Speaker 1: This is Curtain, a podcast where we expose the disappearances
Speaker 1: of Aboriginal people across this country, shining a light on
Speaker 1: the darkest parts of our justice system.
Speaker 2: We ask who are the victims?
Speaker 3: I'm aiming Maquire, and I'm Martin Hodgson, Senior Advocate at
Speaker 3: the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. And a warning. This series
Speaker 3: contains the names of deceased people and includes distressing content
Speaker 3: that may upset some listeners.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Episode six of Curtain the Podcast. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to look more into the racism of policing
Speaker 1: across the country, looking at the specific case of Zachary
Speaker 1: Rolfe who killed Aboriginal teenager Coleman J.
Speaker 2: Walker in Uinda Moo.
Speaker 1: Rolf was acquitted of the murder of mister Walker, but
Speaker 1: it was an incredibly historic case because it was one
Speaker 1: of the first times in Australia history that a police
Speaker 1: officer has been charged with murder over a black death
Speaker 1: in custody. The reason it is so important for us
Speaker 1: to look into this case specifically as we investigated the
Speaker 1: cases of disappearances of Aboriginal women all Acosta country, is
Speaker 1: because there's a perception that the police are there to
Speaker 1: protect not only Aboriginal women, but all women. And yet
Speaker 1: through this podcast, we've shown clearly that that is not
Speaker 1: the case. We've shown clearly that reform of the police
Speaker 1: is not the answer because often it is the police
Speaker 1: who are enacting some of the worst forms of violence
Speaker 1: against Aboriginal women. And the significance of the Zachary Rolf
Speaker 1: case is huge because it reveals the innate, racist and
Speaker 1: gendered violence of policing. This is not a conversation that
Speaker 1: often comes up in relation to black deaths in custody.
Speaker 1: Often when cases of black death and custody are reported
Speaker 1: on in the media, there are continual silences and deflecting
Speaker 1: away from a perpetrator, so that the person who has
Speaker 1: died becomes responsible for their own death and is criminalized
Speaker 1: further even as they are the ones who have lost
Speaker 1: their life. We've shown clearly that this is what has
Speaker 1: also happened in cases of Aboriginal women who have been disappeared,
Speaker 1: particularly up here in my home state of Queensland, where
Speaker 1: often they have been criminalized before they have lost their
Speaker 1: lives outside of bars. So today Martin is going to
Speaker 1: bring you his analysis of Zachary Roff's testimony in the
Speaker 1: coronial inquest which is currently ongoing into mister Walker's death
Speaker 1: in Uindamu all those years ago. Martin, this is the
Speaker 1: first time Rolf has actually given testimony in relation to
Speaker 1: what happened to mister Walker. What do you think has
Speaker 1: been missing from the media coverage?
Speaker 3: I think this was a very important moment in the
Speaker 3: history of understanding the way the police operate in this country.
Speaker 3: As Amy said, we hadn't heard from Ralph before and
Speaker 3: this was his chance to tell his side of the story.
Speaker 3: But immediately it was evident that he was going to
Speaker 3: take absolutely no responsibility and has learned nothing from his
Speaker 3: own actions. He began his evidence with accusations of racism
Speaker 3: against the NT police. He told the inquest about the
Speaker 3: Tactical Response Group, which is a heavily armed squad which
Speaker 3: respond to what they call high risk incidents in the
Speaker 3: Northern Territory, and that they hold an annual award that
Speaker 3: they call an I quote Coon of the Year Award.
Speaker 3: Obviously this is despicably racist, and yet this was a
Speaker 3: unit that Zachary Ralph was desperate to join. So he
Speaker 3: starts straight away as throwing around to accusations of racism
Speaker 3: against his fellow officers, particularly more senior officers. And what
Speaker 3: was disappointing to me was that this was hailed as
Speaker 3: some sort of insight into anti policing. But we already
Speaker 3: know that the Northern Territory Police are disgracefully racist and
Speaker 3: always have been. This is an institution that's been rotten
Speaker 3: from the start. So in my opinion, this was Ralph
Speaker 3: just offering this up as both a distraction from his
Speaker 3: own racism which we heard spoken about throughout the inquest
Speaker 3: and that he admitted to on the stand, and his
Speaker 3: own use of violence, and to shift his focus off
Speaker 3: himself as an individual, refusing to ever really take responsibility
Speaker 3: for any of his own actions, and the fact that
Speaker 3: he began his testimony this way was I think a
Speaker 3: very deliberate strategy. He was both a terrible witness and
Speaker 3: someone who claimed to always be right. He said that
Speaker 3: he was just clumsy when he applied to the Northern
Speaker 3: Territory Police, that he'd failed to mention he had a
Speaker 3: criminal offense charge and that he had other applications to
Speaker 3: join other police forces, which is not allowed. He'd applied
Speaker 3: for the Queensland Police, the Northern Territory Police and the
Speaker 3: Victoria Police. On all of those application forms, he failed
Speaker 3: to disclose that he'd been fined for public nuisance and
Speaker 3: violent behavior in Queensland. So again, whether he failed to
Speaker 3: disclose or not, this is something that could have clearly
Speaker 3: been checked and the NT police failed to do so,
Speaker 3: or maybe they didn't. Maybe they saw he had this
Speaker 3: violent history and they didn't care. He also failed to
Speaker 3: disclose on all the applications that when he'd applied to
Speaker 3: join police forces he'd also been convicted of a military
Speaker 3: offense while he was serving in the ADF. So this
Speaker 3: was someone who went into the police force both with
Speaker 3: clear violent tendencies, an attitude of disgusting racism, and who
Speaker 3: had never shown any kind of discipline in his life,
Speaker 3: and that would instantly play out. Between twenty sixteen and
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, he admitted that there was forty six use
Speaker 3: of force incidences recorded against him. In a Northern Territory
Speaker 3: Police's survey, it found that Ralph had the highest rate
Speaker 3: of use of force incidents among random members of his
Speaker 3: own graduating class. Now this is something had they done
Speaker 3: their due diligence, they would have known, could have known,
Speaker 3: and probably did know, because when his officer in charge,
Speaker 3: Sergeant Bowens, was asked about it, he said, even if
Speaker 3: he had been aware of the previous history, it wouldn't
Speaker 3: have concerned him. And that and his response about being
Speaker 3: the officer in charge was and I quote, we do
Speaker 3: not look at their record and how many use of
Speaker 3: forces they had. That was part of the criteria. He
Speaker 3: told the inquest use of force complaints these days can
Speaker 3: be frivolous. This is his officer in charge claiming that
Speaker 3: for the most part, And like many officers would say
Speaker 3: on the stand, and they outlined the fact that named
Speaker 3: lawyers that they outline make endless frivolous complaint. A they
Speaker 3: were wrong about the numbers and who these lawyers were.
Speaker 3: And B they were also wrong about the fact that
Speaker 3: many of those incidences had actually been captured on camera
Speaker 3: and shown to be incredibly violent. For example, in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: Ralph punched an aboriginal man in the head, grabbed his
Speaker 3: hair and slung him to the ground, rendering him unconscious
Speaker 3: and needing sixteen stitches for cuts. And that, according to
Speaker 3: his superiors and Rolph himself, was fine and any complaint
Speaker 3: about it was and I quote frivolous. Now. Leading up
Speaker 3: to when zach Rolf shot and killed Kumanji Walker, Zachary
Speaker 3: Rolf had also talked about leaving the NT force, not
Speaker 3: because it was some terrible racist place, but he wanted
Speaker 3: what he called wild work and I quote dangerous shit.
Speaker 3: The person he reached out to was Ben Roberts Smith,
Speaker 3: who was found by the Federal court to be a
Speaker 3: war criminal for his actions in Afghanistan. He also sent
Speaker 3: text messages to his mother in this period leading up
Speaker 3: to the shooting death of Kumenji Walker, admitting to his
Speaker 3: own short fews and how angry he'd get that he'd
Speaker 3: beaten the crap out of people. And it was discussed
Speaker 3: by another officer in a text message that Ralph was
Speaker 3: known for and I quote, towling up the locals. So
Speaker 3: by the time he arrived in Uwindamu, he was a racist,
Speaker 3: ticking time bomb ready to go off. The NT police
Speaker 3: knew and were aware they had all the evidence for it,
Speaker 3: and yet they let him explode, killing Kumanjai and facing
Speaker 3: none of the consequences. And this is what we are
Speaker 3: seeing play out in the inquiry as it drags on,
Speaker 3: endless accusations being proven of racism and violence by Ralph
Speaker 3: and his fellow colleagues, endless accusations, and then the evidence
Speaker 3: to prove that there was no oversight, that superior officers
Speaker 3: turned to blind eye, that his use of force was
Speaker 3: out of control, and nothing. We're just supposed to watch
Speaker 3: it pretend that that's all, okay. It really shows to
Speaker 3: me how useless these inquests and inquiries are.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting to me mrdin reflecting on all that
Speaker 1: came out of the inquest, the fact that so much
Speaker 1: didn't come out of his actual trial for certain reasons,
Speaker 1: But it's really interesting to me because it seems to
Speaker 1: be one of the only times where you have a
Speaker 1: clear revelation of just obscene racial violence perpetrated by a cop,
Speaker 1: but also the structural and institutional violence which supported him
Speaker 1: to do that, which ultimately ended up in mister Walker
Speaker 1: losing his life. You know, these don't come out often
Speaker 1: of these processes at all, and yet it is still
Speaker 1: a process that in a way does deny that justice,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But it just strikes me.
Speaker 1: Is this seems to be a very significant case in
Speaker 1: relation to the history of policing in this country and
Speaker 1: the way it particularly targets not just Aboriginal men, but
Speaker 1: also Aboriginal women.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, that's a really important point to make.
Speaker 3: And I think what you raised about the fact that
Speaker 3: the difference between the trial and the inquest. The trial
Speaker 3: is where he would have faced consequences, and yet almost
Speaker 3: none of this evidence that we've heard was allowed in
Speaker 3: the inquest, where he faces no consequences, and suddenly we're
Speaker 3: allowed to hear it all. And we wonder why the
Speaker 3: police are never held to account. And the dangerous part
Speaker 3: of that is what they then go on to perpetrate,
Speaker 3: knowing that they literally have a license to kill. And
Speaker 3: that's what we've seen play out over and over again
Speaker 3: in the cases we've covered. And you know Rolph's own
Speaker 3: actions on that day too, as you watch the videos
Speaker 3: that have been released. You know, we've previously talked about
Speaker 3: things like gratuitous concurrence and the way that is used
Speaker 3: when extracting and false confessions from Aboriginal people. But Rolf
Speaker 3: used it himself to gain entry into a house where
Speaker 3: there was no one wanted, and he used it against
Speaker 3: an Aboriginal woman who was not the owner of the house.
Speaker 3: And she made that very clear and yet he found
Speaker 3: legal loopholes to use that they'd clearly been trained with
Speaker 3: to gain access to the house, which he could not
Speaker 3: have got because she was not the owner, and she
Speaker 3: explicitly stated that, and that was never reported in the media,
Speaker 3: and I thought it was a shocking omission that an
Speaker 3: Aboriginal woman is there on video clearly identifying who she is,
Speaker 3: why she's there, and that she not the owner and
Speaker 3: therefore not giving permission nor can't give permission for him
Speaker 3: to enter, and yet he completely fops her off and
Speaker 3: goes into that home where there was nobody who was
Speaker 3: wanted by police, and the media did not seem to
Speaker 3: pick up on the way he treated that Aboriginal woman.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to raise something that you've mentioned just previously,
Speaker 1: and it relates to the links between the military and
Speaker 1: the anti police, particularly the links to Ben Roberts Smith
Speaker 1: and Rolf actively seeking out an environment in which he
Speaker 1: can basically what he perceives to be do whatever he
Speaker 1: wants with impunity. And it's seems to be a similar
Speaker 1: logic from Australian soldiers like Ben Robert Smith, who committed
Speaker 1: clear war crimes in Afghanistan, and what Rolf was doing
Speaker 1: on the continuing frontier, you know. So the war never
Speaker 1: ended in Australia, so there's a sense that he was
Speaker 1: seeking out another frontier in which he could exert this
Speaker 1: form of violence on a people that he deemed inferior.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that came through in his testimony in a
Speaker 3: way that it didn't shock me, but at the same
Speaker 3: time to see it so blatant, and to watch videos
Speaker 3: of him first assaulting Aboriginal men and boys in just
Speaker 3: a violent way. There was one incident in particular where
Speaker 3: he approached to Aboriginal men who'd done nothing wrong and
Speaker 3: assaulted both of them, and then with his body worn
Speaker 3: camera still rolling, says to his colleague that they'd have
Speaker 3: to write them up to justify his use of force.
Speaker 3: And I totally agree with what you say. He was
Speaker 3: seeking this kind of work in inverted commas out he
Speaker 3: seemed to revel in committing these acts of violence. In fact,
Speaker 3: what many people may not know was that he took
Speaker 3: the video from his body worn camera and played it
Speaker 3: while recording with his mobile phone, so he could keep
Speaker 3: a trophy, if you like, of the violence he committed.
Speaker 3: This is the exact same thing we've seen from soldiers
Speaker 3: in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he then added commentary over
Speaker 3: the top, laughing and joking about it was almost like
Speaker 3: he was voicing a sort of street fighter movie of
Speaker 3: him assaulting these Aboriginal men for absolutely no reason. And
Speaker 3: yet despite this, he was applying to be part of
Speaker 3: a more elite unit where he would have access to
Speaker 3: military grade firearms, and even that wasn't enough for him.
Speaker 3: He was reaching out to Ben Robert Smith because he
Speaker 3: wanted to do more private security work, where again he
Speaker 3: would have more impunity and access to a greater number
Speaker 3: of weapons. And the militarization of police forces in the
Speaker 3: United States we have seen lead to innumerable murders by
Speaker 3: police of African Americans right across the country, and it's
Speaker 3: clearly happening in the Northern Territory and other states, and
Speaker 3: yet there is no exposure of it.
Speaker 1: And I also just wanted to bring up as well
Speaker 1: as something that you mentioned in relation to the media reportage,
Speaker 1: and I think it speaks to also the vediation of
Speaker 1: Ben Robert Smith, because it was of course it's like
Speaker 1: brilliant investigative journalism that actually exposed Ben Roberts Smith's war
Speaker 1: crimes and that was later taken to court and it
Speaker 1: was found that it was actually true.
Speaker 2: So the journalist Nick, I think it was Nick.
Speaker 1: Mackenzie had actually done really good journalism relation to that.
Speaker 1: But in Zachary Rolf's case, there was also even after
Speaker 1: he had killed mister Walker, there were attempts to launder
Speaker 1: his image and it had actually come out, you know,
Speaker 1: the levels of complicity around this public relations exercise for
Speaker 1: Rolf was led by a journalist at The Australian named
Speaker 1: Kristin Shorden, And I'd been following Kristin Shuldan's work on
Speaker 1: this case because it was so egregious and so horrific.
Speaker 1: She was really just promoting Rolf as this hero cop
Speaker 1: who was pushed into a corner her perception was by
Speaker 1: a violent black teenager. But it actually came out of
Speaker 1: the inquiry just the levels she had actually gone to,
Speaker 1: and that she was actually a friend of Rolf's because
Speaker 1: her partner was also a cop, and she'd actually texted
Speaker 1: Rolf two days after he killed mister Walker in November
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen and had actually offered her help. So she'd
Speaker 1: actually said, hey, mate, heard the news. Hope you and
Speaker 1: the shoulder are okay, ignore the leftist reporting in the media.
Speaker 1: Hopefully catch up soon, and then she'd written again, so
Speaker 1: glad you're okay. Could have been much worse. I know
Speaker 1: what you did was totally warranted. If you ever want
Speaker 1: me to write an article in your defense without naming you,
Speaker 1: say the word. And Rolf took her up on the offer,
Speaker 1: and what emerged was article after article about Rolf being
Speaker 1: this hero cop and slandering you and Demo and mister
Speaker 1: Walker in a certain way.
Speaker 2: And the reason I want to bring this.
Speaker 1: Up specifically as well is because one of the tactics
Speaker 1: that Shordun used was to bring up the abuse of
Speaker 1: black women and children in Uin Demo as justification for
Speaker 1: the police slaughtering and killing of mister Walker. And that
Speaker 1: was really really horrific to me because it is tactic
Speaker 1: that is so often used. They often bring up the
Speaker 1: abuse of black women and children in order to justify
Speaker 1: these really extreme use of violence against black men, particularly,
Speaker 1: but even against black women, as you'll hear in this podcast,
Speaker 1: not actually looking at the fact that police are complicit
Speaker 1: in the violence against Aboriginal women, and an example of
Speaker 1: that came out of another coronial inquest, not this inquest,
Speaker 1: but an inquest into the death of an Aboriginal woman
Speaker 1: named Miss Rabuncha, who was a really strong, proud Black
Speaker 1: woman who was one of the founders of the Tanangier
Speaker 1: Women's Safety Group, had gone down to Canberra to advocate
Speaker 1: against family violence and later lost her life from a
Speaker 1: violent partner. It was actually two days before mister Walker
Speaker 1: was killed, Rolf had been called to her house because
Speaker 1: of a violent incident.
Speaker 2: She wanted help.
Speaker 1: He had made fun of her, he'd claimed she was
Speaker 1: making things up. He'd mocked her in so many different ways,
Speaker 1: and then mister Rabuncher later lost her life and Rolf
Speaker 1: was directly complicit in that he mocked her, a victim
Speaker 1: of family violence, an Aboriginal woman who was actively fighting
Speaker 1: against family violence in life. And that should tell you
Speaker 1: everything about the very cynical and disgusting way that the
Speaker 1: Austray media, particularly this journalist Kristin Shordan, claimed to care
Speaker 1: about the safety of black women, when really it was
Speaker 1: just a pretense to exonerate her white kop friend who
Speaker 1: was actively complicit in not just the abuse of black women,
Speaker 1: but perpetrating police violence onto black men, which later resulted
Speaker 1: in the loss of mister Walker's life.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that was so stark
Speaker 3: about that was that that offer of support and to
Speaker 3: do a blatant biased article came before that journalist could
Speaker 3: possibly have known the facts. And the facts are that
Speaker 3: Zachary Ralph fired three fatal shots into the chest of
Speaker 3: Commenjoy Walker. And yet this alleged journalists didn't care about
Speaker 3: any of that. Instantly she wanted and was willing to
Speaker 3: take his side. And it shows the mindset is already
Speaker 3: made up. Just as his mindset was that an Aboriginal
Speaker 3: woman was making frivolous accusations about domestic violence, the journalist's
Speaker 3: mindset was, of course, the police officer did the right
Speaker 3: thing in killing an Aboriginal man. So in these instances
Speaker 3: of debts in custody and domestic and family violence, the
Speaker 3: minds of those who make the biggest impact, the police
Speaker 3: and the mainstream media, those that get to respond first
Speaker 3: to these incidences, have already been made and that Aboriginal
Speaker 3: men are guilty and can be put down like animals,
Speaker 3: and that Aboriginal women are simply making it up lying
Speaker 3: and even if it's true, don't deserve protection. That's the reality,
Speaker 3: And so when people propose that we have more police
Speaker 3: involvement in domestic and family violence, more police involvement in
Speaker 3: the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and children,
Speaker 3: you have to ask why do you want these people involved.
Speaker 3: Have you taken the time to see what they admit themselves.
Speaker 3: Have you taken the time to see what they do
Speaker 3: when they're given more power. And as for the media
Speaker 3: who push these issues, if she was willing to write
Speaker 3: an openly biased piece before knowing any of the facts,
Speaker 3: what does that say about all of her coverage of
Speaker 3: the Northern Territory and particularly her writing on Aboriginal communities.
Speaker 3: It's probably bullshit.
Speaker 1: Just as we investigated the case that started this podcast,
Speaker 1: the wrong for of Kevin Henry and the miscarriage of
Speaker 1: justice around Linda's death, we actually have to look broadly
Speaker 1: at the environment in which the disappearances of Aboriginal women
Speaker 1: are occurring. And that's why we have to look at
Speaker 1: cases that may not seem on the surface directly related
Speaker 1: to the stories that we're talking about on this podcast.
Speaker 1: We have to look at what's happening with police. We
Speaker 1: have to carefully interrogate the violence of police because it
Speaker 1: is so silenced, particularly in the media, but in Australian society,
Speaker 1: you know, elections are won and lost on the issue
Speaker 1: of law and order, which is always predicated on drumming
Speaker 1: up these moral panics which are always revolving around, for example,
Speaker 1: black children, and this is something that's currently happening in
Speaker 1: Queensland and New South Wales.
Speaker 2: Across the country.
Speaker 1: So we have to look at the wider environment to
Speaker 1: understand the levels of violence because Aboriginal women don't just
Speaker 1: experience one form of violence.
Speaker 2: We experience so many unique oppressions.
Speaker 1: So through this podcast, we'll be occasionally expanding the scope
Speaker 1: of the topics we talk about in order to bring
Speaker 1: you an understanding of what is actually happening on the ground.
Speaker 1: But in future episodes, we're also hoping to look at
Speaker 1: specific cases, cases that we continue to delve into, because
Speaker 1: there are continuing miscarriages of justice where there are families
Speaker 1: who are still fighting for the return of their loved
Speaker 1: ones and fighting for a form of justice that they
Speaker 1: want for those who are no longer here. One of
Speaker 1: those cases is a case that is close to both
Speaker 1: Mardin and My Hearts, and that's Menique Club, who has
Speaker 1: disappeared in Beinglei back in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: I hope you stay with us as we.
Speaker 1: Continue to look deeply into the disappearances of Aboriginal women
Speaker 1: all across the country.
Speaker 3: This episode was brought to you by Black Cast and
Speaker 3: produced by Clint Curtis. For more, you can visit us
Speaker 3: at www dot kurtin the podcast us dot com, follow
Speaker 3: us on Twitter at curten podcast, and help to support
Speaker 3: our work at Patreon dot com. Backslash Curtain podcast. Mm
Speaker 3: hmmmm