Rolfe Takes the Stand

protect not only Aboriginal women, but all women. And yet through this podcast, we've shown clearly that that is not the case. We've shown clearly that reform of the police is not the answer because often it is the police who are enacting some of the worst forms of violence against Aboriginal women. And the significance of the Zachary Rolf case is huge because it reveals the innate, racist and

gendered violence of policing. This is not a conversation that often comes up in relation to black deaths in custody. Often when cases of black death and custody are reported on in the media, there are continual silences and deflecting away from a perpetrator, so that the person who has died becomes responsible for their own death and is criminalized further even as they are the ones who have lost

their life. We've shown clearly that this is what has also happened in cases of Aboriginal women who have been disappeared, particularly up here in my home state of Queensland, where often they have been criminalized before they have lost their lives outside of bars. So today Martin is going to bring you his analysis of Zachary Roff's testimony in the coronial inquest which is currently ongoing into mister Walker's death

in Uindamu all those years ago. Martin, this is the first time Rolf has actually given testimony in relation to what happened to mister Walker. What do you think has been missing from the media coverage?

against the NT police. He told the inquest about the Tactical Response Group, which is a heavily armed squad which respond to what they call high risk incidents in the Northern Territory, and that they hold an annual award that they call an I quote Coon of the Year Award. Obviously this is despicably racist, and yet this was a unit that Zachary Ralph was desperate to join. So he starts straight away as throwing around to accusations of racism

against his fellow officers, particularly more senior officers. And what was disappointing to me was that this was hailed as some sort of insight into anti policing. But we already know that the Northern Territory Police are disgracefully racist and always have been. This is an institution that's been rotten

from the start. So in my opinion, this was Ralph just offering this up as both a distraction from his own racism which we heard spoken about throughout the inquest and that he admitted to on the stand, and his own use of violence, and to shift his focus off himself as an individual, refusing to ever really take responsibility for any of his own actions, and the fact that he began his testimony this way was I think a very deliberate strategy. He was both a terrible witness and

someone who claimed to always be right. He said that he was just clumsy when he applied to the Northern Territory Police, that he'd failed to mention he had a criminal offense charge and that he had other applications to join other police forces, which is not allowed. He'd applied for the Queensland Police, the Northern Territory Police and the Victoria Police. On all of those application forms, he failed to disclose that he'd been fined for public nuisance and

violent behavior in Queensland. So again, whether he failed to disclose or not, this is something that could have clearly been checked and the NT police failed to do so, or maybe they didn't. Maybe they saw he had this violent history and they didn't care. He also failed to disclose on all the applications that when he'd applied to join police forces he'd also been convicted of a military

offense while he was serving in the ADF. So this was someone who went into the police force both with clear violent tendencies, an attitude of disgusting racism, and who had never shown any kind of discipline in his life, and that would instantly play out. Between twenty sixteen and twenty nineteen, he admitted that there was forty six use

of force incidences recorded against him. In a Northern Territory Police's survey, it found that Ralph had the highest rate of use of force incidents among random members of his own graduating class. Now this is something had they done their due diligence, they would have known, could have known, and probably did know, because when his officer in charge, Sergeant Bowens, was asked about it, he said, even if he had been aware of the previous history, it wouldn't

have concerned him. And that and his response about being the officer in charge was and I quote, we do not look at their record and how many use of forces they had. That was part of the criteria. He told the inquest use of force complaints these days can be frivolous. This is his officer in charge claiming that for the most part, And like many officers would say on the stand, and they outlined the fact that named

lawyers that they outline make endless frivolous complaint. A they were wrong about the numbers and who these lawyers were. And B they were also wrong about the fact that many of those incidences had actually been captured on camera and shown to be incredibly violent. For example, in twenty eighteen, Ralph punched an aboriginal man in the head, grabbed his hair and slung him to the ground, rendering him unconscious

and needing sixteen stitches for cuts. And that, according to his superiors and Rolph himself, was fine and any complaint about it was and I quote frivolous. Now. Leading up to when zach Rolf shot and killed Kumanji Walker, Zachary Rolf had also talked about leaving the NT force, not because it was some terrible racist place, but he wanted what he called wild work and I quote dangerous shit. The person he reached out to was Ben Roberts Smith, who was found by the Federal court to be a

war criminal for his actions in Afghanistan. He also sent text messages to his mother in this period leading up to the shooting death of Kumenji Walker, admitting to his own short fews and how angry he'd get that he'd beaten the crap out of people. And it was discussed by another officer in a text message that Ralph was known for and I quote, towling up the locals. So by the time he arrived in Uwindamu, he was a racist,

ticking time bomb ready to go off. The NT police knew and were aware they had all the evidence for it, and yet they let him explode, killing Kumanjai and facing none of the consequences. And this is what we are seeing play out in the inquiry as it drags on, endless accusations being proven of racism and violence by Ralph and his fellow colleagues, endless accusations, and then the evidence to prove that there was no oversight, that superior officers turned to blind eye, that his use of force was

out of control, and nothing. We're just supposed to watch it pretend that that's all, okay. It really shows to me how useless these inquests and inquiries are.

losing his life. You know, these don't come out often of these processes at all, and yet it is still a process that in a way does deny that justice, you know what I mean.

knowing that they literally have a license to kill. And that's what we've seen play out over and over again in the cases we've covered. And you know Rolph's own actions on that day too, as you watch the videos that have been released. You know, we've previously talked about things like gratuitous concurrence and the way that is used

when extracting and false confessions from Aboriginal people. But Rolf used it himself to gain entry into a house where there was no one wanted, and he used it against an Aboriginal woman who was not the owner of the house.

And she made that very clear and yet he found legal loopholes to use that they'd clearly been trained with to gain access to the house, which he could not have got because she was not the owner, and she explicitly stated that, and that was never reported in the media, and I thought it was a shocking omission that an Aboriginal woman is there on video clearly identifying who she is, why she's there, and that she not the owner and therefore not giving permission nor can't give permission for him

to enter, and yet he completely fops her off and goes into that home where there was nobody who was wanted by police, and the media did not seem to pick up on the way he treated that Aboriginal woman.

on the continuing frontier, you know. So the war never ended in Australia, so there's a sense that he was seeking out another frontier in which he could exert this form of violence on a people that he deemed inferior.

And I totally agree with what you say. He was seeking this kind of work in inverted commas out he seemed to revel in committing these acts of violence. In fact, what many people may not know was that he took the video from his body worn camera and played it while recording with his mobile phone, so he could keep a trophy, if you like, of the violence he committed.

This is the exact same thing we've seen from soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he then added commentary over the top, laughing and joking about it was almost like he was voicing a sort of street fighter movie of him assaulting these Aboriginal men for absolutely no reason. And yet despite this, he was applying to be part of a more elite unit where he would have access to military grade firearms, and even that wasn't enough for him.

He was reaching out to Ben Robert Smith because he wanted to do more private security work, where again he would have more impunity and access to a greater number of weapons. And the militarization of police forces in the United States we have seen lead to innumerable murders by police of African Americans right across the country, and it's clearly happening in the Northern Territory and other states, and yet there is no exposure of it.

She was really just promoting Rolf as this hero cop who was pushed into a corner her perception was by a violent black teenager. But it actually came out of the inquiry just the levels she had actually gone to, and that she was actually a friend of Rolf's because her partner was also a cop, and she'd actually texted Rolf two days after he killed mister Walker in November twenty nineteen and had actually offered her help. So she'd

actually said, hey, mate, heard the news. Hope you and the shoulder are okay, ignore the leftist reporting in the media. Hopefully catch up soon, and then she'd written again, so glad you're okay. Could have been much worse. I know what you did was totally warranted. If you ever want me to write an article in your defense without naming you,

say the word. And Rolf took her up on the offer, and what emerged was article after article about Rolf being this hero cop and slandering you and Demo and mister Walker in a certain way.

that is so often used. They often bring up the abuse of black women and children in order to justify these really extreme use of violence against black men, particularly, but even against black women, as you'll hear in this podcast, not actually looking at the fact that police are complicit in the violence against Aboriginal women, and an example of that came out of another coronial inquest, not this inquest, but an inquest into the death of an Aboriginal woman

named Miss Rabuncha, who was a really strong, proud Black woman who was one of the founders of the Tanangier Women's Safety Group, had gone down to Canberra to advocate against family violence and later lost her life from a violent partner. It was actually two days before mister Walker was killed, Rolf had been called to her house because of a violent incident.

against family violence in life. And that should tell you everything about the very cynical and disgusting way that the Austray media, particularly this journalist Kristin Shordan, claimed to care about the safety of black women, when really it was just a pretense to exonerate her white kop friend who was actively complicit in not just the abuse of black women, but perpetrating police violence onto black men, which later resulted in the loss of mister Walker's life.

made up. Just as his mindset was that an Aboriginal woman was making frivolous accusations about domestic violence, the journalist's mindset was, of course, the police officer did the right

thing in killing an Aboriginal man. So in these instances of debts in custody and domestic and family violence, the minds of those who make the biggest impact, the police and the mainstream media, those that get to respond first to these incidences, have already been made and that Aboriginal men are guilty and can be put down like animals, and that Aboriginal women are simply making it up lying

and even if it's true, don't deserve protection. That's the reality, And so when people propose that we have more police involvement in domestic and family violence, more police involvement in the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and children, you have to ask why do you want these people involved. Have you taken the time to see what they admit themselves. Have you taken the time to see what they do

when they're given more power. And as for the media who push these issues, if she was willing to write an openly biased piece before knowing any of the facts, what does that say about all of her coverage of the Northern Territory and particularly her writing on Aboriginal communities. It's probably bullshit.

We have to look at what's happening with police. We have to carefully interrogate the violence of police because it is so silenced, particularly in the media, but in Australian society, you know, elections are won and lost on the issue of law and order, which is always predicated on drumming up these moral panics which are always revolving around, for example, black children, and this is something that's currently happening in Queensland and New South Wales.

want for those who are no longer here. One of those cases is a case that is close to both Mardin and My Hearts, and that's Menique Club, who has disappeared in Beinglei back in twenty thirteen.