One of Zachary Rolfe’s colleagues has told the constable’s trial for allegedly murdering Kumanjayi Walker they made their own plan to arrest the Aboriginal teenager.
Rolfe has pleaded not guilty to murdering the 19-year-old during a failed outback arrest at Yuendumu, 290km northwest of Alice Springs, on November 9, 2019.
The 30-year-old is accused of heavy-handed tactics for shooting Mr Walker three times during a scuffle after the teen stabbed him in the shoulder with scissors.
Rolfe and his fellow response team members had been ordered to arrest Mr Walker early in the morning on November 10 but they failed to follow the plan.
A video shown to the Northern Territory Supreme Court on Wednesday shows Constable James Kirstenfeldt telling investigators soon after the shooting that “we “formulated, like, our own arrest plan”.
The evidence was shown to the jury after Const Kirstenfeldt denied the officer-in-charge at the Yuendumu police station, Sergeant Julie Frost, showed the team the approved arrest plan about 20 minutes before Mr Walker was shot.
But he was forced to accept that he had seen Sgt Frost’s plan after the same video showed him saying he had “skimmed” or read through it.
She had ordered the team to arrest Mr Walker at 5.30am the day after he died when he was likely to be sleeping, which would give police the element of surprise so they could safely take him into custody.
During a protracted and at times terse exchange, Const Kirstenfeldt said he did not recall to dozens of prosecutor Philip Strickland’s questions.
It led to Mr Strickland taking the officer to task by asking: “Your answers that you do not recall, do you think that will help Mr Rolfe?”
Rolfe’s lawyer David Edwardson QC objected to the question but Justice John Burns allowed it.
Const Kirstenfeldt answered: “No, it is because I do not recall”.
The court has heard that Rolfe and the team left the police station at 7.06pm and quickly located Mr Walker inside a house about 7.20pm.
Rolfe fired his first shot just over a minute later as he and Constable Adam Eberl attempted to arrest him.
Const Kirstenfeldt’s body-worn video of the incident shows him running across a street towards the home where Mr Walker was shot after he hears a gun fire.
People can be heard yelling and screaming as he approaches the red building in the dusk light.
Later Const Kirstenfeldt is heard calling for police back-up.
“We need more people in here. We are at house 511. Shots fired. Offender arrested. He has been shot. He is still alive at this stage. He is in cuffs,” he said.
Mr Walker died at 8.36pm from injuries sustained by either the second or third shots, which the Crown says were not legally justified because Mr Walker was “effectively restrained”
Prosecutors concede the first shot, which was fired while Mr Walker was standing and resisting arrest, was justified.
But it says the fatal second and third shots when Mr Walker was laying on the ground went “too far”.
The trial continues.
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