Death of Kumanjayi Walker

Charles Arnold Walker (13 October 2000 – 9 November 2019), for cultural reasons known as Kumanjayi Walker since his death, was a Warlpiri man who was shot and killed by police while resisting arrest in the remote Aboriginal Australian community of Yuendumu, Northern Territory, in November 2019. Walker stabbed Constable Zachary Rolfe with a pair of scissors. Rolfe subsequently fatally shot him and was charged with murder three days later, but was acquitted in March 2022. Thousands of people rallied in Alice Springs in the days following the attempted arrest, and further protests followed in capital cities around Australia. After the acquittal of Rolfe a campaign entitled "Justice for Walker" has continued.

Charles Arnold Walker, later known as Kumanjayi Walker, was born on 13 October 2000 in Alice Springs to a Luritja woman. His mother drank heavily during the pregnancy, and his family believed he had fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She gave up Walker to the Alice Springs hospital when he was seven months old. He was then raised by one of his mother's friends, Leanne Oldfield, who was living with Walker's father, Frank, at the Warlpiri camp on the outskirts of Alice Springs. His home environment was marred by alcohol abuse and physical violence, and a constant struggle between various relatives for custody. He spent time in Adelaide and in a transient camp outside Katherine before moving to Yuendumu in 2010. By the age of 12, both of Walker's biological parents had died as had his step-father. He had minimal schooling, suffered from chronic ear infections, was difficult to control and spent some school days roaming for food and distractions.

Walker had a history of breaking and entering, vandalism, theft and assault throughout his teens. He spent time in the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre and in the Alice Springs Youth Detention Centre where he was once restrained by a police dog. In 2015, at the age of 15, Walker began a relationship with a 14-year-old girl, who became a victim of his physical attacks in 2018. She had a domestic violence order out on Walker but regarded herself as his girlfriend on the day of his killing.

In November 2018, Walker faced court charged with two counts of assault. As a condition of his bail, he completed a rehabilitation program at the Central Australian Aboriginal Alcohol Programs Unit (CAAAPU) in Alice Springs and returned to live at the Warlpiri camp. Having complied with these conditions through to March 2019, he requested permission to visit Yuendumu for his “little sister”'s funeral, and this was granted by his Community Youth Justice Officer. However, he tampered with his electronic monitoring device and two days later, he broke into the town store with an accomplice, destroying equipment and stealing up to $7,000 worth of cigarettes.

Zachary Brian Rolfe was born in Canberra. In 2010 he enlisted in the Australian Army, serving in Afghanistan with the Townsville-based 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. After being discharged in 2015, he applied to a number of Australian police forces, and was accepted by the Northern Territory force, enrolling at the academy in Darwin in May 2016. Rolfe graduated as dux of his squad and was posted to Alice Springs in Central Australia – his first preference. In December 2016, during his first week with the NT Police, he rescued two tourists from flood waters near Alice Springs, for which he and a colleague were awarded the Bravery Medal in 2018. He joined the Alice Springs Immediate Response Team (IRT) in November 2017.

In 2018, a judge found that Rolfe had deliberately injured Malcolm Ryder, an Indigenous resident of Alice Springs, and then lied about it in court. Rolfe and five other officers had attended Ryder's residence with the intention to arrest Ryder's stepson. During the arrest, Ryder was injured and charged with hindering police. Police alleged that Ryder threw a phone at them, resisted and interfered with them. Ryder denied this, and alleged that Rolfe had slammed his face into the ground, leaving him unconscious in a pool of blood. At Ryder's trial, the judge dismissed the charges against him, and found that the evidence (including body camera footage and lack thereof) supported Ryder's version of events being more likely and that Rolfe had lied. NT Police considered referring Rolfe to the Director of Public Prosecutions for perjury charges over the Ryder incident, but decided against it.

On 4 April 2023, Zachary Rolfe was dismissed from the Northern Territory Police Force due to "serious breaches of discipline during their police career". The dismissal was related to a statement published online, that has been attributed to him. Rolfe intends to appeal the validity and legality of the decision. The coronial inquest into the death of Walker was ongoing at the time of dismissal.

In June 2019, Walker was sentenced to 16 months' jail for the November 2018 break-in. However, the judge backdated and partly suspended the sentence so that Walker could attend a rehabilitation program at CAAAPU. Eight days after transferring from prison to CAAAPU on 29 October, Walker cut off his monitoring device and absconded, heading back to Yuendumu once again. Since Walker had violated the terms of his suspended sentence, a warrant was issued for his arrest, and his girlfriend was warned. Acting on a tip-off, two Yuendumu constables Christopher Hand and Lanyon Smith confronted Walker at his girlfriend's grandparents house in Yuendumu on Wednesday 6 November. Walker lunged at the officers with a small axe or tomahawk; the police retreated and Walker ran off into the scrub, dropping the axe on the front porch.