The trial for a Northern Territory policeman accused of murdering an Aboriginal teenager is expected to resume.

March 8, 2022

A Northern Territory policeman’s trial for the murder of an Aboriginal teenager during a failed outback arrest is set to resume.

Constable Zachary Rolfe, 30, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Kumanjayi Walker after he was stabbed with a pair of scissors on November 9, 2019.

Rolfe fired three shots into the 19-year-old’s back and torso as the teen resisted arrest in Yuendumu, 290km northwest of Alice Springs.

The Crown has conceded the first shot, fired while Mr Walker was standing and wrestling with Sergeant Adam Eberl, was justified.

But it says the second and third shots, which are the subject of the murder charge, went “too far”.

Mr Walker died about an hour after the second shot ripped through his spleen, lung, liver and a kidney.

Defence lawyer David Edwardson QC called Rolfe as a witness last week.

The constable told the Supreme Court in Darwin that before he pulled the trigger the teen grabbed at his police-issued pistol.

He also said he saw the teen repeatedly stab Sgt Eberl and that he feared for his and his partner’s lives during the incident.

Prosecutor Philip Strickland SC accused Rolfe of making up and rehearsing his testimony during his three days on the stand.

He also questioned Rolfe about his reaction after the shooting when he said to Sgt Eberl: “It’s all good. He was stabbing me. He was stabbing you”.

“You knew you had gone too far. You knew you had been too gung ho,” Mr Strickland said.

“And you knew, didn’t you, that the shooting had been captured on your own body-worn video and you felt you needed to justify what you had just done?”

“Incorrect,” Rolfe replied.

“How was the situation all good?” Mr Strickland asked during a terse and protracted exchange.

“A violent offender had just been trying to murder two police officers, and he no longer was,” Rolfe said.

“It was a completely dynamic moving situation.”

Mr Strickland also suggested Rolfe became fixated and obsessed with a video of Mr Walker in the lead-up to the shooting.

The court has heard Rolfe viewed body-worn camera footage repeatedly of a so-called “axe incident” involving Mr Walker on November 6.

It showed the teen violently threatening two officers in Yuendumu to evade arrest.

Neither officer was injured but Rolfe has told the court Mr Walker was “lucky he did not get shot that day”.

The trial is expected to resume on Tuesday after the jury did not sit on Monday.