After a month-long trial and more than two years since the fatal shooting of Kumanjayi Walker, NT police officer Zachary Rolfe has been found not guilty of murdering the 19-year-old Warlpiri man during an attempted arrest.
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.
He has also been found not guilty of manslaughter and engaging in a violent act causing death, meaning the officer has been cleared of all charges against him.
Throughout the trial, Constable Rolfe's defence team argued that the officer was defending himself and his partner when the shots were fired in the remote community of Yuendumu on Saturday November 9, 2019.
Prosecutors said Constable Rolfe's actions were not legally justified and went against his police training.
Here are the key facts put before the jury and the arguments made before they reached their verdict.
What did the jury hear about what happened in Yuendumu?
The broad circumstances surrounding the shooting were not in dispute during the trial.
Police body-worn camera vision played extensively to the jury captured the three shots fired by Constable Rolfe inside a home in the community 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs.
The court heard Constable Rolfe and fellow members of the Alice Springs-based Immediate Response Team (IRT) arrived in the community in the hour before the shooting happened.
Constable Rolfe and a fellow officer entered a home at 7.20pm looking for Mr Walker, who was wanted by police for threatening two Yuendumu-based officers with an axe three days earlier.
When Constable Rolfe and his partner, Constable Adam Eberl, identified the 19-year-old and went to place him under arrest, a struggle broke out.
Mr Walker stabbed Constable Rolfe in the shoulder with a pair of medical scissors and Constable Rolfe fired three shots — the second came 2.6 seconds after the first and the third was 0.5 seconds after the second.
The 19-year-old died around an hour later in the Yuendumu police station, where he was given first aid because the local health clinic was unstaffed that day.
What did prosecutors say in the case against Constable Rolfe?
The charges laid against Constable Rolfe related only to the second and third shots.
Prosecutors said the first shot came after Constable Rolfe had been stabbed and while Mr Walker was still on his feet and struggling with Constable Eberl.
But they said the situation "changed dramatically" after that.
Crown prosecutor Philip Strickland SC argued that Mr Walker was "effectively restrained" on the ground by Constable Eberl when the second and third shots were fired.
He said those shots were not reasonable or necessary, including in the circumstances as perceived by Constable Rolfe, and that police training dictated that non-lethal force should have been used at that point.
During cross-examination Mr Strickland accused Constable Rolfe of lying in court about seeing Mr Walker stabbing Constable Eberl after the first shot was fired, in order to "justify" conduct he knew had "gone too far".
The prosecutor said Constable Rolfe became preoccupied with the idea of arresting Kumanjayi Walker after watching body-worn camera footage of the axe incident, and went into the house ready to shoot if Mr Walker resisted arrest.
He also argued Constable Rolfe had ignored a "safer" plan by the local officer-in-charge at Yuendumu to arrest Mr Walker early the following morning and failed to follow his police training to minimise risks of confrontation.
The prosecution sought to prove that Constable Rolfe did not have an honest belief that he was acting in self-defence or in defence of his partner when the second and third shots were fired.
It said that also meant Constable Rolfe was not acting reasonably in good faith and in the performance of his duties as a police officer.
What did the defence team say in response?
The defence called Constable Rolfe as its main witness in answering the prosecution's case.
Constable Rolfe told jurors he feared for his own life and then that of his partner's when he fired the fatal shots and said Mr Walker had reached for his gun during the struggle.
He denied the prosecution's suggestion that his evidence was made up to justify the shooting.
Constable Rolfe also said his actions were in line with his police training, which held that officers should draw and be prepared to use their firearm when confronted with an edged weapon.
Officers were trained to fire "until the threat is incapacitated", he told the court, "no matter how many rounds that takes."
Constable Rolfe said he believed the IRT's mission in Yuendumu was to arrest Kumanjayi Walker and that he, and other members, were unaware of the local sergeant's plan to arrest Mr Walker the following morning.
The court heard the local sergeant also told the officers to arrest Mr Walker if they came across him on Saturday night while gathering intelligence about his whereabouts.
Constable Rolfe's barrister David Edwardson QC said Constable Rolfe had no choice but to pull the trigger and acted courageously, in good faith and in the reasonable performance of his duties.
He told the jury that Mr Walker's death was tragic but a consequence of his own behaviour.
The barrister closed his case with scathing criticism of the NT Police decision to charge Constable Rolfe four days after the shooting, saying it came before a proper investigation had taken place.
Editor's Note: The initial headline contained an error and has been amended to reflect that the police officer had been found not guilty.
