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Following a three-year inquest into the police shooting of Kumanjayi Walker, the coroner found clear evidence that systemic racism in the NT force played a part in his death. By Russell Marks.

Kumanjayi Walker inquest coroner finds Zachary Rolfe was racist

Kumanjayi Walker, who was shot dead by police officer Zachary Rolfe in 2019.

Credit: Supplied

Content warning: First Nations readers are advised this article contains references to Indigenous people who have died.

Kumanjayi Walker’s death in Yuendumu on November 9, 2019, was avoidable. This was Northern Territory Coroner Elisabeth Armitage’s much-anticipated finding on Monday, following her wide-ranging, three-year investigation into the events and circumstances that led to the 19-year-old Warlpiri man’s fatal shooting by then constable Zachary Rolfe.

Coronial inquests are typically more comprehensive and dig much deeper than criminal trials, which are only concerned with whether or not charges against an accused are proved beyond reasonable doubt. In March 2022, a jury found Rolfe was not criminally responsible for killing Walker by firing three bullets into his torso after he had stabbed at Rolfe with a pair of scissors during an attempted arrest.

That trial, which ran for five weeks, examined many of the events leading to the shooting, but the jury was not privy to several earlier incidents during which Rolfe had used unnecessary violence when arresting Aboriginal men and boys, and had lied about it in court. Nor was it privy to text messages and other records that showed Rolfe to have expressed racist and sexist views and contempt for proper procedure and his chain of command. Judge John Burns’s decision to exclude all of that evidence was contentious, given Rolfe was entitled to rely on a defence that he had acted “in good faith”.

Rolfe was dismissed from the Northern Territory Police Force in April 2023 following what the force called “serious breaches of discipline”, apparently in relation to a 2500-word statement Rolfe had published in February of that year.

Coroner Armitage examined the evidence excluded from Rolfe’s trial as part of her much wider inquest into Walker’s death. She made specific findings against Rolfe, whom she found to be racist. His “unsavoury views and attitudes” about Aboriginal people, women, his superiors, “bush cops” and remote policing, and “his attraction to high adrenaline policing”, were “consciously or unconsciously embedded” in the decisions Rolfe made on November 9. Those views “had the potential to increase the likelihood of a fatal encounter with Kumanjayi”, a young Warlpiri man disabled from birth who had no ability to regulate his own behaviour.

Armitage also made findings against the NT Police Force. It knew about Rolfe’s “unsavoury views”, his propensity to lie on his applications to four police forces and to court, and his record of using unnecessary violence. There was also evidence that Rolfe’s mental health had been declining. Yet the police force had done practically nothing about any of this before his November 2019 deployment to Yuendumu as part of the Territory Response Group (TRG), of which Rolfe assumed de facto leadership.

Indeed, Rolfe’s behaviour was tacitly endorsed. The NT Police Force knew that officers who had previously served in the Australian Defence Force – as Rolfe had, in Afghanistan – were twice as likely to draw their weapons. Uniquely among Australian police forces, the NT Police Force does not require its officers who discharge firearms to then submit to routine drug tests, yet Rolfe had previously used both cannabis and MDMA, and lied about doing so on his police application form. Because he was not tested after he shot Kumanjayi, there is no objective evidence as to whether Rolfe was affected by drugs on November 9.

Significantly, Armitage inquired into the extent to which racist attitudes prevail among NT police officers. It was an important line of inquiry, given First Nations people account for nearly a third of all Territorians but less than than 14 per cent of all NT police officers. At a February 2022 press conference, then deputy commissioner Michael Murphy notoriously denied there was any racism within the NT Police Force; he was appointed commissioner 18 months later.

After Rolfe himself introduced evidence of a racist annual TRG “awards” ceremony, which named, among other awards, the “Coon of the Year”, Murphy conceded in his evidence to the inquest in May 2024 that he’d gaslit Aboriginal Territorians by denying racist attitudes. In 2022, the NT Police Force commissioned Commander Mark Galliott of Victoria Police to inquire into various aspects of the NT Police Force and culture. Galliott concluded that “a person’s skin colour can sometimes play a part in the policing response”, and Murphy accepted this was true.

In September 2024 a group of Aboriginal NT Police Force officers made a joint complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) alleging decades of racial discrimination and vilification within the force. Yet an investigation by the NT Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) – conducted jointly with the NT Police Force – concluded in November 2024 that there was no evidence of any racism since 2015. Both ICAC commissioner Michael Riches and NT Police Force commissioner Murphy have since resigned after adverse findings were made against them in unrelated proceedings. In her 683-page finding, Coroner Armitage found “clear evidence of entrenched, systemic and structural racism within the NT Police”.

This finding is historically significant, though only because no NT coroner has been prepared to even inquire into the existence of structural racism within the NT Police Force. Armitage’s findings follow those of Victorian Coroner Caitlin English, who in April 2020 was the first in Australia to find that systemic racism had played a part in the death of Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day in December 2017.

Just as significantly, Armitage found Rolfe’s actions on November 9, 2019, were a clear instance of “officer-induced jeopardy”, a term with origins in North American policing reform movements that describes situations in which officers “needlessly put themselves in danger”. Armitage found Rolfe had ignored an existing arrest plan developed by local officers and had disregarded his training in the way he’d searched for and confronted Kumanjayi Walker. These actions unnecessarily increased the risk of injury to himself, she found, and therefore the risk that he would need to use force against Walker.

Whereas police forces have traditionally rewarded officers who have “bravely”, even unreasonably, placed themselves and others at risk, a recognition of “officer-induced jeopardy” calls for policies, procedures and prohibitions that reduce risk, including by way of de-escalation. “Officer-induced jeopardy” is therefore a heavily contested concept within both policing circles and criminal courts. In making her finding, Armitage implicitly accepted the demands of reformers and rejected a style of policing preferred by Rolfe and, it seems, some of his former colleagues and superiors, though it appears the present NT Police Force leadership accepts the concept. She recommended that Rolfe’s actions be used as a specific example of officer-induced jeopardy in future training of police officers.

The normally bullish Northern Territory Police Association, which represents police officers, acknowledged the findings and committed to working through the recommendations with NT Police. Morale and retention within NT Police is reportedly low, and a significant contingent of serving officers were scandalised when Rolfe was criminally charged and tried. The NT government, which has promised to dramatically increase police numbers, faces the challenge of recruiting and retaining officers in the post-inquest environment, when there will be significant public pressure for officers to be held accountable to the higher standards recommended by Armitage.

The coroner was informed to a degree unusual in Northern Territory inquests by historical background and circumstances. In her findings she referred to the Coniston massacre and a condensed history of Yuendumu, which itself acknowledged the broad shifts in the Indigenous affairs policies of Australian governments. She relied extensively on evidence from anthropologist Melinda Hinkson, who has worked with Warlpiri communities and who has long been critical of the destructive impact of the federal government’s “emergency response” from 2007 on Warlpiri and other First Nations communities. Walker was seven years old when the intervention started, ostensibly in the name of protecting children like him. Yet compared with the five years leading up to the intervention, the AHRC found that suicide rates among First Nations adolescents in the following five years increased by 160 per cent.

Armitage’s findings may not translate into much practical difference, however – coroners’ recommendations have no legal force. Armitage observed there “is currently no plan for any in-depth independent inquiry into racism in the NT Police” but declined to specifically recommend one be undertaken. Armitage also declined to find that the NT Police Force has been paramilitarised, and declined to recommend that complaints about officers’ use of force be independently investigated, which was a recommendation sought by the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency.

Armitage will, however, likely soon be in a position to determine whether any of the policy changes made by the NT Police Force prior to her findings in Kumanjayi Walker’s inquest had led to any significant reform. On May 27, 2025, another very disabled young Warlpiri man, 25-year-old Kumanjayi White, was forcibly restrained at the Alice Springs Coles supermarket by plainclothes police officers, including prosecutor Steven Haig. White died at the scene, sparking nationwide protests and demands for reform. Haig had previously been the subject of complaints about his use of force, including one notorious instance in January when he was photographed by a member of the public with his knee on the upper back or neck of a small-framed Aboriginal suspect, also at the Alice Springs Coles.

The NT Police Force has suspended the coronial inquiry into White’s death, pending a potential criminal investigation into the officers’ conduct. The NT Police Force and the NT government have thus far rejected calls by White’s family, Yuendumu leaders and NAAJA for that investigation to be conducted independently.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on July 12, 2025 as "Rogue force".

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