot and had threatened two other officers with an axe three days earlier.
The Yuendumu community's grief over Mr Walker's death was compounded on March 11, when Const Rolfe was acquitted of intentionally killing the teen following a five-week trial.
After Const Rolfe was cleared, Mr Walker's family said they did not believe justice had been served and the community felt betrayed.
"We are all in so much pain, particularly our young men. They have struggled. They have been scared but still, they respected this process and so has our whole community," Mr Walker's cousin and family spokeswoman Samara Fernandez Brown said on the steps of the Supreme Court in Darwin.
"We have been respectful ... but still we have been let down."
The trial heard allegations Const Rolfe and three officers ignored orders and didn't follow police training when they entered the dark home where the shooting happened.
The final scope of the inquest, scheduled for September 5 in Alice Springs, is yet to be determined.
However, Counsel Assisting the Coroner Peggy Dwyer told the court it would examine police conduct on the day of the shooting, the operation to arrest Mr Walker and any changes to practice or training since.
Seven parties will be represented at the inquest including Mr Walker's family, the Yuendumu community, Const Rolfe, the NT police commissioner and his executive, NT Health and the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency.
