Indigenous leaders have reacted with sadness and anger after a jury found a Northern Territory policeman not guilty of murdering teenager Kumanjayi Walker.

March 11, 2022

A remote Indigenous community is in pain after a jury acquitted a Northern Territory policeman of murdering one of their young men, with an activist decrying the justice system as racist.

Constable Zachary Rolfe, 30, denied intentionally killing Kumanjayi Walker after the 19-year-old stabbed him with a pair of scissors on November 9, 2019.

Const Rolfe fired three shots into the teen’s back and torso as he resisted arrest in Yuendumu, 290 kilometres northwest of Alice Springs.

Outside the Northern Territory Supreme Court in Darwin on Friday, Mr Walker’s cousin Samara Fernandez Brown said she did not believe the trial had been fair.

“We are all in so much pain, particularly our young men. They have struggled. They have been scared but still they respected this process and so has our whole community,” she said.

“We have been respectful … but still we have been let down.”

Const Rolfe said the jury had made “the right decision”, while supporters said he should never have faced court.

“A lot of people are hurting today, Kumanjayi’s family and his community, and it did not need to get to this point, so I am going to leave this space for them,” he said.

Ms Brown said her cousin was depicted as dangerous, but was a loving person who enjoyed music and was “a traditional young Aboriginal man who loved hunting and being out on country”.

“He has been criticised and picked apart by people who did not know him,” she said.

“They saw only his flaws and … put him (on) trial for his own death and that is disgusting.”

Senior Indigenous leaders bemoaned the trial’s outcome.

Parumpurru Justice Committee deputy chair Valerie Napaljarri said the court system had not fulfilled its responsibility to hold Const Rolfe to account.

“We are all so full of anger and grief. There has been no respect for our customary law or cultural ways of dealing with when someone kills another person,” she said.

“This is a racist system.”

Warlpiri elder Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves said police should not carry guns in remote communities.

“We do not want to see another black young fella or a girl to be shot,” he said.

“Enough is enough. It has got to stop.”

During the five-week trial, the Crown conceded the first shot, fired while the teen was standing and wrestling with Const Rolfe’s partner, Sergeant Adam Eberl, was justified.

But it said the second and third shots, which were the subject of the murder charge, went “too far” because he was restrained on the ground.

Police body worn camera footage showed Mr Walker fighting with Const Rolfe and Sgt Eberl, then a constable, after they tried to handcuff him.

Mr Walker stabbed Const Rolfe in the shoulder with a pair of scissors during the scuffle and the officer fired one shot into his back.

He fired the next two shots in quick succession 2.6 seconds later, when the teen was lying on the ground.

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

Const Rolfe told the jury he felt Mr Walker’s hand on his pistol and feared for his and his partner’s lives.

Defence lawyer David Edwardson QC told the trial Const Rolfe had no choice but to pull the trigger and Mr Walker had a violent criminal history.

Outside court, NT Police Association president Paul McCue said it had been a traumatic time for many people since the shooting and a young man had lost his life.

“But let’s not forget Const Rolfe and (Sgt Eberl) were set upon viciously … and today we have seen justice,” he said.

“It was a travesty Const Rolfe was charged so quickly and without thorough investigation and we will have more to say about that in the coming days.”

Mr Edwardson said Const Rolfe should not have been charged and the investigation into his actions was appalling.

Rolfe also pleaded not guilty to two alternative charges of manslaughter and violent act causing death and was also acquitted of both charges.