A Northern Territory policeman who killed an Indigenous teen was cleared of any wrongdoing before he was charged with murder, an inquest has been told.

October 24, 2022

A senior officer allegedly told a Northern Territory policeman who shot dead an Indigenous teenager that he had been cleared to get back to work two days after the incident, an inquest has been told.

Constable Zachary Rolfe shot Kumanjayi Walker, 19, three times during a botched outback arrest at Yuendumu, northwest of Alice Springs, on November 9, 2019.

He was later charged with murder before he was acquitted at trial by a jury in March.

An inquest into the Walpiri man’s death was told on Monday that two days after the shooting, Const Rolfe told fellow a police officer and friend, Constable Mark Sykes, he had spoken with a senior officer and been cleared of any wrongdoing.

“Commander Brad Currie had told him that he had already been passed for justification and excuse and they were just ticking off authorisation that he had seen a psych and that he had made an agreement to come back to work,” Const Sykes said.

“He said that everything was going surprisingly really well for him and he felt he was being really well looked after.”

But Const Rolfe didn’t return to work. Instead, he was charged two days later with Mr Walker’s murder amid community outrage over the shooting.

The decision to prosecute continues to be investigated by the NT’s corruption watchdog following allegations of political interference by former chief minister Michael Gunner.

Const Sykes told the coroner a backup force sent to Yuendumu to help local police in the hours after the shooting was “ambushed’ by community members as it drove from the airfield to the police station.

“The first thing I saw as we entered the community was hundreds of people lining the streets,” he said.

“I could see people throwing up and down these half-brick-sized rocks.

“The front window then exploded,” he said referring the police patrol car’s windscreen.

An ambulance following the police vehicle was also hit by rocks, injuring the nurse driving it.

“When I got to the police station and I saw that nurse exit the vehicle … it was like someone had turned a tap on at the back of her head, with blood freely flowing from her face,” he said.

Earlier, Const Sykes defended Const Rolfe’s use of racist language in text messages with him and other colleagues in the months before the shooting.

The messages included one between the former army mates where Const Sykes described offenders as “grubby f****” and Const Rolfe used the word c**n in reference to Aboriginal people.

Asked by counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer if he thought such terms were racist, Const Sykes said: “I don’t think it’s racist language.”

The officer said he Googled ‘racism’ before he entered the witness box and didn’t believe it fitted the dictionary definition.

“I’ve never seen someone treat someone with prejudice,” he said of his police colleagues in Alice Springs.

“What I’ve seen in those text messages is very inappropriate and somewhat mindless but I haven’t seen it to be anything more than that.”

Dr Dwyer asked Const Sykes why he refused to acknowledge the use of such words was racist and offensive.

“I read that definition and it seemed to suggest there needed to be more than this, more than immature inappropriate language to be a racist,” Const Sykes said.

“I accept that is a racist term and for some people using it they probably are but in my time spent with Zac I never saw that take action.”

Const Sykes also agreed with Dr Dwyer that the NT Police Force had shown poor leadership over officers using racist language and that it could result in Aboriginal people being dehumanised and impact police behaviour on the job.

The hearing in Alice Springs continues on Tuesday.