DEPUTY CLEARED IN DRUG RAID SHOOTING

State Attorney Bernie McCabe Acknowledged The Tension Between Police
And Some Black Residents.

ST. PETERSBURG - State Attorney Bernie McCabe has cleared a sheriff's
deputy of any criminal wrongdoing in the April 12 shooting of an
unarmed man during a drug raid on his home.

Cpl. Christopher Taylor acted in the "legal performance of his lawful
duties" when he twice shot 19-year-old Jarrell S. Walker, McCabe
stated in a six-page report released Monday.

Walker refused to obey Taylor's repeated commands to remain still and
show his hands, according to the report. Walker's "extremely poor
judgment" forced Taylor to shoot him, McCabe said.

"(Walker's) actions, whether intended to locate and retrieve a weapon,
find and discard evidence, or simply his lack of fear and respect for
the deputy, caused Corporal Taylor to believe that his life and safety
were at risk," McCabe wrote.

Wanda Walker called McCabe's findings in the shooting death of her son
a "cover up."

"It's not a surprise and it's not over," she said Monday. "He cannot
justify shooting an unarmed man. My son did not have a gun. He was not
reaching for a gun."

Walker's family said he was asleep when members of the SWAT team burst
into the home and posed no threat.

According to McCabe's report, the shooting unfolded this
way:

Eight members of the Pinellas County sheriff's SWAT team, including
Taylor, burst into the house on 16th Avenue S just before 9 p.m. to
execute a narcotics search warrant.

Taylor encountered Walker, who was lying on a couch, and ordered him
to lie down on the floor. Walker slid off the couch and lay on his
left side. His left hand was under the skirt of the couch.

Taylor yelled at Walker to show his hands. Walker reached his right
hand into his pants, then removed it and patted under the couch again.
He then reached his hand back into his pants and then again back under
the couch.

Taylor stepped forward "lightly striking Walker on the shoulder with
his foot to ensure Walker" knew he was talking to him, the report
stated. Walker made eye contact with Taylor and then quickly began to
pull his right hand out from under the couch.

Taylor knew that during an earlier drug raid on March 15, St.
Petersburg police recovered a semiautomatic pistol from the couch
area, the report said. He feared Walker was about to pull a gun, so he
shot him twice, the report said.

No weapons were found near the couch. A pistol was found in another
part of the home.

In his report, McCabe acknowledged the rift between law enforcement
and some residents in the black community.

"This is another relatively young black male who has met his death at
the hands of law enforcement in Pinellas County," McCabe noted.

On May 2, 2004, two Pinellas County sheriff's deputies shot 17-year
old Marquell McCullough a combined 15 times as the black teenager
tried to flee in a pickup truck. The deputies, who believed McCullough
was involved in a drug deal, were cleared of any wrongdoing.

After McCullough's death, members of the International People's
Democratic Uhuru Movement marched at BayWalk and led a protest that
began a night of sporadic violence in Midtown.

On Monday, McCabe suggested that Pinellas Sheriff Jim Coats and other
agencies make it known to the community " ... that deadly force
remains the last and final resort."

Sheriff's spokesman Mac McMullen said the office will complete a
standard internal review of the Walker shooting in the next few weeks.
Taylor, 33, is back at work, though he will not go out on any SWAT
calls until the review is complete, McMullen said.

"We believe our policies for use of force are sound," McMullen said.
"We always hope to convey to the public that the use of deadly force
is the last resort in conducting our duties."

Last week Uhuru members chanted and protested when Coats tried to
discuss the incident at a community forum at Mount Zion Progressive
Missionary Baptist Church. The sheriff walked out.

The Uhurus will hold a community meeting Sunday to plan their next
move, said spokeswoman Gaida Kambon.

McCabe's findings were expected, she said. "The police in every
instance investigate the police," Kambon said. "For you to expect any
other verdict than "justifiable' is ludicrous."

Instead, a police review board made up of community members should be
created, she said.

Kambon compared Walker's death to Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African
immigrant shot 41 times by New York police in 1999. The four police
officers involved were acquitted.

"First this shooting, then the handcuffing and shackling of a 5-year-
old girl," she said. "This exposes to the bone that the city
government is treating this community as an enemy population."

On March 14, St. Petersburg police were videotaped handcuffing a
5-year-old African-American girl at Fairmount Park Elementary. Other
black leaders, however, have been cautious on the subject of race,
noting the officer who oversaw the handcuffing was black, as was the
principal.

McCabe may have acknowledged the racial divide, but he has done
nothing to remedy it, Kambon said. "It's like arsenic with honey on
it, it's insulting, it's salt in the wound of this community," she
said.