PROJECT | First Nations Justice

The Human Rights Law Centre partnered with the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency in the coronial inquest into the police-shooting death of Warlpiri and Luritja teenager Kumanjayi Walker.

The Human Rights Law Centre partnered with the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) in their intervention in the coronial inquest into the police-shooting death of Warlpiri and Luritja teenager Kumanjayi Walker.

Kumanjayi Walker was killed after being shot three times at close range by former police officer Zachary Rolfe in November 2019, in circumstances where all medical services had been withdrawn from the Yuendumu Community.

The Coroner Elisabeth Armitage delivered her final report into Kumanjayi Walker’s death in July 2025, after a long-running inquest that began in September 2022.

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 validate what Kumanjayi Walker’s family and community have been saying for years, but many of the recommendations fall short on the concrete changes that are needed to hold police accountable.

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. 

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 Human Rights Law Centre and NAAJA are calling for:

• an end to discriminatory policing and excessive use of force by police;
• independent and more robust police accountability mechanisms;
• community-led alternatives to police; and
• community-controlled health services.

We will continue to stand in solidarity with Kumanjayi’s family and community, and support their calls for justice and police accountability.