An NT assistant police commissioner has told an inquest into Kumanjayi Walker’s death officers involved in his shooting weren’t approved to arrest him.

September 26, 2022

The Northern Territory police team involved in the shooting death of an Indigenous teenager weren’t authorised to carry out the arrest that led to the incident, a top-ranking officer says.

Kumanjayi Walker, 19, died after Constable Zachary Rolfe shot him three times while attempting to take him into custody in Yuendumu, northwest of Alice Springs on November 9, 2019.

Assistant commissioner Travis Wurst told an inquest into the Warlpiri man’s death that he approved a plan to send members of the immediate response team to the outback community to help exhausted local officers with general duties, not arrest Mr Walker.

He said he understood the plan was for local officers to arrest Mr Walker with the assistance of an Aboriginal police officer following a funeral in the community.

“In my mind, I wasn’t deploying the IRT for an IRT function,” he told the coroner in Alice Springs on Monday.

“What I was approving was members of the IRT who were all general duties members to attend to assist at Yuendumu.”

Mr Wurst said he didn’t consider the deployment high-risk and agreed there was no justification for the team to take tactical weapons, including an AR15 assault rifle and a shotgun, to the community of about 800.

He said it would have been confronting and confusing for the community to see the officers patrolling with the weapons.

“It wasn’t appropriate,” he said.

Const Rolfe was acquitted at trial of murdering Mr Walker amid accusations his use of force after the teen had stabbed him was heavy handed.

After the shooting, Mr Wurst took control of the police response from Darwin. He was responsible for not letting family members comfort Mr Walker as he lay dying on the floor inside the local police station, saying it was a “troubling” decision.

“Extremely distressing then for the family and now,” he said.

“I know the community were hurting and are hurting to this day.

“Unfortunately the decisions were made at the time in good faith and I support those decisions.”

Mr Wurst said he had concerns family members may have become overly emotional if they were allowed into the station.

“The police inside … at that point time were all focused on delivering first aid … and support for Kumanjayi Walker,” he said.

He said the seven officers inside the police station were “tense” and under pressure amid concerns about how the community may react to the shooting.

Mr Wurst was also behind the decision not to tell Mr Walker’s family and the broader Yuendumu community that he had died until November 10.

“(One of the officers inside the station) told me he had never been so scared for his life,” he said.

“I had to make decisions around the welfare of the police officers in that particular police station.”

He said he had a “genuine concern” that if the community learned Mr Walker was dead it could react violently against the officers and “as a consequence more people may have died”.

The hearing continues.