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Meeting quickly degenerates
A community forum is drowned out by protesters angry about the death of a teen shot by a sheriff's deputy.
By ALEX LEARY
Published April 29, 2005
ST. PETERSBURG - As angry voices grew louder, the Rev. Louis Murphy walked to the front of the church meeting room and offered a plea.
"Please, please," he said. "I'm begging you. Would you please be respectful enough so we can have a dialogue about the situation."
But any hope of decorum had vanished by the time Pinellas Sheriff Jim Coats opened the discussion Thursday afternoon into the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Jarrell Walker of St. Petersburg.
With protesters chanting "murderers" and "jail the killer cops now," Murphy called off the meeting and Coats walked out of Mount Zion Progressive Missionary Baptist Church.
Protesters, organized by the Uhuru group, then went to City Hall and continued the demonstration.
They might have showed up at a community meeting last night with St. Petersburg police Chief Chuck Harmon, but that meeting was canceled shortly after the church meeting concluded.
Coats said later that he did not feel personally threatened by the demonstrators, though tension was evident inside the church.
Some of the protesters stared down Murphy and St. Petersburg NAACP president Darryl Rouson as they walked into the crowd to defuse the situation.
"Sellouts must go. Sellouts must go," the crowd chanted, implying the two prominent black leaders had taken the side of law enforcement.
Jarrell Walker was shot by Deputy Chris Taylor on April 12 as the sheriff's SWAT team executed a narcotics search warrant at his house on 16th Avenue S in St. Petersburg.
The sheriff's office said Walker refused to show his hands when ordered and was searching for something behind a couch. A loaded handgun later was found on another couch, the Sheriff's Office said.
Walker's family and the Uhurus, however, say he was asleep when the raid began, then became disoriented by a flash bomb used by deputies. They have likened the shooting to the death of Marquell McCullough, who was shot and killed by deputies in May.
That death led to brief but violent protests, raising fears of more protests over the latest shooting. Adding to that feeling is a T-shirt confiscated last week from a friend of Walker's. The shirt appears to call for retribution against deputy Taylor in the Walker shooting.
Next week, the State Attorney's Office is expected to release its decision on Taylor's actions, a report that will be followed by the sheriff's own investigation.
Thursday's meeting at the Mount Zion church appeared at first to be a low-key affair. Just before noon, only a handful of community members sat in the spacious meeting room.
Suddenly, a horde of protesters came in carrying signs. "Justice for J-Brick," one read, referring to Walker's nickname.
In his brief remarks at the church Thursday, Coats pledged an "encompassing, total overview of the entire incident," including the circumstances that led to the search warrant and the training received by members of the SWAT team.
Coats also addressed concerns from protesters about the sheriff's department's authority within the city.
"We routinely get calls from citizens asking the sheriff to come in your community and help rid the community of this drug activity," he said.
The law enforcement business, just like the drug business, Coats added, is high risk.
"When you are in a high-risk business, someone is going to get hurt. . . . We train our deputy sheriffs to be winners in high-risk situations."
Coats called Lt. Mike Ring, who oversaw the investigation, to speak and Ring began to detail the process. That's when matters turned increasingly ugly.
"You're murderers," one woman called out.
"Killer cops must go," another woman shouted. Soon the crowd was joining her.
"Jail the killer cops now. Jail the killer cops now."
"Murderers ... Murderers ... Murderers ... "
At that point - a half-hour into the meeting - Murphy announced it was over.
The Uhurus left without further incident, leaving about 20 other community members who seemed alternately alarmed and disgusted by what happened.
Mary Thomas, who sat at a table with a 1-year-old boy, said the Uhurus were a minority group that did not reflect the sentiment of the overall black community.
"I don't approve of anybody getting killed," she said. "But we need to let the investigation go through."
Rev. Murphy apologized to the group, calling it a "sad day." He too said the Uhurus had given a poor image of the community and questioned why there was not equal outrage when blacks murder other blacks.
"I'm so sick of the hypocrisy," he said. "The only time we get excited is when (these things happen). And then a few weeks, a month later, it's died down and we go back to business as usual. It's stupid, and I'm angry as hell about it. There is so much we can do if we come together and be proactive."
Later Thursday, about 30 people showed up at a City Council meeting to decry the Walker shooting and ask for the sheriff's deputies to be kept out of St. Petersburg.
Many Uhuru members spoke of what they believe is a continuing divide between whites and blacks in the city and alleged racial profiling by police.
"This issue is not going away," said Uhuru member Elizabeth Straight. "The community is not going away. I would just like to pose the question, "What are you going to do?"'
Council members made no public statements in response.
St. Petersburg NAACP President Darryl Rouson was the last speaker. As he stood up, the auditorium cleared and several people muttered "sellout." He was escorted to his car by two city security guards.
Staff writer Melanie Ave contributed to this report. Alex Leary can be reached at 727 893-8472 or leary@sptimes.com
[Last modified April 29, 2005, 00:33:10]
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