Confronting body worn camera footage of the moment a Northern Territory policeman shot Aboriginal teenager Kumanjayi Walker has been shown to a murder trial.

February 9, 2022

Disturbing video of the moment a Northern Territory policeman shot Aboriginal teenager Kumanjayi Walker three times has been shown to a murder trial.

Constable Zachary Rolfe, 30, has pleaded not guilty to the shooting murder of Mr Walker, 19, during a failed outback arrest attempt on November 9, 2019.

Justice John Burns lifted a suppression order late Wednesday preventing media reporting on Rolfe and a fellow officer’s body-worn camera footage of the shooting that ended the teen’s life.

Confronting video of the violent incident in Yuendumu, 290km northwest of Alice Springs, shows Rolfe and his partner, Constable Adam Eberl, identifying Mr Walker from a photo on Rolfe’s mobile phone before the trio wrestle as the teen resists arrest.

Mr Walker can be seen holding a pair of scissors in his right hand after Rolfe fires his first shot hitting the teen in the back while he was standing and struggling against Constable Eberl in a dark room of house 511.

It did not kill him and 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 Constable Eberl on top of him “effectively restraining” him with his right arm pinned beneath him, according to prosecutor Philip Strickland SC.

The dark and grainy 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 the second shot 2.6 seconds after the first.

About 0.5 seconds later Rolfe fired a third time. Played at normal speed the incident is chaotic, occurring almost instantaneously as the three men shout and struggle.

Constable Eberl then yells “don’t f**k around, I’ll f**king smash you mate” as the two officer’s handcuff Mr Walker’s hands behind his back.

“Did you? F**k,” Constable Eberl then says before Rolfe replies: “It’s all good, he was stabbing me. He was stabbing me.”

Mr Walker then begins loudly moaning in pain and calling out for his mother, saying  “Leanne, Leanne” as he lay on a grubby mattress.

“You mob been shoot me. You mob been shoot me,” he said.

Constable Eberl again tells Mr Walker to drop the scissors before the teen says: “I’m going to kill you mob”.

The teen died in the Yuendumu police station about two hours later as officers attempted to apply first aid.

The trial continues on Thursday.