After five weeks of evidence, the trial of NT police officer Zachary Rolfe is drawing to a close, with the fate of the 30-year-old potentially decided by the end of the week.
Constable Rolfe shot nineteen-year-old Warlpiri man Kumanjayi Walker three times during an attempted arrest in Yuendumu on November 9, 2019.
He was charged over the second and third shots which the prosecution said were unjustified.
Constable Rolfe has pleaded not guilty to murder and two other alternative charges of manslaughter and doing a violent act causing death.
Today, in his final address to the jury Constable Rolfe’s barrister David Edwardson QC highlighted the three key elements of the defence.
He told the jury, every time his client pulled the trigger he was acting in “good faith”, and in the “reasonable performance of his duty as a police officer” and he was acting in his “own self-defence” and that of his partner Constable Adam Eberl.
Mr Edwardson said as a member of the Northern Territory Police, Constable Rolfe was taught and trained that an "edged weapon equals gun" and he was doing what he was trained to do when Kumanjayi Walker “viciously” tried to stab both officers.
“The only appropriate response was to draw his firearm and pull the trigger discharging each bullet into the scene body mass of Kumanjayi Walker until the threat was removed.”
Mr Edwardson said the Crown had failed to prove that Constable Rolfe’s actions were not legally justified despite calling forty witnesses and tendering more than a hundred pieces of evidence.
Kumanjayi Walker was shot and killed by Constable Rolfe after stabbing him in the shoulder with scissors during a failed arrest. Source: Supplied
Mr Edwardson described how Constable Rolfe was arrested within four days of the shooting.
“This case is tragic, a young man has lost his life and a young courageous police officer has been charged with the most serious charge known to the criminal law without any proper investigation and that you might think is a disgrace.”
The defence then focused on Kumanjayi Walker’s “lengthy and violent criminal record” and again highlighted the axe incident where the teenager threatened two local Police officers with an axe before escaping arrest three days before he was shot.
“This is tragic but nonetheless he was dangerous he was violent and in many respects, he was the author of his own misfortune.”
Mr Edwards then turned his attention to one of the prosecution’s key witnesses, Detective Senior Sergeant Andrew Barram.
The weapons and tactics instructor had previously identified six tactical mistakes made by Constable Rolfe and Eberl when they entered house 511 and tried to arrest Kumanjayi Walker.
Mr Edwards described him as an armchair expert who had the benefit of hindsight and could “press the pause button” while examining the officer’s body-worn camera footage frame by frame.
“Who would you rather have watching your back in this volatile exchange?" "Constable Rolfe or the armchair expert Senior Sergeant Barram."
The defence said Officer Barram had accepted the first shot fired by Constable Rolfe was reasonable and proportionate but the next two shots were unjustifiable.
“That’s the cornerstone of the prosecution’s case we say that Senior Sergeant Barram is neither credible or reliable, he is simply a mouthpiece for the (police) executive.”
Mr Edwards then turned to body-worn video camera footage where Constable Rolfe can be heard saying “he was stabbing me he was stabbing you “after the second and third shots had been fired.
The defence attacked the crown’s claim Constable Rolfe said this to "justify what he had just done and that he had gone too far."
“They were not words of self-justification they were the words of a man who had just been stabbed and likewise he believed his partner had just been stabbed as well." Mr Edwardson said.
In summing up Mr Edwardson said “Zachary Rolfe did everything in the way in which he was trained” and all the three elements of the defence applies to all three charges and “none have been negated by the prosecution - and the only verdict is one of not guilty to all charges “
Justice John Burns will sum up the case for the jury when the trial resumes tomorrow morning.
The judge told the jury that he will take no more than two hours and the jury will be able to retire to consider their verdict before lunchtime.
