The trial for a Northern Territory policeman accused of murdering an Aboriginal teenager is set to resume after a week dominated by video of the incident.

February 14, 2022

The trial of a young police officer accused of murdering an Aboriginal teenager in a remote community amid conflicting orders is set to resume.

Constable Zachary Rolfe, 30, shot Kumanjayi Walker three times after the troubled 19-year-old stabbed him with a pair of scissors.

The Crown has conceded Rolfe’s first shot, which was fired as Mr Walker resisted arrest on November 9, 2019 was justified.

But it says the fatal second and third shots in a dingy Yuendumu home, 290km northwest of Alice Springs, went “too far”.

Rolfe was sent to the outback community to arrest Mr Walker after he aggressively threatened two other officers with an axe.

He arrived about 7pm with three other heavily armed officers and was ordered by the local officer-in-charge, Sergeant Julie Frost, to find out where Mr Walker was.

She had prepared a detailed plan to arrest Mr Walker about 5.30am the next day when the teen was likely to be sleeping and easily apprehended.

But Sgt Walker also ordered Rolfe and his colleagues to “lock him up” when asked what action they should take if they found Mr Walker.

What orders Rolfe was acting on dominated Friday’s hearing in the Northern Territory Supreme Court when Sgt Frost was also accused of concealing evidence about the shooting from the defence team.

However, the trial’s most explosive evidence has been Rolfe and partner Constable Adam Eberl’s body-worn camera footage.

The confronting video shows the moment Rolfe fires three rapid shots in 3.1 seconds into Mr Walker’s body 15 minutes after they left Sgt Frost’s briefing.

Mr Walker can be seen holding the scissors in his right hand after Rolfe fires his first shot into the teen’s back.

The dark and grainy video, which was played frame by frame to the jury during the first week of the trial, then shows Rolfe fire his Glock pistol into Mr Walker’s left torso from “point-blank” range.

Played at normal speed the incident is chaotic, occurring almost instantaneously as the three men shout and struggle.

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

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

Prosecutor Philip Strickland SC has suggested to the jury that Rolfe made the statement “because he knew he had gone too far when he fired the second and third shots”.

“He knew the shots were not necessary or reasonable. He knew everything he had done was captured on the body worn video,” he said.

“In short he said those words to justify what he had done.”

Mr Walker’s loud moans of pain can also be heard as he lay bleeding on a grubby mattress and calling for his mother.

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

Const 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.

The trial continues on Monday.