A Northern Territory policeman warned the family of Aboriginal teen Kumanjayi Walker he could get shot if he was violent towards officers, a court has heard.

February 9, 2022

The family of slain Aboriginal teenager Kumanjayi Walker were warned days before he died that could get shot if he acted violently towards Northern Territory police, a court has been told.

The troubled 19-year-old was killed on November 9, 2019, after he stabbed Constable Zachary Rolfe with a pair of scissors as the officer attempted to arrest him in Yuendumu, 290km northwest of Alice Springs.

Rolfe, 30, is on trial in the Supreme Court in Darwin for Mr Walker’s murder after he shot the teen three times during a scuffle in a darkened room as he and a fellow officer tried to put handcuffs on the teenager.

He is fighting the charge and says he was defending himself and his partner against a dangerous criminal while they performed their duty.

Three days before he was allegedly murdered, Mr Walker aggressively threatened two other policemen with an axe as they attempted to arrest him at a home in the same remote community.

Body-worn camera footage shows Mr Walker picking up the axe, raising it above his head and running at the officers, who had cornered him in a bedroom.

He escaped and neither officer was injured, but they were badly shaken.

After the incident, Senior Constable Christopher Hand warned Mr Walker’s partner’s grandmother, Lottie Robertson, that he could get shot if he did it again.

“Next time he does that he might, he might get shot in Alice Springs,” he says in the video referring to the more aggressive policing style in the central Australian city where Mr Walker was unlikely to be known by officers.

“It is a different way of policing in Indigenous communities. We always like to be as non-violent as we can with arrests,” he told the court on Wednesday.

He said he did not regard Mr Walker as dangerous at the time but also admitted he was unaware the teenager had previously assaulted police.

Unlike Rolfe, he and fellow officer Senior Constable Lanyon Smith did not draw their pistols when Mr Walker armed himself with the axe.

Instead, they let him run from the home into the bush saying they had wanted to de-escalate the situation.

“We get trained … if you draw your firearm you never want the muzzle to cover or point at anything you are not willing to destroy,” Constable Hand said.

Constable Smith said Mr Walker’s threats with the axe were to impress his family.

“I did not feel he as if he was going to hurt me. It was more intimidation to get out of room,” he said.

“Kumanjayi being Warlpiri man, it was more of a show for his partner in the room and his family.”

Constable Smith said Warlpiri people often used physically threatening actions to impress their community and show they were strong.

Meanwhile, Justice John Burns has lifted a suppression order preventing media reporting on body-worn camera footage of the shooting that ended Mr Walker’s life.

Confronting video of the violent incident shows Rolfe and a fellow officer identifying the teen from a photo on Rolfe’s mobile phone before the trio wrestle as Mr Walker resists arrest.

Mr Walker can be seen holding a pair of scissors in his right hand as Rolfe fires his first shot hitting the teen in the back while he was standing and struggling against the other officer.

It is not the subject of the murder charge. That relates to Rolfe’s second and third shots, which the prosecution says were not legally justified.

They were fired when Mr Walker was laying on the ground with Rolfe’s partner on top of him “effectively restraining” him, according to prosecutor Philip Strickland SC.

The video, which has been played frame by frame to the jury for two days, shows Rolfe’s right hand holding the gun at “point-blank” range from Walker’s torso as he fires two more rounds.

Mr Walker then begins loudly moaning in pain and calling out for his mother as the officers handcuff him.

He died about two hours later.

The trial continues on Thursday.