NYPD, Family Give Very Different Accounts of Undercover Shooting

Photograph of Shem Walker

It's been over a day since news first broke that a man had been fatally shot outside his mother's Clinton Hill home by an undercover cop and there are still many more questions than answers. We know that 49-year-old Shem Walker stepped outside his mother's brownstone on Lafayette Avenue for a cigarette and discovered a plain clothes cop sitting on her steps. A witness says that he heard Walker shout, "Get out of here or I'll move you myself!" and that the two then tumbled down the steps. Walker is said to have had a reputation of shooing people off the family's steps with success.

NYPD says that Walker attacked the officer, who required two stitches in his head from the altercation. They claim that when Walker grabbed the officer's drawn weapon, the cop fired two shots, one of which hit Walker in the chest. He would later die at Brooklyn Hospital.

Walker's family, who was just inside the house, deny hearing any scuffle. An employee at the 99-cent store next to the stoop says that he did not see a fight nor ever hear the word "Police!' uttered. The family concurs on the last point and says that they did not even learn that the man who killed Walker was a cop until reading about in the papers the following day. His sister told the Post, "No one from the NYPD has come to tell us he was shot by a cop. Why is it such a secret? We had to read the paper to find out who his killer was."

The undercover officer was a seven-year NYPD veteran, the last two of those as an undercover, who was also black and had never been involved in a shooting before. He has been reassigned to desk duty. The officer was serving as a shadow for a buy-and-bust undercover drug deal going on at a nearby bodega. The NYPD can not speak to him about the incident until he has been able to contact an attorney and the DA has completed an investigation.

Walker's family was devastated and angry as they spoke to the media yesterday. His mother described how the retired Army veteran came up from Pennsylvania to visit her ever weekend and took her to church. She said he was "so lovable he sleeps with me in the bed." Walker was planning to move up to Brooklyn and was still on parole for a prior drug conviction in Pennsylvania.

City Councilwoman Letitia James was on the scene yesterday. She said that she had pushed for police to address a drug problem in the neighborhood, but emphasized that the Walker family had no involvement in the investigation. James is calling for an independent investigation into the shooting and said, "The fact that a undercover officer did not leave his stoop, his property, and the fact that there was an altercation, at a time when the family was sitting by the window and didn’t hear anyone shout ‘Police!,’ raises some serious questions in my mind and in the mind of my constituents."

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Billy Parker in News on July 13, 2009 2:32 PM

Comments [rss]

The Colonel

Are you serious? There are somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 hardworking men and women that go out and do their job everyday for the NYPD. Do you genuinely believe that the majority of them are rotten apples?

Of course there are going to be mishaps, terrible incidents and some just plain awful examples of people who should have never been given a badge, but to imply that the exceptions that people love to write and blog about mean that the majority of those tens of thousands of hardworking cops are "rotten" is just plain ludicrous.

The Colonel

That was supposed to be a reply to Pizza Time.

books

leagalized murder. so sad.

Dwayne Hoover

Rolltide was confused with the wrench he and his fellow LEO's sodomize each other with on slow days. Actually, if he had hit the trespassing pig with a wrench, then maybe he would've killed him immediately, and none of this would have ever transpired.

Spirit of 76

By the way, Rolltide was insistent yesterday that Walker clubbed the undercover cop with a wrench. None of the articles mention any such wrench or even any other kind of weapon, instead just saying that he "pummelled" the officer. So where is this mystery weapon?

dgeee

Just what else needs to happen for Ray Kelley to lose his job because he is one of the worst police commissioners on the planet?

JLRodP

je actually got promoted to Dept. of Homeland Security or something like that.

pissyrabbit

Er... No one has mentioned this gem:

She said he was "so lovable he sleeps with me in the bed."

Outter Burrougher

i was, and still am, hoping to scrub that sentence from my brain forever

famdoc

A tragedy, no matter how you look at it.

I would say the word is "shooing," not "shoeing."

Homer2323

Your stoop is in public. You can be on private property and in public at the same time. Can you sit in Gramercy Park and drink an open container of booze. No.

The sad reality, and convicted felon on parole tried to be tough. One problem. The cops were tougher...and as a result, he was laid out in the street, in front of said stoop. Sweet justice.

Soggy

Hm, so telling a strange man sitting on your property to go sit somewhere else is asking to be killed? Interesting theory you have there. I'm glad you were there and saw the entire scene play out so you could tell us all what really happened.

Spirit of 76

Rolltide is the resident NYPD apologist on Gothamist.

Apparently, people can't learn from experience, according to Rolltide. The Times speculated that it's because of his past experience with drugs and prison that Walker became very militant about drug dealers. But Rolltide will never see beyond "convicted felon." I guarantee you that if the DA prosecutes and convicts the officer, Rolltide will call it an injustice. That's the kind of mindset you get as a security guard at "Sothebys." You know how guards are always on a power trip, like they're better than you are.

Outter Burrougher

so we're allowed to trespass so long as the property is owned by an ex-con?

Pizza_Time

The sad reality... Rotten Barrel, few good apples.

Not the other way around.

JacqueMehoff

wait, the cop was on private property and refused to leave?

are we living in America? this is like the guy getting a ticket for drinking on his stoop, his private property stoops.

theboneranger

Once again, great job, NYPD!

Just IN THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS what do we have? ... (look em up on Gothamist)

* There's the woman arrested for carrying her sick pug out of its puke filled bag from a subways station by the Hasidic cop.

* There's the kids in Superman and Batman costumes for "performing without a permit" in Times Square (note the photo of the kid's head held down by the weight of a fat cops knee against the pavement).

* There's the building owner shot dead by an undercover cop for what started as the man asking the cop to get off his stoop.

* There's the NYPD cop car that went out of control flying up the wrong way on Avenue D and crashing into a baby stroller and pedestrians.

* There's the random NYPD 3-in-the-morning subway ticketing spree money grabs.

* There's the NYPD court settlement for recent subway profiling case.

And now we've got the arrest of an artist on sunday in Central Park for doing a PRAYER related performance.

Obviously there are good cops out there, but unfortunately it increasingly seems like they are a dwindling minority. This insanity seems to be accelerating at an alarming rate.

They should really stop painting the CPR slogan on NYPD squad cars since evidently they're hungry for money and they could save a few bucks. Really, it's pretty much become an insult to our intelligence by now.

And there are COUNTLESS stories like this that don't get told. All this seems to be accomplishing is giving a bad name for the NYPD / NYC, and, frankly, America - and a police state ala 1984. They they expect us to heap on the praise the few times they do what they're well paid to do? We all wish we could count of them to help us, to serve, to protect. But good luck getting that when you need it.

Next time it could be you.

longacre

There's the kids in Superman and Batman costumes for "performing without a permit" in Times Square (note the photo of the kid's head held down by the weight of a fat cops knee against the pavement).
I saw that guy, he was in his 20s, not a kid. It's debatable whether what he was doing should be illegal, but the bottom line is he probably would have just gotten a summons had he not run away. "If the cops have to come get you, they're bringin' an ass kickin' with them."

* There's the random NYPD 3-in-the-morning subway ticketing spree money grabs.

The rules of the subway are not very draconian. If you have a hard time following them, you probably shouldn't bother leaving your house. Keep your feet off the seat and you won't have any problems.

Your other examples are scary and/or sad, but I'm not sure it's anything new...it is thanks to the Internet that there are many more channels for these stories to be broadcast, i.e. Gothamist, Twitter, Flickr, etc. Had that schmuck who got the ticket on the train not had a blog, no one would have heard about it. Had there not been Flickr photos online within minutes of the cop car crash and the Superman arrest, no one would have heard about these incidents.

theboneranger

he "ran away" just like he "punched the cop" **

warent they performing right where they got arrested? how did he run away?

**he didnt punch the cop, he was flailing around (and happened to make contact with the female cop who was about five inches from his arm) because it hurts to get your limbs twisted around by three dudes and a woman while having your head kneed against the pavement and getting six knees shoves into various parts of your body

and sure, the rule to not put our filthy feet on a subway seat is not draconian, as its not draconian to expect people to cross the street ONLY AT CROSSWALKS when the light says 'walk' and to say off the street when the light says don't walk

but when the NYPD starts putting six cops on every corner and ticketing anyone who steps out of line for jaywalking, or better yet... as in the NYPD 3-in-the-morning-subway ticketing sweep money-grabs... pulling everyone who crosses the street out of step with the "walk/dont walk signs" against the wall and running their ID's for warrants before giving everyone a $50 ticket - THATS WOULD BE A LITTLE DRACONIAN if you asked most people.