In the red centre, for many Warlpiri people the trauma of the past has been brought to the present with a coronial inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker.
The 19-year-old was shot dead by constable Zachary Rolfe during an attempted arrest in the remote community of Yuendumu on 9 November 2019.
A jury found Rolfe not guilty of murder and two alternative charges after a six-week trial in the NT supreme court in Darwin.
This week the long-awaited inquest into Walker’s death began with family members and elders speaking “freely” for the first time since the highest profile NT court case in decades.
“Being able to share our story and our truth is critical now,” Samara Fernandez-Brown, Walker’s cousin said in Alice Springs after the inquest had finished its first week of hearing from witnesses.
She said she hoped the inquest would allow them to share their memories of Walker and humanise him.
“It was quite horrific and daunting for family to sit there through the murder trial not being able to say anything and hear him being vilified and scrutinised,” Fernandez-Brown said.
The community’s senior elders have spoken of their grief, heartache and confusion. On the night of Walker’s death as they gathered around the police station waiting for answers after police dragged the injured Walker from his home and took him to the police station.
Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves told the inquest this week his loss devastated the community.
“He was a wonder, a loving wonder. Someone very special,” Hargraves said at the informal openings reserved for family on Monday.
Hargraves urged a reckoning between police and community to build a better future for the children and young people growing up in Yuendumu.
“They don’t want to listen to you and me. But we – somewhere along the line we’ve got to find that answer. We must work together,” Hargraves told the coroner.
The shooting of the young man in the remote area was shattering to a community that still bears the scars of the 1928 Coniston massacres of dozens of Warlpiri, Anmatyere and Kaiditj men, women and children, led by former soldier and policeman constable George Murray.
Senior elder Warren Japangardi Williams told the coroner of how his uncle survived this massacre.
“The old people used to tell us regularly about what happened. We couldn’t take it, as we were too young to take it all in,” Japangardi Williams said.
“My old uncle was part of it and he put himself into a hollow and he got burnt out of it and – like a rabbit – and took off to Mount Theo where everyone’s heading to.”
Derek Williams, the son of Japangardi Williams and an Aboriginal community police officer, told the inquest remote policing needed to change to build new relationships and cultural competency within the force to create a shared understanding.
Williams described the difficulties in “walking and working in two worlds” as a Warlpiri man with responsibilities to his community and his family and the service.
The inquest has heard the stark differences between the two men.
Walker was in and out of Don Dale detention centre during the years under scrutiny by the 2017 royal commission, lived with cognitive difficulties, hearing loss and was suspected to have post-traumatic stress disorder.
Const Rolfe was raised in the affluent suburbs of the nation’s capital by a prominent and wealthy family and privately educated before joining the ranks of the military and the police force.
The inquest heard the bare facts of Walker’s death: shot three times after Rolfe and other members of the IRT were dispatched to arrest him after he allegedly threatened local officers with an axe.
Elders have made repeated calls for self-determination and a plea for service providers, governments and police to work with communities to ensure safer homes and communities for the people living there.
“We do not want you to tell us what we need and what we want. We will tell you what we want. We know the difference between asking and telling,” senior elder Robin Granites Japanangka said.
The inquest heard decades ago there were more community controlled organisations, the local council employed people around the community, language and culture were embedded in schools and yapa (Warlpiri) children were often taught by yapa teachers.
Then came the 2007 NT intervention brought in under the Howard administration and continued through subsequent governments. The effects of the intervention – the systemic power imbalances in policing and decision-making far away from Yuendumu have been a central theme of the inquest.
Elders like Warren Japangardi Williams called for more cultural training, central decision-making through a regional police station and more cultural, musical and sporting activities in the community.
Fernandez-Brown remains hopeful the inquest will help heal the community.
She said the community is anxious, yet hopeful, that recommendations will bring about real change.
“I’m feeling very hopeful, there will be a change that is coming because there seems to be a real deep interest in listening and learning from our community.”
