A police report on the shooting death of Warlpiri teenager Kumanjayi Walker was scathing of the “military police response” in his remote community and described a “warrior mentality” among members, but other criticisms that appeared in an earlier draft of the report were removed from the final version.
The original coronial investigation report by the NT police commander, David Proctor, and his final 170-page report were published on Thursday, after the coroner investigating Walker’s death lifted a suppression order. The publications revealed previously redacted details about the shooting and the subsequent police investigation.
The NT constable Zachary Rolfe shot Walker three times during a bungled arrest in Yuendumu, north-west of Alice Springs, on 9 November 2019. Rolfe was found not guilty of all criminal charges in relation to the death. A coronial inquest has been under way since September 2022.
The original version of Proctor’s report was scathing about police culture in Alice Springs at the time of the shooting.
“By the 9 November 2019 the policing culture in Alice Springs had degenerated into a state where unacceptable police behaviour was allegedly being condoned by supervisors and senior police management,” Proctor wrote.
This statement does not appear in the final report published online on Thursday.
However, in all versions, Proctor was critical of the “militarisation” of policing in the NT. In the decade to May 2020, he said, 192 of the 718 NTPOL recruits – about 26.4% – were former ADF personnel.
“This is a vast over-representation of former military members recruited to police the Northern Territory who do not proportionally represent the populace of the community they serve,” Proctor wrote.
“Recruiting ex-ADF members provides a certain desirable skillset for policing but does not necessarily provide a neutral and objective core of membership … with the requisite level of high integrity.”
Proctor said the NT police force was acquiring military-grade weapons, equipment and uniforms that were “not in line with the expectations of community-based policing philosophies”.
Both the draft and the final report said the newly established IRT adopted “a paramilitary role focussing on weapons training and tactics” including “tactical entry into strongholds – house clearing”.
Proctor was critical of the deployment of the IRT into Yuendumu armed with military-type weaponry, describing it as an “extreme response in the circumstances, particularly when they had been given the specific instruction to wear their regular uniform”.
The final report said the carrying of “unjustified” military-type weapons was a “classic military type response to a possible enemy threat”.
There was no “apparent justification” for police to be carrying an exposed AR-15 weapon around Yuendumu with women and children gathered, and there was no clear threat, he said:“All IRT members were carrying holstered weapons in any case.”
“IRT members have no policy exemption to openly carry exposed weapons without immediate threat. The militarised response, as demonstrated by the IRT members at Yuendumu on 9 November 2019, had no place in modern day Territory policing where usual resolution tactics and training were seemingly ignored,” he said.
But there are phrases in the draft report that did not appear in the final version, including observations that the IRT was a select group of specially trained officers who had developed a “mission-orientated warrior mentality” that stemmed from higher up the command chain.
Proctor concluded that the members involved in Walker’s arrest did not attempt to utilise their “21st century non-lethal options”, and should never have been deployed to Yuendumu to attempt to arrest Walker.
“In a remote community the threat [Walker] could and should have been easily contained and subdued by the IRT. Instead, in their haste to locate and arrest Walker, the IRT members placed themselves in an invidious position that ultimately cost Walker his life,” he said, blaming systemic failures for that outcome.
Proctor said Rolfe provided false information on his written application to join the NT police, and did not disclose his former military service, which was mandatory. Had Rolfe completed his application “in all honesty”, it was unlikely he would have been selected as a “suitable recruit”, Proctor said.
The inquest by the coroner Elisabeth Armitage is due to resume in July, when Rolfe is scheduled to appear. His employment as an NT police officer was terminated in early April.
