A policeman has told an inquest into the death of an Indigenous teen shot dead by Northern Territory officers he feared his town would become a “war zone”.

September 8, 2022

When a local policeman spotted Alice Springs officers arriving in his outback community with high-powered weapons to arrest an Indigenous teenager, he worried it was about to become a “war zone”.

Less than two hours later Kumanjayi Walker, 19, was dead after Constable Zachary Rolfe, 31, shot him three times in his grandmother’s home in Yuendumu.

Aboriginal community police officer Derek Williams, who is Mr Walker’s uncle, said he’d never seen weapons like that in the Walpiri community before.

“I thought Yuendumu was going to be a war zone,” he told a Northern Territory inquest into Mr Walker’s death on Wednesday.

“It’s only a little community. We are not fighting terrorists. It’s really hardcore.”

Mr Williams wasn’t on duty when Const Rolfe and three other officers attempted to arrest Mr Walker at 7.21pm for absconding from a rehabilitation program in Alice Springs to attend a beloved family member’s funeral.

But he rushed to the home where he had been shot in disbelief and hoping Mr Walker had only been Tasered.

“I didn’t go into the house. I just had a peek through he door – blood stains on the mattress and three bullet casings,” he said.

Outside, Mr Walker’s family was distraught as they stood near the drag marks their son’s body had created as police hauled him towards a vehicle.

“It doesn’t matter that I’m a police officer, it still made me feel afraid,” Mr Williams said when asked how he felt at the time.

Mr Walker had been transported to the local police station where Const Rolfe and other officers frantically worked to save his life in the absence of trained medical staff, who had fled the community earlier in the day after a series of break-ins at the clinic.

He died at 8.36pm but the eight officers present were instructed not to tell the community and instead formed a plan to trick them into believing he was still alive out of fear for their own safety.

Meanwhile, the community had gathered, concerned for Mr Walker’s welfare as news of the shooting spread through the community of about 900.

Mr Williams was also there and worked through the night to keep people calm as they waited for information, frustrated by the police saying little.

At 10.45pm the officers formed a convoy of vehicles and sped to the airport to meet a plane in an orchestrated ruse to trick the Yuendumu community into believing Mr Walker was still alive.

But the plane wasn’t flying Mr Walker to hospital as his family thought.

It was bringing in police reinforcements and evacuating Const Rolfe to hospital in Alice Springs to treat the small puncture wound Mr Walker had inflicted with a pair of scissors during the attempted arrest.

Asked how he felt when he learned his nephew had died long before the convoy drove to the airport, Mr Williams said: “I felt betrayed by my own colleagues and the police force”.