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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

In November 2019, a 19-year-old Walpiri man, Kumanjayi Walker, was killed by a Northern Territory police constable, Zachary Rolfe.

It happened during an attempted arrest in the remote community of Yuendumu. Rolfe shot Walker three times. Walker died shortly after.

Rolfe was charged with murder. His trial has been playing out in the Darwin Supreme Court, and last week a verdict was handed down.

Rolfe was found not guilty.

Today, writer and contributor to The Monthly Anna Krien on the acquittal of Zachary Rolfe, and what this case reveals about the state of policing in Australia.

It’s Thursday, March 17.

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RUBY:

Anna last week, you were there in the courthouse, in Darwin, as a verdict was handed down in the trial of Zachary Rolfe. Can you tell me about what that moment was like?

ANNA:

Yeah, I mean, it was pretty nerve wracking, I think, for as all verdicts are nerve wracking. Basically, the jury deliberated for half a day and then went home, and then everyone reconvened the next morning. And you know, as you do, the journalists all waited outside the court or basically watching a kettle boil, wondering when the moment was going to come.

And then finally, you get a message saying the jury's about to deliver their verdict.

Zachary Rolfe sat in the dock. He hadn't actually sat in the dock the entire trial, unlike most accused. And then the jury jury came out and they said not guilty to the first charge of murder. Not guilty to the alternative charges of manslaughter. And of a violent act causing death.

RUBY:

Obviously, the jury in a trial don't actually give their reasoning for how they came to the decision that they did, so I think it might help to hear about what the defence actually argued in this case over the past five weeks or so and what therefore might have influenced the jury's decision.

ANNA:

Yeah, sure, so the defence was arguing, which is pretty much I mean, it's the same defence that is argued the world over when it comes to police officers that what Zachary Rolfe did was he defended himself and he defended the life of his police partner.

They presented Zachary Rolfe as a man who served his community as an outstanding officer, an upstanding officer, and that what he had done was almost heroic in the sense that he had said that he was defending himself and was saving the life of his police partner.

RUBY:

Hmm, and we know that Zachary Rolfe shot his gun three times that night, and there was some agreement between the prosecution and defence that that first shot that he fired was necessary. But it was the next two shots that really seemed to be the crux of this. And it seemed like the prosecution - their difficulty was in trying to argue that those two shots were not necessary and that they did in fact, constitute murder.

ANNA:

Yeah, I mean, there was such a difficult case for the prosecution to implement in the sense that what they've been doing was trying to build this case of intent, of creating a mindset of Zachary Rolfe.

That he’d become somewhat obsessed with arresting Kumanjayi Walker, that he had watched previous footage of Kumanjayi Walker brandishing an axe at two other policemen. And he had watched it at least 30 times, potentially more.

And so they're creating this mindset of intent to hunt down Kumanjayi Walker and cause him harm. But then they have this huge hiccup in the middle of that narrative of of the first gunshot, which is legal, which is justified. And then they sort of have to work around that.

And I mean, what the prosecution was saying was that you can't view that incident as a single incident, that there was two phases to that incident. The first shot was fired when Zachary Rolfe was indeed being attacked and they were standing up.

But the second two shots. The prosecution was arguing was when Kumanjayi Walker was on the mattress, lying on his side, already with one gunshot in his torso, with Zachary Rolfe’s police partner, Adam Ebel, effectively restraining him. So this the prosecution was arguing there was no need to then move towards him and fire two more shots into Kumanjayi Walker’s side.

RUBY:

Right - ok and so it wasn’t long after this that Kumanjayi Walker - was 19 - died from those injuries. But what do we know about Walker’s life? Was there much said about who Kumanyai Walker was, during this trial?

ANNA:

We didn't learn much during the trial about Kumanjayi Walker's life, Kumanjayi Walker, it's quite hard to get a linear sense of his life, which is why it's just it's almost fascinating in a macabre way to line up these two men and just show how different their lives were and are.

Kumanjayi Walker, His mother was a petrol sniffer and an alcoholic. It was never diagnosed, but it was pretty clear to most people who worked with him that he had foetal alcohol syndrome. That was there was potential difficulties that came from the petrol sniffing that his mother had done as well.

He grew up in a volatile environment to a degree. You know, you witnessed a lot of domestic violence. He witnessed a lot of violence full stop. And moved around and was passed between families. And he was a traumatised kid that turned into a difficult young man. He became quite violent to his girlfriend, he had those habits shown to him and then he enacted them as well. So he was a difficult young man, there's no doubt about that.

RUBY:

Right, and what about Zachary Rolfe? Did you get a sense of who he is?

ANNA:

Yeah um. You couldn't have got a person further away from Yuendumu or even from Alice Springs, whose upbringing was so completely, vastly different than that of the people of whom he was policing.

He um grew up in, you know, the leafy, well-to-do suburbs of Canberra; went to the same private school as his father; his parents are both very well respected and influential and privileged in Canberra society.

Zachary, when he finished high school, he joined the Australian Army and was deployed to Afghanistan once, and and then he joins the Northern Territory police and inside the Northern Territory Police Service he's quite intent on joining the Tactical Response Unit, which is what sort of parachuted into almost military type situations, siege situations, hostage situations, those kind of things. So he was working towards getting into that unit.

So he was very ambitious. I'm sure he still is. And was clearly sort of aiming to be involved in high strategy, tactical kind of style policing style again, which was really obviously very different to community policing.

RUBY:

Right - and that tension Anna, between community policing and this tactical high strategy policing - that became a key question in this trial, didn’t it?

ANNA:

Yeah I think what the trial really shone a light on was two very different styles of policing. the community. Cops in Yuendumu, they're policing is built on trust and building relationships and quite time consuming policing. Very patient. A lot of talking. A lot of communication, as opposed to a different style of policing, which seems to be quite focussed on tactics, escalation and de-escalation, firearm tactics, all those kind of things. And I think that was really quite disparate in the trial - that there were two very different types of policing happening in Northern Territory and probably indeed across the country.

RUBY:

We’ll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Anna, last week Zachary Rolfe was found not guilty of the murder of Kumanjayi Walker after that verdics was handed down in court, What kind of reaction did we see?

ANNA:

So after the verdict, the different groups congregated on the steps of the Supreme Court to make statements.

First of all, there was Zachary Rolfe himself. Then his lawyer. Then there was the police union,

Archival Tape -- Police Union:

“They followed their training and today we're seeing justice prevail. It was a travesty that Constable Ralph is charged so quickly and without thorough investigation.”

ANNA:

and eventually the prosecution came out the lawyers and they made a statement. And then finally, the Warlpiri mob.

Archival Tape -- Ned:

“Today is not a very it's not a really happy day for us. It's another sad day”

ANNA:

Senior Warlpiri man Ned Hargraves, he had been present every day at the trial in a wheelchair and he spoke quite fiercely and intensely

Archival Tape -- Ned:

“I just say when we are going to get justice. When?”

ANNA:

And one of the things that he said was enough is enough, no more guns in communities.

Archival Tape -- Ned:

“Karrinjarla muwajarri!

No guns in the remote community. Enough is enough.”

ANNA:

And this has been repeated across the Northern Territory of cops shouldn't be wearing guns in communities. And so this is something that's going to be pushed for I think in the longer run.

I have done many interviews over the course of this story and spoken to different police, and there are police who won't take their gun out into the community, who just have it locked in a safe at the station. And if they feel the need arises, they'll get it. And then there are other police who won't go anywhere without their firearm, who see it as a key component of their policing.

So there's this real discrepancy about how police might feel in a community, how safe they might feel, whether they've built enough relationships to consider themselves unthreatened or safe as opposed to maybe a policeman who's fresh in a community who is even probably undergoing culture shock. So again, even the relationship between police officers and their firearms varies from police officer.

RUBY:

Yeah, I wanted to to ask you about, I suppose, after sitting through this trial, talking to these police officers who have it sounds like quite different views on whether or not they should be armed um in communities where you've kind of landed on this question of the way that policing operates in First Nations communities, I suppose, particularly in the Northern Territory and how, after all this time, you're thinking about that question.

ANNA:

Yeah, so I haven't come to any concrete conclusions yet as to where my mind settles on this matter in the sense that it's pretty clear from communities that they want police there. You know, every couple of years, you'll have a call from a community saying, we need more police here, we need more help, we need more support.

So from the community's perspective they want police who they can build a rapport with and a relationship, one that's built on trust and communication. What I'm getting the impression they don't want is sort of drop in, drop out, fly in, fly out policing where the community doesn't know the officer. There hasn't been this rapport that's been built. An arrest target literally is just an arrest target, as opposed to a human that is understood in their, in their full humanity.So that's where the impressions that I'm gathering of what a remote community wants from their police service.

RUBY:

Mm hmm. And does it seem at all to you that this trial is going to have an impact on policing in Australia and on the record of black deaths in custody?

ANNA:

Well, it's it's hugely significant in the sense that it's the first murder charges that have been laid against a police officer for 40-odd years.But the divisions and the disparity between the two parties is just so vast. The Gulf is so big.

You have the Warlpiri mob who have really battled this through to trial with real dignity.They haven't had enormous lobby groups of unions and stuff like that behind them. They had great hope for a guilty verdict, which would be really historical, and I think for them clearly is important.

Zachary Rolfe and the police unions who have supported him, almost in a one-eyed way, have this absolute conviction that it was a miscarriage of justice, that he was investigated and charged. They're adamant that it was a political charge, that it was done to appease the Black Lives Matter movement.

And it just struck me that it was a shame that there was so much hostility this idea that these things should not be scrutinised publicly that officers don't have to be answerable to these kind of incidents, and obviously their occupation is high risk. There's no doubt about that. But accountability is incredibly important.

You know itt's been an absolute tragedy and it would be really, really something for change to come out of it.

RUBY:

Hmm. And imagine it's going to be a difficult time for Yuendumu going forward now.

ANNA:

Yeah, I think it's going to be, it's going to be incredibly hard for the people of Yuendumu. To find that trust again. And as a result, it's going to be incredibly hard for the community police of Yuendumu to regain that trust.

RUBY:

Anna, thank you so much for your time.

ANNA:

Thanks, Ruby

RUBY:

Anna Krien’s story about this trial will be published in upcoming issue of The Monthly.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today

A targeted attack has rocked Ukraine’s capital Kyiv as a Russian bombardment hit residential buildings and a metro station.

At least five people were killed in the attack prompting the city to impose a 35 hour curfew.

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And NSW Health has confirmed a seventh case of Japanese encephalitis in a woman aged in her 40s from the Berrigan area in the Riverina region.

Japanese encephalitis is spread by mosquitoes and can infect animals and humans.

I’m Ruby Jones, This is 7am, see you tomorrow.