The murder trial of constable Zachary Rolfe has heard evidence for the first time from a direct witness to the shooting of Kumanjayi Walker.
Rolfe, 30, shot Walker, 19, during a deployment to Yuendumu, a remote community about 300km from Alice Springs, on 9 November 2019.
The court has heard Walker was shot three times by Rolfe, but the first shot is not subject to any charges. It occurred only moments after Walker stabbed Rolfe with a pair of surgical scissors.
The crown prosecutor, Philip Strickland SC, has previously told the Northern Territory supreme court that after the first shot had been fired, another officer struggled with Walker and eventually gained control of him, pinning the arm that had been holding the scissors under Walker’s body.
Rolfe then placed his left hand on his colleague’s back and pressed his right hand, holding his Glock semi-automatic handgun, against the left side of Walker’s body, Strickland said, before pulling the trigger twice in quick succession, in what Strickland said was known as a “double-tap” designed to ensure maximum damage.
It is the second and third shots that are subject to the murder charge. If a jury finds Rolfe not guilty of murder, he faces a charge of manslaughter, and if he is found not guilty of that charge, a further charge of engaging in a violent act causing death. The police officer has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
David Edwardson QC, for Rolfe, said he would defend his actions as being reasonable and justifiable in the context of the danger faced by him and his colleague, constable Adam Eberl. Edwardson said Rolfe was acting in self-defence, and to defend the life of Eberl, when he fired the second and third shots, and his training had emphasised that “edged weapon equals gun”.
Walker had a propensity for violence and had attacked Rolfe in a dark and confined space, he said, with the police officers having to make decisions without the “luxury” of being about to consider tactical options “frame-by-frame”.
On Thursday, senior constable Anthony Hawkings told the Northern Territory supreme court he saw Rolfe holding his police-issued Glock handgun “very close” to Walker’s body before he shot him for the second and third time.
He had not seen the first shot fired by Rolfe, but when he looked through the doorway of a Yuendumu property known as House 511 he noticed that Walker was on his side, Eberl was struggling with him, and Rolfe was crouching over the pair with his gun in his right hand.
Soon after, Rolfe fired two shots, Hawkings said, clarifying that he had only looked into the doorway for a “matter of seconds”. He did not see Walker holding the scissors, nor go into the room. After the shooting he kept watch over the doorway to prevent other people entering, he said.
While extensive body-worn camera footage of the shooting has been played to the court, it is the first time someone who witnessed the shots has given evidence.
The court has previously heard that Rolfe fired the second shot 2.6 seconds after the first shot, and that there was 0.53 seconds between Rolfe’s second and third shots.
Hawkings, Rolfe and Eberl were part of a team deployed to Yuendumu from Alice Springs to deal with several community issues, including the arrest of Walker, a fugitive who had threatened other officers with an axe three days earlier.
Like other officers who have given evidence during the trial, Hawkings was asked extensively about any briefing or information he received before deploying at Yuendumu. Conflicting accounts have emerged about what information was provided to the officers, the extent of planning before their deployment, and the purpose of their duties on the night of the shooting.
The shooting during an attempted arrest occurred only 15 minutes after the officers left the station, which the prosecution alleges was inconsistent with a plan which the officer in charge of the station said she had emailed to officers to arrest Walker early the following morning.
Hawkings said he could not remember seeing any email relating to his deployment to Yuendumu, or having an extensive briefing.
He said he believed the only notes he had made in his police notebook about the deployment related to the time he arrived at the station from Alice Springs, but he could not be sure as he had misplaced the notebook.
He did recall seeing a map of Yuendumu at the station, but could not recall who gave it to him. When shown CCTV footage of some of the officers at Yuendumu station picking up a document prior to leaving, he could not recall what the document was.
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.
On Thursday, the court also heard from a family member of Walker who said the Warlpiri man had planned to surrender to police.
Louanna Williams, Walker’s auntie, said he visited her after he had threatened officers with an axe and told her he planned to hand himself in after the funeral of a family member.
The funeral was held on the day Walker was killed. Williams said Walker also told her he was “comfortable” having her brother, senior Aboriginal community police officer Derek Williams (who was not involved in the events around Walker’s death), arrest him, and denied any involvement in a series of break-ins in Yuendumu.
Local police suspected Walker had been involved in the break-ins, which had prompted medical staff to evacuate from the town – one of several reasons used to justify the deployment of Rolfe and other officers from Alice Springs.
Leanne Oldfield, Walker’s adopted mother, said the funeral was for her uncle. Walker had been close to her uncle, she said.
Minutes before the shooting, she had been sitting outside 511, the house where she lived with her partner and Walker, she said.
Walker had been looking at a family photo of his cousins and an aunt in a swimming pool, and laughing, she said, before he went inside the property.
“He was looking at the photo, then after – then he went inside,” Oldfield said.
“Soon as he went inside, I seen the police coming through the gate.”
The trial continues.
