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Letter to the editor

'Excitable' tag haunts deputy

Before Chris Taylor shot Jarrell Walker, he'd shot two others.

By ALEX LEARY
Published May 6, 2005

Chris Taylor, the Pinellas sheriff's deputy who shot and killed a drug suspect, has generally received high marks in nearly seven years as a deputy but also has been a source of controversy.

He has been lauded by former supervisors and his latest review earned him an overall "above standard" rating.

But Cpl. Taylor also has been involved in two previous shootings and once was admonished by a supervisor as being "excitable" when criminal suspects fail to comply with his demands.

Now, Taylor again is in the middle of controversy.

On April 12, Taylor was the first SWAT team member to burst into Jarrell Walker's house in St. Petersburg to execute a narcotics search warrant. Taylor, who said Walker refused to show his hands, fired two shots, killing the 19-year-old.

At a protest Thursday in St. Petersburg, the Uhuru group said Taylor should be tried for murder.

Detractors say Taylor should have used more restraint. It's a criticism he faced earlier in his career from a supervisor who said Taylor "sometimes becomes excitable and confrontational" if a suspect does not quickly acquiesce to his requests and "may react without thinking through optional avenues of action or interview techniques which could produce his desired goal."

Taylor, 33, was cleared of criminal wrongdoing this week by Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe. Taylor declined to comment for this story.

McCabe suggested the Sheriff's Office should review its deadly force policy and inform the public "to ensure continued confidence that deadly force remains the last and final resort of Pinellas law enforcement officers."

Taylor has returned to work but not with the SWAT team, until a sheriff's inquiry is completed.

The tactical team is what first introduced Taylor to the Sheriff's Office. He became a SWAT paramedic after moving to Florida in 1996. Two years later, he traded his medical bag for a gun, becoming a deputy.

It may have seemed an unlikely career change for Taylor, who after graduating high school in Maryland in 1991 worked as a bartender at Red Lobster, a fitness trainer and at a bowling alley. He joined the Air Force, but only briefly.

Some law enforcement officers spend a career without ever shooting their guns. Before the Walker shooting, Taylor had shot two other suspects, though neither died.

In May 2000, he shot a man who interfered with the investigation of a shoplifting suspect in the parking lot of a Seminole Home Depot. In April 2004, he was one of two deputies who shot at the driver of a truck who trapped a sheriff's cruiser under a boat trailer.

In both cases, Taylor was cleared of wrongdoing.

A citizen who witnessed the Home Depot incident wrote a letter to the St. Petersburg Times, lauding Taylor for quick thinking.

[Last modified May 6, 2005, 00:37:10]