Results tagged “shemwalker”

In what is considered an unusual move in cases involving a shooting by the police, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly invited the family of Shem Walker down to his offices at police headquarters. Walker was the man fatally shot by an undercover cop last month after an altercation where Walker tried to chase the plainclothes officer away from his mother's stoop in Clinton Hill. Despite Kelly's attempt to reach out, Walker's family was not pleased with the results. A spokesman said, "This family has walked into this meeting with high hopes of getting some answers and walked out of this meeting highly disappointed...The story the commissioner was presented with has as many holes as Swiss cheese. It has not answered the fundamental question about why the police when asked to leave private property did not do so." The Brooklyn DA's office continues to investigate the shooting, but there has been no indication whether it will be submitted to a grand jury. Councilwoman Letitia James said, "We're dissatisfied with version of the facts as reported by Commissioner Kelly. They belie the truth as we know it. They belie common sense. And they belie the community."

Just over a week after an undercover NYPD officer fatally shot 49-year-old Shem Walker, loved ones and community leaders gathered around his mother's Clinton Hill stoop, the site of the deadly altercation in which the details still remain unclear. Bitterness over the incident was clearly in the air yesterday with the harshest words coming from Councilwoman Letitia James, who said, “I say to the NYPD, get your lies straight." The Brooklyn DA's office is currently investigating the shooting as the identity of the officer remains unknown—just that he is a seven-year NYPD veteran and is also black. A minister at the vigil yesterday said, "Police officers are paid to protect and serve, but they are also paid for their judgment. Too often it is the case that their judgment is off with people of color." Tonight a funeral will be held for Walker at Full Gospel Assembly of God with Reverend Al Sharpton delivering the eulogy.

More on the story of the Brooklyn army veteran who was killed by an undercover cop during a drug sting in Clinton Hill. The Daily News now reports that the "undercover cop was wearing earphones to keep in touch with his NYPD team and didn't hear an irate Brooklyn homeowner's command to get off his stoop until it was too late...When the undercover officer didn't budge from the Clinton Hill stoop Saturday night, resident Shem Walker kicked the man he thought was a vagrant in the back of the head, sources said." One source said, "With the earphones on, the cop just didn't hear anything. The next he knew, someone had kicked him, and the fight starts, with a tragic end." The police have contended that Walker grabbed the cop's gun; some witnesses say they didn't hear the cop identify himself as a police officer.

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.

A 49-year-old handyman who was up from Pennsylvania visiting his sick mother in Clinton Hill was shot last night by an undercover cop in a separate drug bust that went awry. Shem Walker had just finished cooking his family dinner when he told them that was going out to buy cigarettes in the Brooklyn neighborhood around 8 p.m.