GLISSON: IT 'WENT TO HELL QUICK'

Former Deputy Recounts Night Walker Was Shot

Twenty years a deputy sheriff and David Glisson had never shot another
human being. Until a blustery night last December. When at first no one
else went to the right of the GMC Yukon, he did, reaching into the back
seat and tugging on a weighty man in a black leather jacket. For a moment
in the darkness of Interstate 185, they looked at each other, a glimpse
Glisson thought strange. Then, after a burst from the lawman's submachine
gun, Kenneth Walker, a man who uttered nothing, was dead.

Those are the haunting descriptions Glisson offered of the night one man
died and another's life was forever changed. They are taken from lengthy
statements he gave former colleagues at the Muscogee County Sheriff's
Department as part of their internal investigation into Walker's death.

In 44 pages transcribed from the two interviews, Glisson details what
happened on a drug raid that the veteran officer said "went to hell quick."
His statements were released Friday, 10 days after a grand jury decided not
to indict Glisson in the shooting.

His words try to explain what happened after what began as a trip to serve
warrants turned into a moving traffic stop involving marked and unmarked
cars carrying members of the Metro Narcotics Task Force and sheriff's
deputies. Glisson, a member of the sheriff's Special Response Team, was
there as backup.

Sheriff Ralph Johnson cited the reasons he fired Glisson in a news
conference Wednesday. The statements released Friday provided a deeper look
into what transpired that night 51 weeks ago.

More than anything, his words for the first time open the door on what he
was thinking and feeling as that night unfolded.

Inside Glisson's Head

Glisson couldn't remember pulling the trigger. "I can't tell you the exact
second that I pulled the trigger because it was instinct," he said on Dec.
11 in an interview less than 11 hours after the shooting. Instinct took
over when he believed Walker was reaching for a weapon -- a weapon that
wasn't there.

"They told us the suspects were armed," Glisson maintained.

Glisson was one of two officers carrying MP-5 submachine guns on the
roadway that night. He came out of a squad car and headed for a Yukon that
he believed contained four armed drug dealers from Florida. As he got close
to the car, he yelled "Show me your hands," over and over again.

Two officers went to the left side of the car and uneventfully pulled two
of the passengers to the ground. When no one else went to the right side of
the vehicle, Glisson did. "I felt I had to cover that door and cover that
suspect," he said.

Glisson said it wasn't against protocol for him to be in close contact with
a suspect even with the firepower he was carrying. "It's a proper
technique," he said.

Inside the SUV was Walker.

"He kinda sat there," Glisson said, "and I said 'Show me your hands,' then
'Get out of the truck.' I couldn't pull him out of the truck. He wasn't
cooperating and I wasn't strong enough to pull him out."

At that moment, the deputy and the suspect looked at one another. "This
came to me later. I remember he turned and looked at me. And the reason I
remembered it was 'cause it struck me strange."

The officer never got a look at Walker's right hand and that made him
uneasy. He was convinced the hulking suspect had a gun. He was scared.

"It's all so quick. It's like when you know that it's coming all your other
senses shut down and that's one of the few times in 20 years that I felt
that way. And of course, a million things go through your mind in a blink
- -- your children, your wife -- it's amazing how fast something can go
through your mind."

During the tussle to get Walker to the ground, the former Kendrick High
basketball star was shot twice. He died later at The Medical Center.

Glisson had to undergo a standard urinalysis given to any city employee
involved in an accident. No drugs or alcohol were found. At home, the
horror hit him. He had never shot anyone before, and that made him proud.

"The man's life had just been taken. Becky and I had to do some talking.
Needless to say, I had trouble sleeping. I kept seeing his face," Glisson said.

His statements naturally delve into his controversial actions that night,
actions that surely will be brought up in future civil cases and in a
likely hearing before the city's Personnel Review Board. The events have
followed Glisson and the sheriff's department for almost a year.

"A lot of it is blurry to me," he said in February. "These last few weeks
I've sat and thought and thought about people who can use one of these
things and pull a human life and then go eat breakfast. I don't
understand... . It's something that I never wanted to happen."