An expert witness believes Kumanjayi Walker posed little or no threat to two police officers when he was shot a second and third time, a court has heard.
Walker, a 19-year-old Warlpiri man, died in November 2019 after two Northern Territory police officers attempted to arrest him in Yuendumu, a remote community about 300km from Alice Springs.
One of the officers, constable Zachary Rolfe, is on trial for Walker’s murder in the NT supreme court. The court has previously heard Rolfe shot Walker three times after Walker stabbed him in the shoulder with a pair of scissors.
Dr Andrew McIntosh, a biomechanist, gave evidence on Friday that at the time Walker was shot by Rolfe on the second and third occasion, he posed no threat to Rolfe and a low threat to his colleague, Adam Eberl.
Rolfe is not charged in relation to the first shot fired at Walker, which occurred only moments after Walker had stabbed him. But it is alleged that when Rolfe fired the second and third shots several seconds later, Walker had either fallen or been wrestled to the ground by Eberl and had his right arm pinned underneath his body.
Rolfe has pleaded not guilty and defends his actions on the basis they were justified in light of the risk Walker posed to him and Eberl. The defence also disputes that Walker was under control at the time of the shots.
McIntosh, who reviewed body-worn camera footage of the incident and the evidence of other witnesses including Eberl, said it appeared that Walker no longer posed a serious threat to the officers at the time of the later shots because of a range of factors.
Under questioning from the prosecutor, Philip Strickland SC, McIntosh said that Walker posed no threat to Rolfe as he was on the ground under Eberl, whereas Rolfe was standing up. Walker posed a low threat to Eberl because the arm that had been holding the scissors was pinned between his body and a mattress on the ground, and Eberl’s body mass was pressing down on top of him, McIntosh said.
When cross-examined by David Edwardson QC, for Rolfe, McIntosh agreed the body-worn camera footage had limitations. He gave the analogy of “cricket buffs” watching a match on television and being convinced a bowler bent their elbow when bowling, when in reality their arm had not changed position.
Edwardson also said that while McIntosh had been able to review the camera footage frame-by-frame, Rolfe and Eberl were assessing the threat in real time.
“They, of course, were dealing with this situation, this dynamic situation, in a matter of seconds … and from their perspective, it might be quite different, as we’ve acknowledged, from the body-worn video,” Edwardson said, to which McIntosh agreed.
In reports prepared for the case, McIntosh said it was more likely than not that Walker could have harmed or injured the officers at the time the first shot was fired, but that “the body-worn evidence regarding this threat and the presence of the scissors is inconclusive”.
Edwardson said the fact that the scissors could not be seen in the footage until after the third shot was fired demonstrated that Rolfe and Eberl could have seen things that their body-worn cameras did not capture.
“That’s a reasonable point, yes,” McIntosh responded.
The trial continues.
