A police officer has denied trying to help constable Zachary Rolfe, who is charged with murder, by answering “I don’t recall” multiple times during his evidence at trial.
Constable James Kirstenfeldt continued his evidence on Wednesday in Rolfe’s murder trial.
Rolfe, 30, is charged with murdering Kumanjayi Walker while trying to arrest him in the remote community of Yuendumu, 300km north-west of Alice Springs, on 9 November 2019. The court has previously heard Rolfe shot Walker three times during a struggle after Walker stabbed him with a pair of scissors.
Rolfe has pleaded not guilty to murder and two alternate charges.
Kirstenfeldt and Rolfe were in a team of four officers from the Immediate Response Team (IRT) who deployed from Alice Springs to Yuendumu on the day of the shooting.
During his evidence on Tuesday, Kirstenfeldt said he had not seen an email from Sgt Julie Frost, the officer in charge of Yuendumu station, which was sent after they deployed and outlined an operational plan for the officers from Alice Springs.
But on Wednesday Kirstenfeldt was asked by the crown prosecutor, Philip Strickland SC, about evidence he provided during an earlier court hearing and in interviews with police which Strickland suggested appeared to contradict that claim.
During an interview with police on 21 November 2019, which Strickland played to the court, Kirstenfeldt said he did not see an email until he had got to Yuendumu.
He then referred in the interview to Frost sending the plan and said it contained information similar to what the IRT, who were trained to conduct high-risk arrests, would normally do: “just intel gather and then snatch him up in the morning”.
Strickland also took him to the transcript of an earlier court hearing on 2 September 2020, where Kirstenfeldt said Frost showed him an email when he went to Yuendumu, but that it was not the same email as the operational plan.
Kirstenfeldt told Strickland he accepted that he was shown an email at Yuendumu, but that he could not recall being shown it, or its contents.
Strickland then asked Kirstenfeldt if his evidence that he didn’t recall being given the email or what its contents were was “given to try and help Mr Rolfe?”
“No, it’s because I don’t recall the exact content of that email,” Kirstenfeldt responded.
“I know it wasn’t this email, because this one has photos of him on it, and that would have been handy to have.”
Strickland has previously told the court that the case against Rolfe relied not only on his actions during the shooting, but the “context” and the “steps leading up” to it, including the plan.
The court was also shown body-worn camera footage of Rolfe and Kirstenfeldt attending a house in Yuendumu shortly after being briefed by Frost.
Kirstenfeldt is heard on the footage questioning a boy at house about where Walker could be, where he could be staying that night, who he had left the house with, and when he had left.
Speaking to the boy through a window, he is told Walker left only minutes earlier with his partner, Rickisha Robertson, and would be staying at the house that night.
“If you see him before that, man, don’t tell him we were here, OK?” Kirstenfeldt says to the boy. “Otherwise he’s going to end up in too much trouble, we don’t want that, OK?”
He is then overheard telling Rolfe he believed the kid was “genuine”, but when asked by Strickland if this meant he thought the boy was telling the truth, Kirstenfeldt responded “maybe”. He said he meant it more as a reference to the boy as “a good bloke”.
Strickland asked why they had not used the information provided by the boy to plan an arrest of Walker at the house, given it seemed he would spend the night there. Instead, the court has heard, the officers acted on other information gathered at the property to attend other houses in Yuendumu, where Walker was located and killed during an attempted arrest only minutes later.
“Single-source information from a child is probably not the most reliable to plan an operation on,” Kirstenfeldt responded.
Later on Wednesday, the court heard from members of Walker’s family and the Robertson family, including Rickisha’s grandfather Eddie Robertson.
Robertson, who the court heard had helped found Yuendumu and has worked with territory and federal governments and the police force as a representative of the community, said he understood Walker had planned to surrender after a funeral being held for a relative of Walker’s in the town.
Robertson said that after an incident on 6 November 2019, when Walker threatened two Yuendumu police officers with an axe, he told him that he had to hand himself in after the funeral, and Walker – who the court has heard was quietly spoken – nodded in response.
The funeral was held on the same day Walker was killed.
The trial continues.
