A policeman present when Kumanjayi Walker was fatally shot told one of the Aboriginal teen’s relatives he should not have threatened officers with an axe.

February 24, 2022

The policeman with Constable Zachary Rolfe when Kumanjayi Walker was fatally shot told an onlooker the Aboriginal teen should not have threatened officers with an axe.

Remote Sergeant Adam Eberl was referring to the so-called axe incident three days before Rolfe, 30, fired three rounds into the 19-year-old in Yuendumu, 290km northwest of Alice Springs, on November 9, 2019.

Rolfe, 30, has pleaded not guilty to murdering the teen who had resisted arrest and stabbed the constable in the shoulder with a pair of scissors.

As he and Sgt Eberl, then a constable, approached Mr Walker’s grandmother’s home looking for the teen they spoke to one of his relatives, Elizabeth Snape.

She asked Sgt Eberl why another member of his and Rolfe’s team, Senior Constable Anthony Hawkings, was carrying an AR15 assault rifle.

“It is like he has got it aimed to shoot someone,” she said, while holding her crying two-year-old son.

“No, he is not aiming to shoot anyone. We do not have a holster for that one so he has to carry it,” Sgt Eberl replies.

He then says: “Someone probably should not run at police with an axe”.

Body-worn camera footage played to the Northern Territory Supreme Court on Thursday then shows Sgt Eberl walking into the home where he and Rolfe find the teen.

Mr Walker lies about his identity and the officers attempt to take the teen into custody before a scuffle breaks out and Rolfe fires three shots.

A time code on the video shows the first shot was fired two minutes and 10 seconds after Sgt Eberl spoke to Ms Snape.

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

But it says the second and third shots went “too far” because the teen was “effectively restrained” on the ground by Sgt Eberl when Rolfe pulled the trigger.

Police body-worn camera of the axe incident on November 6 shows Mr Walker, who was cornered in a bedroom, violently threatening two other policemen attempting to arrest him.

He picks up and raises the axe, then runs at the officers before escaping into nearby bushland. Neither officer was injured but they were badly shaken.

Prosecutors have said Rolfe and three other officers sent to Yuendumu were “intent” on arresting Mr Walker after watching the footage.

Earlier, the officer-in-charge of the elite police unit Rolfe and Sgt Eberl belonged to told the court the team was not authorised to enter Mr Walker’s grandmother’s home.

Sergeant Lee Bauwens said Rolfe’s part-time Immediate Response Team’s job was to cordon and contain offenders for the full-time Tactical Response Group.

“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.

Sgt Bauwens said an approved Immediate Emergency Action plan, which are only issued in life-threatening situations, was required to do so and one had not been issued.

He said an IEA could only be issued during a high-risk deployment and the IRT was 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.

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, as was the case with Mr Walker.