Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe has been found not guilty of murder in relation to the shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker.
Rolfe, 30, was also cleared of two alternative charges of manslaughter and engaging in a violent act causing death.
The verdict comes after an almost five-week trial in the supreme court, and after the case was delayed multiple times because of legal argument and the pandemic.
Outside court, Rolfe said: “A lot of people are hurting today, Kumanjayi Walker’s family and his community.
“I’m going to leave this space for them.”
Northern Territory police association president Paul McCue said it was a travesty Rolfe was ever charged.
“Today we’ve seen justice prevail.”
The trial heard Rolfe shot Walker, a 19-year-old Warlpiri man, while trying to arrest him in the remote community of Yuendumu, about 300km from Alice Springs, on 9 November 2019.
Walker stabbed Rolfe with scissors prior to the first shot being fired. This shot was not subject to any charges.
But, the court heard, 2.6 seconds after the first shot, Rolfe fired again, and then 0.5 seconds later he fired a third time. These final two shots were fired from close range at a time when Rolfe’s partner, then constable Adam Eberl, was attempting to restrain Walker on a mattress. The prosecution alleged Walker no longer posed a threat to Rolfe or Eberl by that stage.
Rolfe defended the charges on the grounds he feared for the life of Eberl and was acting in good faith and “the reasonable performance of his duties” when he fired the final two shots.
Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
“When Kumanjayi Walker deliberately and … viciously tried to stab both officers with potentially fatal consequences,” Rolfe’s barrister David Edwardson QC told the jury in his closing address.
“The only appropriate response was to draw his firearm and pull the trigger, discharging each bullet into … Walker until the threat was removed.”
Rolfe had given evidence in his own case, telling the court he believed Walker was trying to stab Eberl at the time of the shots, and Edwardson said the prosecution “did not land a glove on him”.
Prosecutor Philip Strickland SC accused Rolfe of lying in the witness stand about crucial parts of his evidence, saying that Walker never put his hand on Rolfe’s gun, nor had Rolfe seen Walker stabbing Eberl.
In his closing address, Strickland said the jury should consider the context to Rolfe confronting Walker in the Yuendumu property known as House 511 where the shooting occurred.
Quick Guide
How to get the latest news from Guardian Australia
Show
This context, Strickland said, included what he alleged was Rolfe’s “preoccupation” with an incident three days earlier, when Walker threatened two police officers with an axe at a separate Yuendumu property known as House 577, Rolfe’s “keenness” to be deployed to Yuendumu, his “insistence” upon leaving the Yuendumu police station to immediately track down Walker, and the “manner” and “state of readiness” in which he searched House 577 minutes before the shooting.
“All of those matters, we say, are evidence of a particular state of mind,” Strickland said.
“They’re all evidence of a mentality the accused had at that time and that mentality was that if Kumanjayi Walker showed any resistance, if he presented with an edged weapon, he would be prepared to draw his weapon, and if necessary fire it at Kumanjayi Walker.”
Strickland claimed that Rolfe had lied to the court to “justify the unjustifiable”. The defence said that was “absurd”.
The jury retired to consider its verdict on Thursday afternoon.