‘Racist': Long-awaited coroner's report released in police shooting of Kumanjayi Walker
An Alice Springs constable who fatally shot an Indigenous teenager in 2019 was racist and worked in a racist police station, the coroner says.
Coroner Elisabeth Armitage has spent three years investigating the life of Kumanjayi Walker and the events surrounding the 19-year-old's death.
Constable Zachary Rolfe shot Mr Walker after the officer was stabbed.
The coroner presented her findings to the community of Yuendumu, 300km northwest of Alice Springs, on Monday,
'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,' Ms Armitage said.
'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.
'While it was not possible for me to say with certainty that Mr Rolfe's racist attitudes were operative in his decisions on 9 November or were a contributing cause of Kumanjayi's death, I cannot exclude that possibility.'
Mr Walker was fatally shot by the then NT police constable during an attempted arrest at Yuendumu in 2019.
Mr Walker stabbed the constable in the shoulder with a pair of scissors; Mr Rolfe shot Mr Walker three times.
Mr Rolfe was acquitted by a jury of murder, manslaughter, and engaging in a violent act causing death in the NT Supreme Court in 2022. Mr Rolfe then publicly criticised the NT Police Force and the Coroner's Court and was sacked from the police.
Mr Walker died in custody, so a mandatory coronial inquest was undertaken. The inquiry ran for 66 hearing days, with 70 witnesses, during the course of three years.
The inquest has revealed evidence of systemic racism within the NT Police, sparked an ICAC investigation into the Territory Response Group, an NT police internal anti-racism review, and an apology from the then NT Police Commissioner to Aboriginal Territorians.
The release of the coroner's report was delayed following the death in custody of another Yuendumu man, Kumanjayi White, 24, inside a Coles in Alice Springs.
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