An inquest into the death of an Indigenous teen shot dead by a Northern Territory constable has heard how police left his family in the dark over the incident.

September 7, 2022

The cousin of an Indigenous teenager shot dead by a Northern Territory policeman has told an inquest about the confusion and fear her community felt the night he died.

Kumanjayi Walker, 19, died on November 9, 2019, after Constable Zachary Rolfe, 31, shot him three times in the remote community of Yuendumu, 290km northwest of Alice Springs.

As he lay dying on the floor of the local police station, his family and the Warlpiri community gathered to find out if the rumours that he’d been shot were true, his cousin Samara Fernandez-Brown told the inquest into his death on Wednesday.

Videos of the night played to the Alice Springs hearing show about 100 people waiting for news outside the building, frustrated and anguished at the lack of information provided by police.

“We don’t know what is happening, we got told he has been shot and he is bleeding and at the house there is three cases, gun shells and a lot of blood,” Ms Fernandez-Brown says in the recording.

“No one had told us if he’s alive.”

The court heard his family and community elders repeatedly asked the eight police officers inside the station for information about Mr Walker in the hours after he was shot at 7.22pm at his grandmother’s house but they were told nothing.

Inside the station police fought to save Mr Walker’s life in the absence of trained medical staff who had fled the community earlier in the day after a series of break-ins at their homes.

Mr Walker died at 8.36pm but police said nothing and instead formed a plan to trick the community into believing he was still alive out of fear for their own safety.

Outside, the Yuendumu community was also afraid – that the police they had seen patrolling their community with a shotgun and an AR15 assault rifle earlier in the evening may shoot another community member.

“By that point, we were already angry and distressed and fearful,” Ms Fernandez-Brown told the inquest.

“There was this feeling of being disregarded and disrespected.

“There could have been a reaction there but it was subdued by elders and community members because they knew … if there was a reaction it could have prompted another shooting.”

The police later formed a convoy of vehicles inside the station compound, including an ambulance, and sped to the airport to meet a plane.

But it was bringing in police reinforcements, not flying Mr Walker to hospital in Alice Springs as his family assumed.

“It was my genuine belief that he was being flown to Alice Springs and … that he was being treated and there was an opportunity to put him in a stable condition and for him survive,” Ms Fernandez-Brown said.

Police finally told some of Mr Walker’s family that he had died about 11pm. The news was shared with Ms Fernandez-Brown the next morning as officers wearing camouflage uniforms and armed with assault rifles started patrolling the streets.

Videos played for the court show the immense impact Mr Walker’s death had on his community. Dozens of Warlpiri people can be seen wailing as they mourned his loss.

“I was devastated … I felt very sickened by the information that he was never on that plane,” Ms Fernandez-Brown said.

Asked about how police handled the incident, Ms Fernandez-Brown said it was evidence of systemic racism.

“If this was a kartiya, or a white person, the treatment would be vastly different,” she said.

“Nobody deserves what he had in his last moments.”

The hearing continues.