Coroner’s discovering comes 5 years after acquitted policeman Zachary Rolfe fatally shot 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker.
An Australian police officer who shot useless an Indigenous teenager was a racist drawn to “excessive adrenaline policing”, a landmark coronial inquiry has discovered.
Racist behaviour was additionally “normalised” in Zachary Rolfe’s Alice Springs police station, mentioned the 682-page findings launched in a ceremony within the distant outback city of Yuendumu in central Australia on Monday.
The findings have been delivered 5 years after the capturing of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker, resulting in protests across the nation. However Rolfe was discovered not responsible of homicide in a trial within the Northern Territory capital of Darwin in 2022.
Walker was shot 3 times throughout the tried arrest in Yuendumu – one among 598 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who’ve died in custody since 1991 when detailed data started.
“I discovered that Mr Rolfe was racist,” mentioned Northern Territory coroner Elisabeth Armitage, delivering her conclusions after a virtually three-year inquiry.
Northern Territory Coroner Elisabeth Armitage has handed down her Findings into the loss of life of Kumanjayi Walker #auslaw https://t.co/4uAEzIkwhd pic.twitter.com/hNb6UPnDUT
— NT Courts (@CourtsinNT) July 7, 2025
Rolfe, who was dismissed from the police drive in 2023 for causes in a roundabout way associated to the capturing, labored in an organisation with the hallmarks of “institutional racism”, she mentioned.
There was a “vital threat” that Rolfe’s racism and different attitudes affected his response “in a approach that elevated the chance of a deadly consequence”, she mentioned.
Walker’s household and neighborhood will at all times consider racism performed an “integral half” in his loss of life, the coroner mentioned. “It’s a taint that will stain the [Northern Territory] police.”
The coroner cited offensive language utilized in a so-called awards ceremony for the territory’s tactical police, describing them as “grotesque examples of racism”.
“Over the last decade the awards got, no criticism was ever made about them,” she mentioned.
The policeman’s textual content messages additionally confirmed his attraction to “excessive adrenaline policing”, and his “contempt” for some extra senior officers in addition to distant policing. These attitudes “had the potential to extend the chance of a deadly encounter with Kumanjayi”, she mentioned.
In an announcement shared earlier than the coroner launched her findings, Walker’s household mentioned the inquest had uncovered “deep systemic racism inside the NT police”.
“Listening to the inquest testimony confirmed our household’s perception that Rolfe just isn’t a ‘unhealthy egg’ within the NT Police drive, however a symptom of a system that disregards and brutalises our individuals,” the household mentioned within the assertion shared on social media.
“Crucially, the inquest heard proof backing a return to full community-control, stating what yapa have at all times identified: once we can self-determine our futures and self-govern our communities, our persons are stronger, our outcomes are higher, our tradition thrives,” the assertion mentioned, referring to the Warlpiri individuals, often known as Yapa.
Armitage’s presentation was postponed final month after 24-year-old Warlpiri man Kumanjayi White, who was additionally from Yuendumu, died in police custody in a grocery store in Alice Springs.
White’s loss of life additionally prompted protests and requires an impartial investigation into his loss of life.
