Shem Walker was a good son. He would visit his mother, Lydia, every weekend and keep an eye on a property she owned in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. When he came across a bum on the stoop, he told him to get lost. Then he was shot twice in the chest and died.
Sometimes, undercover officers dress like bums. Sometimes, they position themselves on private property, such as stoops, where they can have a comfortable seat with a good line of sight at their target. But never do they want someone bothering them in the middle of a buy and bust.
The official police response was the undercover identified himself to Walker, but Walker chose to struggle with the officer.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City police say a man who told an undercover officer to get off his family’s stoop punched the officer and got into a struggle over the officer’s gun before being shot dead.
Police say Shem Walker grabbed the officer’s gun Saturday night after hitting him on the head.
Police spokesman Paul Browne says other officers heard the undercover officer or a plainclothes colleague identify themselves.
We all know how people who are uninvolved in criminal conduct are more inclined to pick a fight with a police officer and challenge them for their weapon rather than back away. It happens all the time, right? It so much more productive to fight with an armed cop than let him sit on the stoop.
Others found the cops’ story dubious. Questionable even. But then Shem Walker gave them the solution to their veracity issues. He was a convicted felon, a drug dealer. As detailed by Jim Dwyer.
Others found the cops’ story dubious. Questionable even. But then Shem Walker gave them the solution to their veracity issues. He was a convicted felon, a drug dealer. As detailed by Jim Dwyer.
It quickly emerged that Mr. Walker had been convicted of making drug sales in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and was released from prison in 2007. There is, inevitably, more.
Walker served in the army from 1983 to 1990. He then floated, married, worked, had children.
In 1999, when the family was living in Wilkes-Barre, Mr. Walker was selling drugs. A mailman introduced him to a buyer who turned out to be an undercover investigator, and Mr. Walker sold him cocaine and marijuana.
The case was still unresolved in the fall of 2001. “Shem became enraged by what happened on 9/11,” said Mr. Collins, a nurse in Harrisburg. “He decided to re-enlist with the Pennsylvania National Guard.”
The 1999 drug case, delayed by Mr. Walker’s military service, remained open until 2004, when he was convicted. At sentencing, he reminded the judge that the offense had occurred five years earlier. “I’m a changed person,” he said, according to The Times Leader of Wilkes-Barre. The judge was quoted as saying: “I don’t care if it happened 100 years ago. It makes no difference to me.”
So Shem Walker was, indeed, a convicted drug dealer. We could argue whether the judge who sentenced him was harsh and uncaring, but that wouldn’t alter his rap sheet. Dwyer sums up the point nicely:
Not knowing the real identity of an undercover cost Mr. Walker three years in prison. Not knowing the identity of another on a stoop in Brooklyn probably cost him his life.A good father. A good son. A good soldier. He might have been a hero in another story. In this one, he’s dead.
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A prior conviction of a victim was used to justify all manner of police excesses during the Rudy regime.
Last week I had two undercover officers rudely ring my front door bell. They were looking for a Derrick Rumpole. I pointed to my mailbox where my name, John Rumpole, is clearly posted. The officers were “told” that someone called Rumpole lived in my apartment. I again pointed to my mailbox and reminded them that my name was John Rumpole. I then offered to show them my ID. They replied there was no need to show any ID because my name was on the mail box.
A wry comment given what happened to Harvard Professor Henry Gates today.
A friend of mine was enrolled in my law schools’ joint JD/MBA program. He had to take a shuttle back and forth from the law school to the main campus. One day while eating lunch in the school cafeteria he was surrounded by 10 police officers and arrested. He had not done anything wrong. The police had been told that there was a suspicious black man going back and forth from the law school to the main campus. We truly do not know what is it like to be a black male in america.
So, if I ask a bum to move along off my property, and he tells me he is a policeman, I should just walk away? A real bum (or criminal for that matter) wouldn’t ever lie about being an officer would he? How about they stay off private property unless they have permission.
Yup. Sounds about right to me.
A year or so ago, we lost a cop member of the Forum. He recounted a time that he responded to a report of shots being fired — out in the country, where that’s usually just people plinking legally, but almost certainly worth checking out a report — and responded to find that it was, well, people plinking legally and safely. He said that he just demanded IDs from the folks, and then left, and was somewhat taken aback at the suggestion that, after finding that it was just legal plinking, his PC for any further investigation had ended, and that what he should have done was apologized for the intrusion and left, and had no business demanding IDs.
He left in a huff. Or a minute and a huff.