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#AceDailyNews Court Report: Zachary Rolfe said his police unit had ‘no rules’ and did ‘cowboy stuff’ prior to fatal shooting of Kumanjayi Walker

The NT Supreme Court has lifted a non-publication order on text messages that show Constable Zachary Rolfe described his job as “cowboy stuff with no rules” several months before the fatal shooting of Kumanjayi Walker in Yuendumu.

Key points:

• Constable Rolfe was a member of the Alice Springs-based Immediate Response Team (IRT)
• The IRT was deployed to Yuendumu in November 2019 to arrest Mr Walker
• The NT Supreme Court has lifted non-publication orders on the text messages

A jury last week found Constable Rolfe not guilty of murder and two alternative charges over the death of the 19-year-old Warlpiri man, who was shot three times after he stabbed the officer in the shoulder with scissors on November 9, 2019.

Earlier that day, Constable Rolfe and three other members of his Immediate Response Team (IRT) were deployed to Yuendumu as part of a mission to arrest Mr Walker, who had threatened two other officers with an axe three days earlier.

Until now, a suppression order had prevented the media from reporting on Constable Rolfe’s text messages, which were also not allowed to be tendered as evidence during the five-week trial.

But on Friday, Justice John Burns agreed with an application from media organisations, including the ABC, for the lifting of all suppression orders relating to the case, including a separate, unrelated court matter in which a judge made critical findings against Constable Rolfe.

The court is yet to release the text messages to the media, but the ABC has verified that in one text message, Constable Rolfe said:

“Alice Springs sucks ha ha. The good thing is it’s like the Wild West and f*** all the rules in the job really … but it’s a shit hole. Good to start here coz [sic] of the volume of work but will be good to leave.”

In another text message he said:

“We have this small team in Alice, IRT, immediate response team. We’re not full time, just get called up from Gd’s [general duties] for high risk jobs, it’s a sweet gig, just get to do cowboy stuff with no rules.”

The text messages were initially allowed to be included as part of the Crown case but following an appeal by the defence prior to the trial Justice Burns ruled they were inadmissible.

On Friday, Constable Rolfe’s barrister, David Edwardson QC, argued against the lifting of the non-publication order, telling the court the text messages could potentially have a defamatory imputation.

“It’s the imputation that attaches to the [communication] itself, and how the prosecution unsuccessfully argued, or sought to argue, that there was some sinister connotation to what was said,” Mr Edwardson told the court.

“Those text messages were made to members of the army and they were made in the context of the army. Nothing to do with this case. Nothing to do with the context in which he was charged.”

But Crown Prosecutor Philip Strickland SC, who supported the lifting of the suppression orders, told the court it was baseless to argue the text messages were defamatory towards Constable Rolfe.

“They are simply communications by [Constable Rolfe] in his own words, which relate to his attitude or his thoughts about the IRT or police at a particular time.”

The judge agreed to lift all suppression orders after finding that the ability for the public to scrutinise the court’s decisions outweighed any potential risks to Constable Rolfe’s reputation.

One of the court documents released was Justice Burns’s reasons for his judgement not to allow tendency evidence, including the text messages, in the trial.

In the document, the judge said the text messages were said to have been sent in February and July 2019, several months before the shooting incident in Yuendumu.

“The evidence reveals the expression of an attitude on the part of the accused that the ‘rules’ do not apply to him in his activities as a police officer,” Justice Burns said.

He said the messages were capable of inferring Constable’s Rolfe’s attitude when they were sent, but to infer he held the same attitude when the shooting occurred required a different “reasoning process”.

Jury heard evidence about the IRT during trial

Throughout the trial, the prosecution argued Constable Rolfe was an adrenalin-seeking former soldier who became fixated with tracking down Mr Walker after repeatedly watching body-worn camera footage of the earlier axe incident.

It said Constable Rolfe had actively pushed for the IRT to be deployed to Yuendumu to arrest Mr Walker, and that once he arrived, he failed to comply with several police protocols and ignored a plan to arrest Mr Walker at a “safer” time early the following morning.

Constable Rolfe was charged in relation to the second and third shots, which the prosecution said were not legally justified because, in its view, Mr Walker was effectively restrained by another officer and was therefore no longer a threat at that stage.

But the defence said the scissors still posed a threat at the time Constable Rolfe fired contentious shots, and that he feared his partner would be stabbed to death if he did not immediately remove that threat.

The defence told the jury Constable Rolfe was a courageous officer acting in accordance with his police training, which stipulates that if threatened with an edged weapon, police should draw and potentially use their firearms as many times as necessary.

After seven hours of deliberations, the jury acquitted Constable Rolfe of all charges.

Constable Zachary Rolfe likely ‘deliberately banged’ Aboriginal man’s head, judge found before Yuendumu shooting

Six months before Constable Zachary Rolfe fatally shot Kumanjayi Walker, a Northern Territory judge found the police officer likely “deliberately banged” an Aboriginal man’s head into the floor, rendering him unconscious, and then “lied” in his evidence to the court.

A jury in the NT Supreme Court last week found Constable Rolfe not guilty of murder and two alternative charges in relation to Mr Walker’s death following an attempted arrest in Yuendumu in November 2019.

Until now, details of a separate, unrelated case — in which a local court judge levelled highly critical findings against Constable Rolfe — had been suppressed and could not be put to the jury.

That case involved allegations against Alice Springs resident Malcolm Ryder, who pleaded not guilty to hindering and assaulting Constable Rolfe in January 2018.

But in his findings, Judge Greg Borchers said the charges against Mr Ryder — who needed 16 stitches above his eyes after being knocked out during his arrest — could not be substantiated.

Instead, the judge blasted Constable Rolfe’s evidence and actions.

“I find that Constable Rolfe lacks credibility,” he told the court in May 2019.

Judge Borchers said the officer “lied” about Mr Ryder’s behaviour in the lead up to his arrest.

He also said Mr Ryder’s injuries likely occurred when Constable Rolfe punched him in the face and then “deliberately banged” his head into the floor.

Some of Constable Rolfe’s evidence was ‘a pure fabrication’, judge found

The court heard Mr Ryder and his partner arrived home from a shopping trip when they heard his stepson screaming from inside a bedroom, where a group of officers were arresting him.

Mr Ryder told the court he was “angry”, and he and his partner ran into the house to “tell the police not to get rough”.

Another officer, who saw the couple enter the house, broadcast over the police radio: “There’s a big group of family running into the house. Watch your back.”

As Mr Ryder entered the bedroom where his stepson was being handcuffed, he was pepper-sprayed by one of the officers.

Constable Rolfe told the court he had seen Mr Ryder “throwing punches” towards that officer, while another officer said she had seen Mr Ryder hit Constable Rolfe in the face, but later conceded it was Mr Ryder’s partner who had hit Constable Rolfe.

But the judge said footage captured by one of the other officer’s body-worn cameras showed no evidence of Mr Ryder trying to hit anyone inside the bedroom.

“Constable Rolfe [and the other officer’s] evidence is wrong and is a pure fabrication,” the judge stated.

Incident that left Mr Ryder unconscious not captured on camera

After being pepper-sprayed, the court heard Mr Ryder immediately left the bedroom and was chased by Constable Rolfe and another officer down a hallway.

But the next 27 seconds, during which Mr Ryder was knocked out, were not captured on a body-worn camera.

Mr Ryder told the court one of the officers grabbed him by the collar, pushed him onto the ground and then punched his left eyebrow before forcing his head into the floor.

“He didn’t remember anything after that as he was rendered unconscious,” the judge said.

Constable Rolfe told the court that after leaving the bedroom, Mr Ryder was “swinging wildly” and struck him in the face “causing immediate pain to my forehead”.

He said Mr Ryder “needed to be arrested” for committing an offence and that he and another officer tackled him to the ground.

Constable Rolfe said Mr Ryder then tried to scratch his face with fingernails.

“I was fearful that he was going to gouge my eyes, and in order to defend myself, I struck him once on the left side of the face with my closed right fist,” he said.

After handcuffing Mr Ryder, Constable Rolfe said he noticed a cut above Mr Ryder’s right eye.

“I assumed that happened when we tackled him and he hit his head on the floor.”

Judge accepted Mr Ryder’s version of events

In summing up the case, Judge Borchers remained unconvinced about the veracity of Constable Rolfe’s evidence.

“He lied,” the judge told the court.

“He has lied in a statutory declaration about what happened in the bedroom.”

Judge Borchers said nobody but Constable Rolfe himself could say how Mr Ryder was later knocked out, as the other officers either did not see what happened or could not be relied on with their evidence.

The judge said if Mr Ryder’s injury to his right eye was the result of him knocking his head on the floor while being tackled, as Constable Rolfe assumed, then it was “highly likely” Mr Ryder was unconscious when the officer punched him above the left eye.

“It is more likely, however, that Ryder was punched first to the left eyebrow by Rolfe’s right fist and then he received the injury to his right eyebrow when his head was pushed into the floor,” the judge said.

“How the injuries occurred and in what sequence of events is more likely than not to be in the manner consistent with Malcolm Ryder’s evidence.

“That is, Rolfe deliberately banged his head into the floor as he was being turned over to be handcuffed.”

Constable Rolfe’s barrister did not want Ryder case made public

In dismissing the charges against Mr Ryder, the judge said he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Ryder had done anything in the four seconds he was in the rear bedroom that hindered police.

The judge said he was also not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Ryder punched Constable Rolfe, nor that he attempted to scratch the officer in the face.

The judge noted Mr Ryder’s stepson was never ultimately charged in relation to the alleged domestic disturbance that prompted police to attend the property in the first place.

The ABC requested a response from Constable Rolfe’s legal team but is yet to hear back.

During a hearing in the Supreme Court on Friday, defence barrister David Edwardson QC unsuccessfully called for the non-publication order relating to the Ryder case to remain in place.

He said Judge Borchers’ comments were not a “finding” against his client, and were no more than part of the “reasoning process in determining the outcome of a criminal trial”.

The ABC also put several questions to NT Police about Judge Borchers’ judgement, but it said it does not comment on individual matters.

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