A police officer charged with murdering an Aboriginal man repeatedly acted against his training on the day of the incident, a court has heard.
The court had previously heard constable Zachary Rolfe shot Kumanjayi Walker three times while trying to arrest him on 9 November 2019 in the remote community of Yuendumu, about 300km from Alice Springs.
Rolfe is charged in relation to the second and third shots fired at Walker, a 19-year-old Warlpiri man. Rolfe has pleaded not guilty and is defending his actions on the basis they were justified in light of the risk that Walker, who had stabbed Rolfe with scissors immediately before the shooting, posed to him and a colleague.
Det Sr Sgt Andrew Barram, who has been a Northern Territory police officer for 25 years and conducted multiple reviews of the shooting, told the NT supreme court on Monday that he believed Rolfe had acted contrary to multiple aspects of his training.
The court heard that, until recently, Barram had oversight of all firearms and defensive tactics training within NT police, and reviewed and wrote the force’s training manuals.
He gave evidence that body-worn camera footage of Rolfe and another officer attending a different Yuendumu property known as House 577 shortly before the shooting, showed Rolfe had unclipped two firearm retention devices on his holster.
Barram told the court this was inconsistent with NT police training, as officers are only supposed to remove these devices when they plan to draw their weapon, and there was no indication that was necessary.
“He’d been told there was no one there other than a boy that looks about 10 years old,” Barram told the court.
“I don’t think it was appropriate that he would have the firearm out. Clearly he didn’t either, because he didn’t take it out.”
Rolfe and the other officer present also failed to remove the child from the house prior to searching it for Walker, Barram said, which he believed was also inconsistent with police training.
Barram added that they may not have even needed to search the house given they had already been given information about where Walker could be.
The court has heard that Rolfe and his colleagues were told at House 577 that Walker might be at another property, House 511. Rolfe’s colleague, constable Adam Eberl, previously gave evidence that after receiving this information, the officers travelled to House 511, but no plan was made between them about what to do if they found Walker, or if he was armed.
Barram said there was no reason why a plan regarding the visit to House 511 could not have been made by the officers, as is reinforced in their training.
“There was no urgency for them to go into that house at all,” he said.
“They had all the time in the world to discuss, plan, make some decisions about what would happen, utilise their … training, about if he is in there, what do we do.”
He said making a plan would have allowed the officers time to consider “if/then thinking”, a principle of their training which reinforces the need for police to workshop how they may react if an offender behaves in a certain way.
The purpose of this, Barram told the court, was “so that you can turn an unplanned incident into a planned response and allow that critical thinking … rather than going into a situation and letting it dictate to you”.
Once Rolfe and his colleague, then-constable Adam Eberl, entered House 511 and saw Walker walking towards them with a hand in his pocket, the officers again acted against their training, Barram said in court.
Barram said the officers should have stayed at the door to the property, giving them the ability to back outside and maintain space from Walker, and they should have asked him to show them his hands.
“If you’ve got someone that you even suspect may be armed, first thing you’re going to want to do is see their hands,” Barram told the court.
“So I don’t know why they persisted with going in … why would you put yourself in such close proximity to him?
“There’s no … distance between them. Limited time to be able to react. Completely goes against our training.”
Soon after giving this evidence, Barram added: “They’ve put themselves in close proximity to someone that they suspect was armed.”
David Edwardson QC, for Rolfe, interjected: “Sorry, where’s the evidence of that?” To which Justice John Burns responded: “You can ask him that in due course”.
Prosecutor Philip Strickland SC has told the court that the context to the alleged murder, including Rolfe’s training and any plans before attending House 511, must be considered alongside the shooting itself.
But Edwardson has said Rolfe was acting within his training when he fired the shots, as he feared Walker continued to pose a threat to himself and Eberl.
Barram will continue his evidence on Tuesday.
