A Yuendumu elder says Aboriginal teenager Kumanjayi Walker had planned to surrender to police before Constable Zach Rolfe allegedly murdered him.

February 17, 2022

Aboriginal teenager Kumanjayi Walker was planning to surrender to police before Constable Zachary Rolfe allegedly murdered him during a failed outback arrest, a jury has been told.

Rolfe, 30, is fighting the charge at trial, saying he was doing his job in “good faith” and defending himself and a colleague against a violent criminal.

He has been accused of heavy-handed tactics for shooting the 19-year-old three times on November 9, 2019 in Yuendumu, 290km northwest of Alice Springs.

Warlpiri elder and Yuendumu community leader Eddie Robertson says Mr Walker had agreed to hand himself into police on November 10, 2019.

“I asked Kumanjayi if he can come to the police station and give himself in,” he told the Northern Territory Supreme Court.

“He nodded his head and said: ‘Yep’.”

Mr Robertson – who was the grandfather of Mr Walker’s then partner Rakeisha – said he had spoken to the officer-in-charge at the Yuendumu police station, Sergeant Julie Frost.

The pair had agreed Mr Walker would be arrested after his great uncle’s funeral which was initially planned for November 8 but was moved to November 9.

“I was going to ask him to come with me to the police station,” Mr Robertson said.

He did not get the chance.

Mr Robertson’s phone rang while he was at the cemetery with the news Mr Walker had been shot.

Police had escalated the order to arrest him after he threatened two other policemen with an axe on November 6.

Those officers had been trying to arrest the teen for breaching a court order when he removed his electronic monitoring device and fled an Alice Springs alcohol rehabilitation clinic about a week earlier.

Three days later, Rolfe and three fellow response team members were ordered to arrest Mr Walker early in the morning on November 10 but they failed to follow the plan.

About 45 minutes after arriving in the community of about 800 on November 9, Rolfe shot the troubled teen three times after he stabbed the constable with a pair of scissors in the shoulder.

Prosecutors have conceded the first shot, which was fired while Mr Walker was standing and resisting arrest, was justified.

But they argue the fatal second and third shots when Mr Walker was laying on the ground went “too far”.

Mr Walker died at 8.36pm from injuries sustained from one of those shots, which the Crown says were not legally justified because Mr Walker was “effectively restrained”.

The trial continues on Thursday.