Constable Zachary Rolfe allegedly "boasted" about performing an "illegal shoulder charge" during the arrest of a man in Alice Springs, by texting a video of his body-worn camera footage to an unnamed person, the Northern Territory coroner has heard.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains an image of a person who has died, used with the permission of their family.
Counsel assisting the coroner Peggy Dwyer read a text message she told the court was allegedly sent by the constable in September 2019, with a video of his body cam footage attached.
Dr Dwyer told the court the message read: "The main chase body-worn is mine … Ha ha, treated him to the old illegal shoulder charge. Because I wear body armour, I'm not as rapid as the locals initially, but they still can't outrun me. Turns out the dude wasn't who we were looking for, and is now in a sling for nothing, ha ha, don't run from police."
The footage, played to the coroner, apparently showed Constable Rolfe and his colleagues attempting to arrest a man they believed had escaped custody.
Coroner Elisabeth Armitage is currently presiding over a months-long inquest into the death of Warlpiri-Luritja man Kumanjayi Walker, who was shot and killed by Constable Rolfe in 2019.
The officer was earlier this year found not guilty of all charges related to the death, after a Supreme Court trial in Darwin.
He has not yet given evidence to the coroner.
The coroner heard the man in the footage gave police a false name before running away and was ultimately arrested, but was not the man police were looking for.
Former superintendent Pauline Vicary, who was one of Constable Rolfe's commanding officers in Alice Springs, reviewed and signed off on the "Custody Incident Injury Report" carried out after the arrest.
The court heard the police report found the man "was arrested after a push from the officer to redirect the male and prevent further escape".
A later report, developed for the purposes of the inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker, found "the man appears to slow down considerably… Constable Rolfe did not slow down and ran full force into the man, striking him with outstretched hands. This caused the man to crash with considerable force, into a fence."
Ms Vicary told the court that when signing off on incident reports she did not always watch the body-worn camera footage, relying on the case notes written by lower-ranking officers, but that her opinion on the incident would not have changed if she had seen the video.
"At that point, they thought that he was somebody who had escaped custody, and they were going to arrest him," Ms Vicary said.
"And having somebody slow down doesn't mean that they're going to… not try to assault [the] police officer. So, by doing what they have done, and potentially, in their mind, they are preventing that matter escalating further."
Under examination from Dr Dwyer, Ms Vicary agreed it would be "concerning" if an officer sent a video of the arrest to someone outside of the police force.
Peggy Dwyer: "I suggest to you that there's a number of concerning things in that text message. Firstly, laughing at the fact that someone who wasn't the suspect, ends up in a sling for nothing, running from the police. Does that concern you, that an officer in your command would do that?"
Pauline Vicary: "Yes."
Peggy Dwyer: "What about if you were [sending the text] because you wanted to boast… about your use of force. What would you think about that?"
Pauline Vicary: "Well, that would be a pretty disappointing practice."
'Red flags' raised by senior police
Over the course of 18 months, the coroner heard, Constable Rolfe was involved in three arrests which left the person in custody suffering a head injury requiring stitches, including the arrest of Malcolm Ryder, which a Local Court judge found the officer had "lied" about.
Ms Vicary said Constable Rolfe had been subject to several complaints against police and felt he had been "targeted" by what she described as a "relentless" and "overzealous" lawyer from the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA).
In a 2020 interview with investigating police, after the shooting of Kumanjayi Walker, Ms Vicary said: "There was a particular lawyer [at NAAJA] that any time we arrested a youth, we were getting these complaints in. Every time [police] arrested someone, we were getting a complaint about the excessive use of force."
She told the court the officers were all found to be acting reasonably and Constable Rolfe was "not the only one" receiving complaints for use of force.
She said at the time, she only raised concerns about his irregular use of body-worn cameras and told the inquest his 46 use-of-force incidents over three years was not a "high" number. No findings of excessive force were made after internal investigations into each matter.
The coroner heard Constable Rolfe's alleged use of force was raised at three meetings throughout 2019 by another senior officer, but nothing had been noted on his employee profile.
"There was no formal outcome from those investigations, at that point," Ms Vicary said.
"At that point, PSC [Professional Standard Command] was still investigating those matters, from what I can recall.
"I'm not going to put something on someone's [profile] if there hasn't been a formal outcome."
When asked if "insufficient attention" was paid to Constable Rolfe's "red flags", Ms Vicary told the coroner: "Rather than waiting for outcomes… I could have potentially used a bit more initiative."
Culture of Alice Springs Police Station questioned
Text messages exchanged between Constable Rolfe and colleagues, including sergeants, which included racist language and "jokes" about turning body-worn cameras around, were also read to the witness.
Ms Vicary told the coroner Sergeant Paul Kirkby showed "appalling" leadership in one exchange.
Sergeant Kirkby: "Who was the silly bitch?"
Constable Rolfe: "F*** knows. Some white bitch who thinks she's Aboriginal."
Sergeant Kirkby: "Lying in the dirt, pissed, doing a f***ing good impression."
In another exchange read to the court, Constable Rolfe told the sergeant: "I'm always ready to make my camera face the other way and be a dramatic c*** for the film, ha ha."
"This is less than six months after a judge of the Northern Territory has made a finding – publicly – that Constable Rolfe has lied in a matter where he failed to turn on his body-worn video footage and a man ended up with 13 stitches in his head?" Dr Dwyer said.
"And he is laughing with a sergeant about making his camera face the other way and acting like "a dramatic c***" on a film? It's just appalling, isn't it?"
Ms Vicary agreed, but rejected suggestions there was a "culture" within the Alice Springs Police Station that using excess force and not turning on body-worn cameras was "acceptable".
"I would say that there would seem to be a group of like-minded people who were interacting and working with each other, and that was a thing, but not the whole of the Alice Police Station at all," she said.
The inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker continues.
