Walker, 19, was shot at his home in Yuendumu in November 2019. The response team was given details of an incident three days earlier when Walker came at other officers with an axe, Alice Spring local court heard on Tuesday.
Body camera footage of the axe incident was shown to the court. A member of the response team, Const Zachary Rolfe, has been charged with the murder of Walker, who was shot as officers tried to take him into custody in his home 300km north-west of Alice Springs.
Giving evidence at Rolfe’s committal hearing, Sgt Julie Frost said before the attempted arrest she still had some hope that Walker would give himself up. But she agreed with defence counsel that she knew he had a violent criminal history and had previously assaulted police.
After the incident with the axe, which she described as a serious and significant assault, Frost had gone to speak with his grandparents to tell them how serious the situation was and that he could have been killed.
In her statement after his death, Frost said she had indicated to his grandparents that by his actions three days earlier Walker had made things worse for himself.
“I reiterated the fact that what he did could have got my members killed and Arnold (Kumanjayi) could have been killed as well, or could have been shot because of his actions,” she said in part of her statement read to the court by Rolfe’s defence counsel.
But in the same statement, Frost said she did not feel personally at risk of attack by Walker, believing he would be more interested in escaping.
“We would always kit up and go out fully – with all your accoutrements on – in case something like that happened, but I didn’t think for a minute that he would come out at us,” she said.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/01/police-sent-to-arrest-kum...Kumanjayi Walker was born to a woman who drank heavily while pregnant
Selina Lane gave her son away to another couple shortly after he was born
He was raised in an environment of alcohol abuse and domestic violence
Though he inflicted horrific violence on his girlfriend, she blamed herself
Attacked police with an axe
Three days later stabbed policeman with scissors. He was shot dead.
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