Australia's High Court intervenes in police shooting trial

Australia’s highest court has agreed to hear a challenge to a police officer using his law enforcement job as a defense against a charge of murdering an Indigenous man

CANBERRA, Australia -- Australia’s highest court on Friday agreed to hear a challenge to a police officer using his law enforcement job as a defense against a charge of murdering an Indigenous man. Constable Zachary Rolfe could become the first police officer to be convicted in Australia of unlawfully killing an Indigenous person. Rolfe shot Kumanjayi Walker three times in a bedroom of his family home in the central Australian Indigenous township of Yuendumu during an attempted arrest on Nov. 9, 2019. Walker had stabbed Rolfe with a pair of scissors during a struggle. The murder charge relates to the second and third shots that killed the 19-year-old and that prosecutors allege were unnecessary.