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Robin Japanangka Granites, a Yuendumu community elder who was also at the courthouse in Alice Springs, said: “We’re just feeling a bit heartbroken. Today was a time when it went not our way, but the opposite.”
On the Thursday before his death, Mr. Walker, armed with an ax, had a run-in with members of the local police force in Yuendumu as they tried to arrest him for breaching a suspended sentence. He had been released from prison the month before after serving time for property crime charges and was supposed to be at a rehabilitation facility in Alice Springs.
Three days later, on Saturday, Mr. Rolfe and another officer entered the home of Mr. Walker’s grandmother, also in Yuendumu, which has a population of about 750 people and where Mr. Walker had gone for his grandfather’s funeral.
In the scuffle, Mr. Walker stabbed Mr. Rolfe in the shoulder with a pair of medical scissors. A fellow officer restrained Mr. Walker on the ground, and Mr. Rolfe shot him three times.
In the hours that followed, Mr. Walker did not receive adequate medical care, because staff members had evacuated the heath clinic in Yuendumu earlier in the day over safety concerns after a number of break-ins. The nearest clinic was some 40 miles away. Though his relatives waited for news outside the police station, they were not told of his death until 10 hours later.
Speaking to reporters outside court in Darwin on Friday, Mr. Rolfe’s attorney, David Edwardson, said there had been no winners in the case. “A young man died, and that’s tragic,” he said. He added: “At the same time, Zachary Rolfe, in my view, was wrongly charged in the first place. It was an appalling investigation and very much regretted.”
After the verdict, Mr. Rolfe hugged supporters and family members, while Mr. Walker’s relatives let out wails of anguish. Mr. Rolfe is expected to return to his job as a police officer in the Northern Territory.
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