The elite Northern Territory police unit a murder-accused constable belonged to was not authorised to enter the home where Kumanjayi Walker was shot.

February 24, 2022

A murder-accused constable’s elite Northern Territory police unit was not authorised to enter the home where an Aboriginal teenager was fatally shot.

Constable Zachary Rolfe, 30, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Kumanjayi Walker during a failed arrest attempt in Yuendumu, 290km northwest of Alice Springs, late on November 9, 2019.

Rolfe shot the 19-year-old three times after he resisted being put in handcuffs and stabbed the constable in the shoulder with a pair of scissors.

Prosecutors say his Immediate Response Team ignored senior officers’ orders to wait until 5.30am the following day to arrest the teen when he could be more easily taken into custody.

Rolfe and another officer instead went into Mr Walker’s grandmother’s home where they found the teen and attempted to take him into custody.

The unit’s commander, Sergeant Lee Bauwens, told the Supreme Court in Darwin the part-time team’s job was to cordon and contain offenders for the full-time Tactical Response Group.

He also said the IRT could not enter a home without an approved Immediate Emergency Action plan which was only issued in life-threatening situations.

“We can only respond to an incident. We cannot plan to go in there on our own accord. We have to wait for an emergency to develop,” he said on Thursday.

Sgt Bauwens also said an IEA could only be issued during a high-risk deployment and the IRT were sent to Yuendumu in a general support role to assist fatigued local officers.

It was not a high-risk deployment and an IEA had not been issued on November 9.

Prosecutors say Rolfe and three other IRT officers sent to Yuendumu were “intent” on arresting Mr Walker after watching body-worn camera footage of the teen violently threatening two other officers with an axe three days earlier.

Sgt Bauwens agreed with Rolfe’s defence lawyer David Edwardson QC that Mr Walker was a “high-risk offender” and the IRT had the skills to enter a home and arrest an offender.

He also agreed that it was not possible to cordon and contain a home if police did not know an offender was inside it, as was the case with Mr Walker.

After the IRT found Mr Walker he lied about his name and wrestled with another officer before stabbing Rolfe in his left shoulder.

Sgt Bauwens agreed with Mr Edwardson that police often have a fraction of a second to respond to an attacker with a concealed weapon, such as scissors.

Mr Walker died on the floor of the local police station 74 minutes after the second fatal shot left a “gaping hole” in his right lung and ripped through his spleen, liver and left kidney.

The Crown has conceded the first shot, which was fired while Mr Walker was standing and resisting arrest, was justified.

It says the second and third shots went “too far” because the teen was “effectively restrained” on the ground by another officer when Rolfe pulled the trigger.

Prosecutor Philip Strickland SC has asked members of Rolfe’s team about the decision to enter the darkened home where they found Mr Walker and whether they considered placing a cordon around the house.

The trial continues.