Afterword: Context erasure

Abstract

This afterword reflects upon the not guilty verdict and the media reportage that followed the conclusion of the murder trial of Constable Zachary Rolfe. After the lifting of media embargoes, a plethora of new material was delivered into the public domain. Much of this material was forensic and voyeuristic in approach, dedicated to expanding the narrative of endemic physical violence in Kumunjayi Walker's background while humanizing and heroising the police officer acquitted of his murder. Rendered invisible were the long and brutal history of colonial policing, as well as more recent and particular shifts in the culture and intensity of carceral practice in the Northern Territory. Kumunjayi Walker's shooting occurred at the culmination of the systematic displacement of Warlpiri authority by an endless horizon of securitised governance.