Aaron Bunch Journalist with Australian Associated Press | Collection of published work | + 61 484 008 119 | abunch@aap.com.au

Aaron Bunch
Kumanjayi planned to surrender: top cop

Northern Territory assistant police commissioner Travis Wurst says Kumanjayi Walker planned to surrender and Constable Zach Rolfe was told to help local police.

February 17, 2022

One of the Northern Territory’s highest ranking police officers has told Constable Zach Rolfe’s murder trial that Kumanjayi Walker planned to surrender.

Assistant police commissioner Travis Wurst says he sent Rolfe and his team to the outback community of Yuendumu to help exhausted local officers with general duties.

“Support was required for the existing Yuendumu staff to give them some respite as well as allowing the development of a plan to bring Kumanjayi Walker into police custody,” he told the Supreme Court in Darwin on Thursday.

“There was a funeral to be held in the community later (on November 9, 2019 and) the family for Walker were going to hand him to police after.”

Mr Wurst said a regional commander in central Australia had told him early on the same day that Mr Walker remained at large and he was believed to be behind a series of break-ins targeting the local health team’s homes.

Fed-up health staff had left Yuendumu and were unlikely to return until more officers were sent to the community, 290km northwest of Alice Springs.

Rolfe’s team were selected because they could deploy more quickly than other frontline police.

Mr Wurst said the Yuendumu assignment was not high-risk and many other frontline police staff could have done it.

“The funeral that was going to occur later that day and their efforts would be undertaken utilising family and family relationships to facilitate the surrender,” he said.

Despite this, Rolfe and three fellow immediate response team members packed their camouflage uniforms and an AR-15 assault rifle.

Mr Wurst said he was not aware the team would search for Mr Walker that night, which was contrary to the arrest plan prepared by the officer-in-charge at the Yuendumu police station, Sergeant Julie Frost.

She has told the jury that she gave the team a printed copy of the approved plan that ordered them to arrest Mr Walker at 5.30am the day after Rolfe shot him.

But Rolfe’s colleague Senior Constable Anthony Hawkings said the group was not briefed and he believed their primary job was finding Mr Walker.

He said Rolfe showed the team police body-worn camera footage of Mr Walker violently threatening two local policemen with an axe as they tried to arrest him.

He also showed Const Hawkings a map of the community and pointed out the houses Mr Walker was likely to be in, and along with Constable James Kirstenfeldt told him there was not a lot of information available about their assignment.

Const Hawkings repeatedly answered prosecutor Philip Strickland’s questions with “I do not recall” and denied his team were given Sgt Frost’s orders despite CCTV footage and an email showing it had.

The same camera recorded the team leaving the Yuendumu police station at 7.06pm. Rolfe fired his first shot at 7.22pm.

Const Hawkings’ body-worn camera recorded the moments just after it as he ran towards the scene amid screams from Mr Walker’s family and friends.

“I could see in a doorway and a struggle going on between three people,” he said.

The video shows Rolfe silhouetted against a red wall stooped over Constable Adam Eberl and Mr Walker who are on the ground.

“I remember seeing a firearm in (Rolfe’s) right hand.

“(Mr Walker) was on a mattress. He was semi-prone. I cannot recall if he was on his stomach or more on his side.”

Rolfe then fires his second and third shots after Mr Walker stabbed him in the shoulder with a pair of scissors.

“It was very close. Within a foot. Very, very close,” Const Hawkings said.

Rolfe has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Walker on November 9, 2019.

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

But it says the fatal second and third shots when Mr Walker was laying on the ground went “too far” because he was “effectively restrained”.

Mr Walker died from injuries sustained from one of those shots.

The trial continues.

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