When the prosecution rested its case in the murder trial of police officer Zachary Rolfe, a surge of anticipation spread through the public gallery of the Northern Territory Supreme Court.
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.
After three-and-a-half weeks of evidence from around 40 witnesses, defence barrister David Edwardson QC stood to bring on the most significant of them all.
Almost 850 days since it took place, Constable Rolfe, 30, gave his first public account of the struggle that ended in the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Yuendumu man Kumanjayi Walker.
"I was in fear of my partner's life," Constable Rolfe told the jury.
"And I needed to incapacitate the threat immediately by the use of my firearm."
Mr Walker died about an hour after he was shot three times during an attempted arrest inside a house in the remote desert community of Yuendumu on November 9, 2019.
Constable Rolfe has pleaded not guilty to murder, as well as two alternative charges, in relation to the second and third shots, which the prosecution says were not legally justified.
The first shot — which came after Mr Walker stabbed Constable Rolfe with a pair of medical scissors — is not the subject of any charges.
The entire incident was captured on police body-worn cameras, including the footage from Constable Rolfe's camera that was replayed as he gave his version of events.
After being directed to put his hands behind his back, the vision shows Mr Walker suddenly lunging at Constable Rolfe, and the footage becomes shaky.
A gunshot rings out and Mr Walker falls to the ground, with Constable Rolfe's partner, Constable Adam Eberl, on top of Mr Walker.
Constable Rolfe then rushes towards the pair and fires two more shots in quick succession, both within centimetres of Mr Walker's torso.
The second shot is fired 2.6 seconds after the first, and the third, half a second later.
In the three seconds between the first and final shots, Mr Walker would be fatally wounded, and Constable Rolfe would eventually find himself explaining to the jury why he pulled the trigger.
Speaking directly to the jury from the witness box this week, Constable Rolfe said that after attacking him with the scissors, Mr Walker had tried to get hold of his firearm.
He said the 19-year-old then started stabbing Constable Eberl while the pair were on the ground.
His response to the situation was exactly as he had been taught, Constable Rolfe told the jury.
Prosecution accuses Constable Rolfe of making up evidence
Constable Rolfe's account of those critical moments is in sharp contrast to the prosecution's case.
It argues Mr Walker was no longer a threat when the two latter shots were fired.
The prosecution says Constable Rolfe should instead have used non-lethal force because, by that stage, Mr Walker could no longer deploy his scissors, as his arm was pinned beneath him and he was "effectively restrained" by Constable Eberl.
During cross examination, Crown prosecutor Philip Strickland SC said the body-worn camera vision did not show any evidence of Constable Rolfe's assertions that Mr Walker had tried to grab his Glock, nor that he had stabbed Constable Eberl while the pair were on the ground.
"You've made that evidence up to justify the fatal shooting of Kumanjayi Walker?" Mr Strickland asked.
"Incorrect," Constable Rolfe responded.
The prosecutor also suggested that in the moments after the shooting, when Constable Rolfe told his partner "it's all good" and that Mr Walker had been trying to stab them, he knew he had gone "too far".
"And you felt you needed to justify what you've just done?" Mr Strickland said.
Constable Rolfe replied: "Incorrect."
Instead, Constable Rolfe said he was explaining what had happened to a colleague in a "heightened state", who had not realised that shots had been fired.
By "it's all good", he said he meant: "A violent offender had just been trying to murder two police officers, and he no longer was."
Closing statements from both sides expected next week
The prosecutor has asked the jury to view those critical moments inside the house within a broader context.
Mr Strickland suggested Constable Rolfe — who served in Afghanistan with the Australian army and, the court heard this week, travelled independently to the United States for private weapons training — enjoyed "adrenaline-filled" deployments with the specialist police unit with which he was deployed from Alice Springs to Yuendumu that day.
The prosecutor put it to Constable Rolfe that he became "obsessed" and "fixated" with Mr Walker, after repeatedly watching body-worn camera footage of the 19-year-old threatening Yuendumu-based officers with an axe three days before the shooting.
Constable Rolfe said all the suggestions put to him were incorrect.
He has also denied the prosecution claim that he ignored a plan to arrest Mr Walker at a "safer" time early the following morning.
The court has previously heard the officer-in-charge at Yuendumu also told Constable Rolfe's unit that "by all means" they should arrest Mr Walker if they came across him on the Saturday evening.
The defence is expected to wrap up its case on Tuesday next week.
The prosecution and defence will then deliver their final addresses, before the jury is asked to consider its verdict in an already historic case.
