A lawyer for the Northern Territory police has told an inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker that it is “absolutely undeniable” that Zachary Rolfe is a racist.
The inquest into the death of Walker is holding its final hearings, almost two years after it was due to be completed.
Walker, 19, was killed by the then Northern Territory police constable Rolfe during a bungled arrest in the remote NT community of Yuendumu on 9 November 2019.
Rolfe was later charged with murder but was acquitted of all charges after a supreme court trial.
The inquest into the case is hearing final oral submissions in Alice Springs this week.
Ian Freckelton KC, for the NT police, told the coroner, Elisabeth Armitage, on Thursday that a combination of Rolfe’s text messages, his evidence, and other corroborating evidence meant that “it is absolutely undeniable that Mr Rolfe is a racist”.
“People who talk about loser locals, coons, neanderthals, losers on the basis of their Aboriginality, are racist, and it’s important to call it as it is. And the position of the Northern Territory police force is that it is trying to call things as it is.
“We have no reservation about saying to your honour that you should have no hesitation in making similar robust characterisations.”
Rolfe said during his evidence earlier this year that racist language was normalised in the force, but that he had never seen an officer treat anybody differently because of their race.
Freckelton said Rolfe was “sexist, misogynistic, homophobic” and had a “distrust for authority and contempt for bush cops”.
He said his attitudes were “inconsistent with contemporary policing anywhere in Australia”, including in the NT.
“He lacks insight, he has a propensity to deny what cannot be denied, and he rationales what he cannot avoid confronting.
“His credibility, to put it in a very generous way, is open to serious doubt.”
Freckelton went on to say, however, that concerns about Rolfe’s attitudes, and about five incidents where excessive force may have been used during his policing, were not known at the time Walker was killed.
He said it was wrong to think that the force allowed Rolfe to engage in a pattern of behaviour that culminated in the death of Walker, and submissions to Armitage that suggested this lacked cogency and rigour, and were not supported by evidence.
Freckelton said the force was committed to reform, including in weeding out “warrior mentality”, taking a zero tolerance approach to racism, which resulted in the recent removal of recruits from training, and would consider working with the Yuendumu community to limit the occasions when guns were carried by officers.
“We know about what Mr Rolfe really thought … but the issue for the Northern Territory police force is what to do to try to eradicate these kinds of values.”
Freckelton said the force’s appointment of Leanne Liddle was not tokenistic or an experiment, and she was not a panacea or a magician, but that her work in the first five months of her tenure was “very positive”.
“There is every reason, we submit, to be optimistic that the police force has learned lessons,” Freckelton said.
“We very much hope that those who loved and valued Kumanjayi Walker can derive some modest comfort that they have been listened to and changes have been made, and more will continue to be made.”
Rolfe’s lawyer Luke Officer said on Thursday that Armitage should “be careful not to single out Mr Rolfe” if she came to make findings in relation to racism, given the court had heard evidence about other police being racist.
This included officers in the Tactical Response Group who were revealed after Rolfe’s evidence, Officer said.
On Wednesday, Officer said that Armitage should limit the scope of her findings to matters that directly related to Walker’s death, and that to do otherwise would risk her threatening the jury verdict in Rolfe’s case.
Armitage said that she would consider an invitation to deliver the findings of the inquest in Yuendumu.
She said she expected to deliver these findings in late February.
