Coronial inquests are an important form of judicial truth-seeking.
The high-profile inquest into the police shooting of Warlpiri teenager Kumanjayi Walker at his home in Yuendumu in 2019 has taken three years to forensically investigate the truth of what happened on that day.
In findings delivered on Monday, the Northern Territory coroner has told us about a racist police officer whose actions went unchecked by a flawed and racist system. Here’s something Aboriginal families know to be true: racism kills.
Elisabeth Armitage found that former NT constable Zachary Rolfe, who shot and killed Walker in a botched arrest in 2019, was racist. “Having considered all the evidence, including Mr Rolfe’s explanations and justifications, I found that Mr Rolfe was racist and that he worked in, and was the beneficiary of, an organisation with hallmarks of institutional racism,” Armitage said.
She said she could not rule out that Rolfe’s racism was a factor in the death of Kumanjayi.
“I am satisfied that there is a significant risk that his racism, in combination with some of his other attitudes and values, affected his interactions with the community of Yuendumu on 9 November 2019, his entry into their houses and his perception of and response to the young Aboriginal man he shot and killed in a way that increased the likelihood of a fatal outcome.”
She found Rolfe operated in a system that failed on a number of occasions to “rein him in”.
If we are starting to talk about truth telling, here is the truth from where we stand: police racism was a factor in the death of Kumanjayi Walker – not just the racism of an individual officer but the structural racism of the force itself.
Armitage and her formidable team, including counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer, have worked hard to forensically document the entire horrific episode. It has taken them more than three years. There were delays to the inquest proceedings brought about by legal challenges from Rolfe’s lawyers, including an unsuccessful attempt to have the coroner recuse herself.
They investigated every case where Rolfe had used force in an arrest – a total of 12 incidents.
In summarising Rolfe’s use-of-force history, she noted time after time the “serious failure” of supervision by senior officers, whose response to Rolfe’s conduct was “wholly inadequate”. She found that officers “should have shown more leadership”.
“There was a serious failure by senior police (and the systems that support them) to facilitate an adequate and timely investigation into Mr Rolfe, once it emerged that there was a concerningly similar theme to the complaints being made against him; namely, that Mr Rolfe was involved in a number of matters where he did not have his BWV [body-worn video] on at the crucial moment of arrest, many where he was the only officer at the scene at the moment of arrest and where the suspect he arrested suffered a serious injury,” she said.
It was incumbent on NT police to “take urgent interim action to mitigate the risk to the public while Mr Rolfe was working”, either by suspending him from certain duties, or at the very least, ensuring he was warned and counselled about his suspected behaviour and carefully supervised.
She was surprised this did not happen even after a local court judge “found that Rolfe had probably assaulted an Aboriginal man, causing a head wound that required sutures, and had lied in a statutory declaration and on oath about doing so”.
The failure of NT police to properly supervise Rolfe, or to “rein him in”, as she put it, contributed to the sense of impunity with which he approached his work.
“In my view, the failure of the NT police to take any action in response to these extremely serious findings represents one of the most serious failures of oversight examined by the inquest,” she said.
It is now for the NT police force, and the NT government, to explain to the public why those things did not happen, why Rolfe remained an officer until relatively recently, and whether the changes to procedures and training it told the coroner have taken place since the shooting will be enough to ensure change.
These structural problems were so entrenched and longstanding that in 2024, the former NT police commissioner Michael Murphy felt compelled to apologise for the “harms and the injustices” inflicted by the police on Aboriginal people over the past 154 years. Murphy promised he would go to Yuendumu and apologise in person to the shattered families there. But Murphy was stood down from the force in March, after an Icac investigation, and a replacement is being sought. Yuendumu is not expecting to hear an apology anytime soon.
The coroner made 33 recommendations, including support for Yuendumu night patrol, youth services, disability services, mediators and rehabilitation programs. She recommended the NT police engage directly with the Yuendumu leadership groups to develop mutual respect agreements, including “when it would be appropriate for police not to carry firearms” in the community.
She said they are aimed at preventing such a tragedy from happening again.
Yet a few weeks ago another young man from Yuendumu, who was in state care due to a disability, died in an Alice Springs supermarket after a botched arrest attempt by off-duty police officers.
Armitage and her team will be investigating that death as well.
Without systemic change, the truth can be easily stepped over.
Walker was killed six years ago. His family has endured a criminal trial, and then protracted inquest hearings, with patience and dignity. Their voices have been hardly heard throughout the entire sorry ordeal.
Now, maybe they might be able to speak freely. And alongside their truth-telling and that of the coroner, there must be some listening to what they have to say, and what they think needs to change so they can feel safe in their own homes again.
“Kumanjayi’s death has devastated our community. We miss him and feel his loss deeply every single day; it will stain our country for generations to come,” Walker’s cousin, Samara Fernandez-Brown, said.
“The inquest into his death has been gruelling, shocking and devastating. Throughout it, our families and communities have stood strong, showed up and listened to all the ways that Kumanjayi was failed.
“We are heartbroken and exhausted after many long years, but we are hoping change is coming. We have faith that the truth will finally be told, and want to see real change so that we can finally start our healing.”
Walker’s family said late on Monday they are taking the time to process the coroner’s findings and will make a full statement and press conference later today.
• Lorena Allam is descended from the Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay nations of north-western New South Wales. She is the industry professor of Indigenous media at Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology, Sydney
