NAAJA and the Human Rights Law Centre are supporting Kumanjayi Walker’s family’s calls for accountability and justice, after Coroner Elisabeth Armitage delivered her final report into Kumanjayi Walker’s death in Yuendumu this week.

Kumanjayi Walker was killed after being shot three times at close range by former police officer Zachary Rolfe in November 2019. He is one of almost 600 Aboriginal people to die in custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

During the long-running inquest, the Coroner heard extensive evidence from the family of Kumanjayi Walker, community members, Aboriginal leaders and the Northern Territory Police.

In her coronial findings, the Coroner identified that:

• Kumanjayi Walker’s death was “entirely avoidable”;
• Kumanjayi Walker did not touch former police officer Zachary Rolfe’s gun on the night of his death;
• Rolfe was racist and that there is a risk that this racism affected his interactions with the community of Yuendumu on 9 November 2019 in a way that increased the likelihood of a fatal outcome;
• Rolfe held and expressed racist views about Aboriginal people and his use of force history, and telephone messages, demonstrated that he had dehumanised the Aboriginal population he was policing;
• it was not a case of Rolfe being one “bad apple” and there is “clear evidence of entrenched systemic and structural racism within NT Police”; and
• the NT police had serious failures and “inaction” in their internal investigation and supervision of Rolfe.

These findings are significant and confirm what Kumanjayi Walker’s family and community have been saying for years, but many of the Coroner’s recommendations fall short on the concrete changes that are needed to hold police accountable, keep communities safe and put an end to deaths in custody.

The Coroner did not recommend independent and robust police accountability mechanisms, or sufficient investment in self-determined alternatives to police.

We are also disappointed about the lack of findings, recommendations and accountability relating to the many failings by the Department of Health in withdrawing their vital services to the Yuendumu community on the day Kumanjayi was killed. We re-iterate our calls for Aboriginal communities to be serviced by Aboriginal controlled health organisations.

NAAJA and the Human Rights Law Centre call on the NT Government to act now on the Coroner’s significant findings, and listen to Kumanjayi Walker’s family’s calls for truth, justice and police accountability.

Samara Fernandez-Brown, cousin of Kumanjayi Walker said:

“This has been a huge, exhausting and heartbreaking journey, we are relieved that the inquest is coming to an end and our community is now looking to the future.

“To hear the Coroner identify structural and entrenched racism in the NT Police has made us feel validated. Our family and community have always felt that racism killed Kumanjayi. We are disappointed that recommendations fall short on holding the NT Police to account for racism, violence and deaths in custody.”

Maggie Munn, First Nations Director at the Human Rights Law Centre said:  

“Kumanjayi Walker should be alive today, and our hearts are with his family and community. Kumanjayi Walker’s family have been clear in their calls for truth, justice and accountability – until families, communities and experts are listened to, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will continue to die in custody and at the hands of the police.”

“Across this country, hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have died in custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down their final report in 1991. As recommended by that Royal Commission, governments must end the status quo of police investigating themselves and dodging accountability for their actions. As long as the Finocchiaro Government allows police to act with impunity, racism will remain unchecked within institutions like the NT Police and Aboriginal deaths in custody will continue.”

Background 

On 9 November 2019, Kumanjayi Walker was killed after former NT police officer Zachary Rolfe shot him three times at close range in his home community of Yuendumu. Rolfe was charged with murder after the shooting but acquitted at trial.

The significant inquest commenced in September 2022.

The Justice 4 Walker campaign – formed by Kumanjayi Walker’s family and community following his death – are calling for: 

• Police to be held accountable for violence, racism and deaths in custody;
• Power given back to Yuendumu and Aboriginal communities through self-governance, self-determination and full community control;
• Divestment from prisons and punitive policing, and investment in culturally safe, community-led alternatives;
• The banning of guns and an end to the excessive use of force and racially discriminatory policing that has devastated communities like Yuendumu; and
• A reckoning with the Northern Territory’s mass incarceration crisis, especially its systematic over-incarceration of Aboriginal people and criminalisation of children.

The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA), with support from the Human Rights Law Centre, intervened in the coronial inquest to highlight systemic injustices experienced by Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. They are calling for: 

• an end to discriminatory policing and excessive use of force by police;
• independent and robust police accountability mechanisms; and
• proper resourcing for self-determined solutions including community-led alternatives to police and community-controlled health services.