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Shot twice by deputy in drug raid, man dies

Citing another slaying by deputies, the 19-year-old's family calls the shooting unjustifiable.

By ALEX LEARY
Published April 14, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - A 19-year-old man shot twice by a Pinellas sheriff's deputy during a drug raid died of his injuries hours after the shooting, authorities said Wednesday.

Tuesday's shooting at a home on 16th Avenue S was defended by the Sheriff's Office, which said Jarrell S. Walker refused to show his hands and searched for something under a couch.

But Walker's family and others condemned the action, and said it evoked last year's shooting of a St. Petersburg teenager, also African-American, by deputies.

"They shot him in the back. It was unjustifiable," Walker's aunt, Jacqueline Walker, said Wednesday afternoon outside the home at 3143 16th Avenue S.

The shooting was at least the third in the six-year career of Cpl. Christopher Taylor, who has been put on paid leave pending an investigation. He was cleared of wrongdoing in previous cases.

An eight-member SWAT team and other deputies arrived at the house shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday.

On March 15, St. Petersburg police serving an unrelated search warrant made five arrests, recovered five guns and "fairly large" amounts of cocaine and marijuana, Police Department spokesman Bill Proffitt said. Walker was not present at the time.

Here's how Tuesday's shooting occurred, according to the Sheriff's Office:

Taylor saw Walker lying on a couch and said Walker rolled to the floor with his hands concealed in the waistband of his pants.

Taylor, 33, ordered Walker to show his hands but Walker remained with his back to the deputy and reached beneath the couch, searching for something with his hands.

"At that point, Corporal Taylor fired two shots from his department issued .45-caliber handgun striking Walker in the back," a news release stated.

Deputies say they found a loaded 9mm handgun under a pillow on another couch a few steps from Walker. They did not find a weapon under the couch where he was said to be searching.

Two men were arrested during the raid. Dorian T. Williams, 30, on charge of felony possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and Terrell D. Coley, 21, on a charge of misdemeanor possession of marijuana.

The Sheriff's Office said it recovered 91 grams of marijuana, 7.5 grams of powder cocaine and 39.5 grams of crack cocaine, along with a police scanner and cash.

Walker's family said he was not involved. They said the teenager was asleep on the couch when deputies entered the house and awoke startled and unarmed.

"He was murdered by the sheriff's department," Jacqueline Walker said.

Records show Jarrell Walker had been previously arrested on charges of grand theft auto and cocaine possession with intent to sell. The drug arrest came April 7, records indicate.

Still, his aunt said he was turning his life around. She said Walker had recently obtained his high school diploma after taking a GED test and planned to go to welding school, with the hope of starting his own business. He doted on his 3-year-old son, Kamau, who was at the house during the shooting.

The family's cause has been taken up by the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, which plans a 10 a.m. news conference today.

The group compared Tuesday's shooting to the fatal shooting last May of Marquell McCullough, the 17-year-old who deputies say tried to run them over off 34th Street N, and the 1996 shooting of TyRon Lewis, which sparked two nights of civil disturbances.

Taylor was hired as a deputy in October 1998. In the years since, he has been involved in at least two other shootings.

In May 2000, he shot at a shoplifting suspect fleeing the parking lot of a Seminole Home Depot. After the suspect drove by and grabbed a female suspect Taylor was holding, Taylor fired three shots, hitting the driver in the temple and forearm. The man, later arrested, was treated and released at a local hospital.

In April 2004, Taylor was one of two deputies who shot at the driver of a utility truck who trapped a sheriff's cruiser under a boat trailer after failing to pull over. The cruiser was dragged more than 10 blocks. The driver was hit by a bullet once in the side.

Taylor's personnel file, the Sheriff's Office noted Wednesday, includes letters of commendation; he has been awarded a combat cross for taking fire during a similar "high risk narcotics search warrant."

[Last modified April 14, 2005, 01:14:09]