Almost six years after the police shooting of Kumanjayi Walker tore the Northern Territory apart, the coroner will hand down her findings

Australia Broadcast Center

05-07-2025

WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the name and image of an Indigenous person who has died, used with the permission of their family.
This story contains racist and offensive language and images, as well as references to sexual assault.
On the dusty Tanami Road to Yuendumu, the community's message is scrawled on the back of road signs.
The graffitied words "no guns in Yuendumu" and "Justice For Walker" are slightly faded now.
After all, it's been almost six years since Kumanjayi Walker died in the Indigenous community at the end of the road.
"We were all terrified, we were scared, we didn't know what to do," says senior Warlpiri elder, Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves.
The tragedy of November 9, 2019 is as raw today as it was then.
But there's hope that tomorrow, the coroner's long awaited inquest findings will answer questions that have been asked since that night.
Coronial inquests are not bound by the same strict rules of evidence which apply to criminal cases; meaning for almost three years, NT Coroner Elisabeth Armitage was able to explore issues well beyond the night Mr Walker was killed.
Ultimately, she sought to understand how and why the 19-year-old man and constable ended up in a dark room in House 511 in Yuendumu in the first place.
She described some of what she uncovered as "deeply disturbing", after unveiling allegations of widespread racism within even the highest ranks of the police force, and reviewing body worn footage of violent arrests.
At the beginning of the inquest, the man who fired the fatal shots, former constable Zachary Rolfe says he was painted as a "racist, violent cop".
By the time he gave evidence more than a year later, the coroner had heard enough to suggest Zachary Rolfe himself was not the problem.
"There was an assumption that [Mr Rolfe] was a rotten apple, that he was an exception to the otherwise very harmonious and well-intentioned NT Police force that was not racist," law professor Thalia Anthony says.
Text messages downloaded from Mr Rolfe's phone showed even senior police regularly used derogatory terms including "coons" and "neanderthals".
Such language was "normalised" at the station, Mr Rolfe told the coroner.
He revealed a series of racist mock awards were handed out at Christmas parties by the force's most elite tactical unit and, while his motivations for doing so were questioned, Mr Rolfe himself uncovered some of the most explosive evidence the inquiry heard.
"Racism killed Kumanjayi," Mr Walker's cousin, Samara Fernandez-Brown said.
The coroner heard conflicting evidence about the instructions given to Mr Rolfe and his colleagues on the night of the shooting.
The local sergeant said she had a plan to effect a safe arrest of Mr Walker — who was wanted for allegedly breaching a court order and threatening police with an axe — on Saturday, November 10 at 5am.
Ideally, the officers would be joined by a local Aboriginal cop who knew him and would able to put cuffs on the 19-year-old before he'd properly woken up.
But Zachary Rolfe and his specialist Immediate Response Team (IRT) colleagues said they had driven in on the afternoon of November 9 — long-arm weapons and police dog in tow — under the impression they were to arrest Mr Walker and take him back to Alice Springs.
They left the police station at dusk and found their target at House 511.
As the sun set, Mr Walker was suddenly face-to-face with two police officers in his mother's living room.
He stabbed Constable Rolfe in the shoulder with a pair of scissors.
The officer responded by firing his Glock three times.
Yuendumu's nurses had evacuated for the weekend hours earlier, after a string of break-ins at their homes.
So Kumanjayi was taken to the police station, where officers did what they could to treat three close-range gunshot wounds.
As the 19-year-old lay dying on the floor of a police cell, his family sat outside in the dark — literally and figuratively.
They learned the next day that the plane they saw come in that night was not in fact taking their loved one to hospital.
Because he had died just hours after the shooting.
Coronial findings are not legally binding, meaning the coroner's recommendations could simply be left to gather dust at Parliament House.
But the chief minister says her government will be "upfront" with the community about which ones it accepts, and which it will not.
She cannot convict any person of a criminal offence and Zachary Rolfe has already been acquitted of all charges related to the shooting, so he cannot be charged again.
But the coroner can refer unnamed individuals to prosecutors, and make widespread recommendations for systemic change within government departments; in this case likely targeted at health, education, corrections, police and housing.
The inquest itself has already led to changes across various government departments — particularly the Northern Territory Police Force.
Zachary Rolfe is no longer a serving officer, dismissed after penning an open letter criticising the coroner, police commissioner and inquest process.
The force itself has lost two commissioners since the inquest began.
A new executive role, designed to identify and combat racism within the ranks has been created and a string of changes to training have been rolled out.
"Police have been working towards probably a lot of what [the coroner's] recommendations will set out and recommend," Acting NT Police Commissioner Martin Dole said.
"But we'll consider those when they're handed down."
Regardless of what Coroner Elisabeth Armitage ultimately finds, her report will be another in the long list of recommendations made to avoid deaths such as Kumanjayi's since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
Recommendations made before Kumanjayi Walker was even born.
"The inquest into his death has been gruelling, shocking and devastating," Ms Fernandez-Brown said.
What was initially scheduled to be a three-month inquiry has taken almost three years to complete.
With the coroner's broad scope of inquiry, came a string of legal appeals — led predominantly by Mr Rolfe — arguing many of the issues she explored were irrelevant.
He also urged the coroner to stand aside from the investigation, claiming she was biased, leading to further delays in the hearings.
"I think it's gone on for too long and I think things should have been pulled in," Professor Anthony says.
"I think the coroner should have been more assertive in terms of how she dealt with a lot of the evidence and the witnesses."
Elisabeth Armitage has long been clear that her inquest was never just about Zachary Rolfe and Kumanjayi Walker, but the systems which put them on the same fatal collision course in the first place.
As she examined Mr Rolfe's previous career as a soldier and breaches of rules and regulations, she heard evidence about Mr Walker's long list of interactions with the justice system.
She took in details about police recruitment processes and mental health support, while hearing it was likely Mr Walker was born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Her report was due to be handed down last month, but just days beforehand, another young Warlpiri man, Kumanjayi White, lost his life in police custody.
The Yuendumu community was thrown right back to the start of another healing process, as this one was finally within arm's reach.
Elisabeth Armitage has had a tough job in front of her from the beginning.
There is not a corner of the Northern Territory untouched by the ripple effect of Kumanjayi Walker's death.
Delivering a report which brings closure to all involved, is an impossible task.
The shooting tore apart sections of the NT Police Force — many officers are vehemently defensive of their colleague, who was charged with the most serious offence in the criminal code just four days after firing his Glock on the job.
It's the stuff of nightmares, for men and women in uniform.
They feel Zachary Rolfe has been unfairly targeted and that his charging was politically motivated, to appease Indigenous communities.
His text messages, personal health records and details of past romantic relationships are now in the public realm. Irrelevant information, they argue, when it comes to the coroner determining the cause and circumstances of a death in custody.
On the other side of the divide are a grieving family and their supporters, upset and confused by the loss not only of a young Warlpiri-Luritja man, but also of any trust they had in the justice system.
Zachary Rolfe's unequivocal acquittal at the Supreme Court, by a jury lacking any Yapa faces, dealt his family another blow.
Accountability and justice, in their view, was not found in the criminal Kardiya courts.
They hold onto hope that their years of travelling hundreds of kilometres from the bush to the coroner's court to share their truths will lead to better outcomes for the current generation of Warlpiri youngsters growing up in the desert community.
After losing two grandsons in police custody, Mr Jampijinpa Hargraves wants to see unity on his country.
"We should be … together," he said.
But 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker can't be brought home again.
Regardless of the coroner's findings, there will be no winners in the pages of her report.