A senior NT police officer has told an inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker that the force has changed for the better since an officer shot dead the teen.

November 22, 2022

A senior Northern Territory police officer says the force has become a different organisation since an officer shot dead an Indigenous teenager during a bungled arrest three years ago.

Assistant Commissioner Martin Dole told the coronial inquiry into the death of Kumanjayi Walker in 2019 that a lack of supervision and discipline led to some officers’ developing racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-management attitudes.

“We are very different police force to we were back then,” he told Coroner Elisabeth Armitage on Tuesday.

“Particularly in Alice Springs, we’ve had a complete transition of staffing. There is a completely different management team.”

Mr Dole said many of the lower-ranked staff stationed in Alice Springs in 2019 had moved on, while any who remained that were involved in poor behaviour in 2019 had been disciplined and mentored.

“There’s been a lot of work in the discipline space in the last three years in calling out those behaviours and dealing with those behaviours in the workplace,” he said.

“I’m confident the superintendents and senior sergeants currently in place across the NT Police Force are aware of their responsibility.”

He said the police executive continued to work with the force to ensure personnel understood its expectations and incidents of poor behaviour were dealt with immediately.

“That’s a personal commitment that I do daily … Ensuring my managers abide by the same standards and call out those behaviours as I do,” he said.

“Unfortunately, there seemed to be a lack of that in the past and that’s not the case, as I see it, presently in the police force.”

Constable Zachary Rolfe shot Mr Walker three times during a failed arrest attempt on November 9 in the Indigenous community of Yuendumu, about 290km northeast of Alice Springs.

He died about an hour after on the floor of the local police station.