Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe who shot dead an Indigenous teen in a botched outback arrest in 2019 has been sacked.

April 4, 2023

A police officer who shot dead an Indigenous teenager during an outback arrest has been sacked by the Northern Territory Police Force.

Zachary Rolfe shot Kumanjayi Walker, 19, three times in the remote community of Yuendumu, northwest of Alice Springs, on November 9, 2019.

The former constable was sacked on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the force confirmed.

“A 31-year-old male police officer has been dismissed from the Northern Territory Police Force effective 4th April 2023,” it said in a statement.

“The officer was dismissed under section 78 of the Police Administration Act 1978 due to serious breaches of discipline during their policing career.”

Mr Rolfe was found not guilty of murdering Mr Walker following a high-profile five-week trial last year before becoming the subject of a wide-ranging coronial inquest into the death.

He has vehemently fought calls for him to give evidence at the inquest that has heard he used “blatantly” racist language in text messages with colleagues and allegedly used heavy-handed tactics when arresting some Indigenous Territorians triggering several internal investigations.

It was also revealed that the former soldier turned policeman was banned from applying to join the Queensland Police Force for a decade for failing to disclose on his written application that he’d been fined for being a “public nuisance” and for “violent behaviour”.

Mr Rolfe’s application to the NT police was also previously investigated, with the inquest told he also failed to disclose that he’d pleaded guilty to stealing while he was a soldier in the Australian Defence Force in 2012.

Mr Rolfe left the country in February after writing an open letter defending his character and criticising the NT Police Force and its commissioner for how they handled the inquest into the shooting.

“Despite this, the coronial focus is still on me rather than on areas that could improve the circumstances of the NT,” he said in the 2500-word dispatch published in full on the “I support Zach Rolfe” Facebook page.

Mr Rolfe, who was born and raised in Canberra, also justified a series of texts in which he used derogatory terms towards Indigenous people, calling it “playground” language.

“I have used rude and racist terms regarding nearly every race, most often my own,” he wrote.

He dedicated 600 words to outlining rescues and patrols he had conducted as a police officer.

In contrast, he said many details covered in the inquest had been taken out of context, “with several maligned cops talking badly about me”.

NT police leadership had used him as a pawn to satisfy their political goals, Rolfe said in the post.

“Right now, the NT Police is broken.”

The inquest will resume later this year when Mr Rolfe is scheduled to be called to give evidence pending the outcome of his appeal against an earlier Supreme Court decision that he can be compelled to take the stand.