An inquest for the Indigenous teen shot dead by an NT policeman has heard the officer was on anti-depressant medication and described himself as violent.

October 25, 2022

A Northern Territory policeman who shot dead an Indigenous teenager described himself as violent and was taking medication that may have inhibited his ability to control his behaviour, an inquest has been told.

Kumanjayi Walker died after Constable Zachary Rolfe shot him three times during a bungled outback arrest in Yuendumu, northwest of Alice Springs, on November 9, 2019.

The inquest at Alice Spring heard on Monday that in a text message exchange with another officer about mental health weeks before the shooting, Const Rolfe said he was “always down for a chat about our weird shit”.

“This is going to sound weird, wired bro, but in the nicest way, of course, glad someone thinks the way I do and I’m not going mad,” the other officer replied on October 14.

Const Rolfe then said: “Nah, I feel exactly the same, man. Cut from the same cloth”.

“I’ve only talked to you and (Constable Mark Sykes) about my head but even he doesn’t get violent like us.

“But you’re not mad. We’re just different than normal folk.”

Coroner Elisabeth Armitage also heard that in the same month Const Rolfe texted Const Sykes, a former army buddy before both men joined the NT police, and told him he had sought help over health concerns.

“He’d said to me that he wasn’t sleeping very well and he had gone to the doctor,” Const Sykes said.

“He seemed fine to me … There was no overt actions upon himself that made me think that there was something wrong.”

Const Rolfe also sent the officer a photo of an anti-depressant medication he was prescribed called Escitalopram.

Const Sykes said it was likely sent to him so he could inform health workers in the event Const Rolfe was injured and unable to communicate himself.

“He doesn’t live with anybody else or have a partner or anything like that and it was, I believe, in case something happens, I could tell somebody,” he said.

The inquest has heard Escitalopram was “likely to have impacted on (Const Rolfe’s) capacity for behavioural inhibition to threat” according to evidence from psychiatrist Alexander McFarlane.

It has also been told the NT police force didn’t know about Const Rolfe’s prescribed drug use because its drug testing policy didn’t require routine drug tests or for Const Rolfe to be drug tested after he killed Mr Walker.

In a recent decision over a failed bid by Const Rolfe’s legal team to exclude some evidence from the inquest, Judge Armitage said that if drug testing had been required the NT police may have identified Const Rolfe “was suffering from a psychiatric condition”.

She also said in her reasons for hearing the evidence that the medication could have impacted the officer’s “capacity to respond in an appropriate and measured way at the time of the attempted arrest of Mr Walker”.

The inquest continues on Tuesday.