NT coroner to deliver long-awaited findings about police shooting of Kumanjayi Walker

Australia Broadcast Center

24-04-2025

The long-awaited coroner's findings into the death of an Aboriginal man shot by a Northern Territory police officer in 2019 will be handed down on June 10, 2025.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the name and image of a person who has died, used with the permission of their family.
Kumanjayi Walker was killed in the remote Aboriginal community of Yuendumu, 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs, on November 9, 2019.
Kumanjayi Walker, 19, was fatally shot by Zachary Rolfe in Yuendumu in 2019.
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The Warlpiri-Luritja man's death, and the subsequent prosecution of the police officer responsible, sent shockwaves through the community and made headlines across the country.
Zachary Rolfe had been attempting to take Mr Walker into custody when the 19-year-old stabbed Mr Rolfe in the shoulder.
The then-officer responded by firing his Glock three times.
Mr Rolfe was charged with murder four days later, and was ultimately acquitted of all criminal charges — including manslaughter and engaging in a violent act causing death — after a six-week NT Supreme Court trial in March 2022.
Zachary Rolfe was acquitted of all criminal charges in March 2022.
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Jurors found Mr Rolfe was acting in self-defence and in line with his police training when he fired his weapon.
The coronial inquest into Mr Walker's death, which is mandatory under NT law because he died in custody, has been running for more than two-and-a-half years.
Coroner Elisabeth Armitage's inquiry was initially scheduled to run for three months, between September and December 2022, but the hearings ultimately stretched across 66 days — over 20 months — as 72 witnesses gave evidence.
A series of unsuccessful legal appeals launched on behalf of Mr Rolfe and others, as well as a broad scope of inquiry, contributed to the delays, making it the
Elisabeth Armitage says what she uncovered during the coronial inquest was "deeply disturbing."
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The coroner's inquiry delved well beyond the night Mr Walker was shot, as she heard evidence about both Mr Rolfe and Mr Walker's lives in the years prior to the death.
She examined allegations of racism, cover-ups and excessive use of force among police, as well as the decisions made immediately before and after Mr Walker was killed.
Judge Armitage described what she uncovered as "deeply disturbing".
The coroner's inquiry investigated allegations of racism within the NT Police Force.
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Through text messages found on Mr Rolfe's phone — which he sought to have barred from the inquiry, arguing they were irrelevant — the inquest heard racist language was used among police on the Alice Springs beat.
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a graphic showing a male middle-aged police officer, a young man in a white collared shirt and a woman wearing a dress
The coronial inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker has finished after almost two years of hearings, leaving the Northern Territory Police Force in crisis.
When Mr Rolfe gave substantial evidence to the inquest, more than a year after it began, he told the coroner such language was "normalised" among police and revealed the force's most elite unit had spent years
The coronial investigation into the death in custody of the 19-year-old Warlpiri-Luritja man became the trigger for an ICAC inquiry and a string of internal investigations for the Northern Territory Police Force.
He has launched an appeal of that decision.
Zachary Rolfe was dismissed from the NT Police Force in 2023.
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After hundreds of hours of hearings, the coroner received thousands of pages of submissions from the 16 interested parties to the inquest — including Mr Walker's family, Mr Rolfe, the NT Police Force, other government agencies and community organisations.
Her findings and recommendations are likely to be lengthy and will be delivered in Yuendumu, where Mr Walker died.
"Coroner Armitage has accepted an invitation from the Parumpurru committee of Yuendumu to deliver her findings in Yuendumu, noting that the Local Court regularly sits in Yuendumu, and that the Coroners Court has a history of, where possible, conducting inquests, or parts of inquests, in the geographical area where a death has occurred," an NT courts spokesperson said in a statement.