Aug 11, 2009 6:49 pm US/Eastern
NYPD Stoop Shooting Leads To Rare Sit-Down
In An Uncharacteristic Maneuver, Commissioner Kelly Meets With Devastated Family Of Gunned Down Shem Walker
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
On Tuesday Police Commissioner Ray Kelly did something not normally done. He met with the family of a man gunned down in a controversial police shooting.
The meeting with Shem Walker's family was private, but before the meeting CBS 2 HD sat down for an emotional one-on-one with Walker's mother.
"Somebody sitting on the step, and tell you to move … how could it end up by him being dead? He don't even have much. [He] come back from the shop but what he got in his hand? How he end up dead?" Lydia Walker said through tears.
For Lydia Walker, it might as well have just happened today. The pain is still so great. But it happened July 11, right on her stoop, when her 49-year-old son was suddenly killed by an undercover NYPD officer.
So, Shem Walker told his mother that night he was going outside for a smoke. And then something happened. He encountered an undercover officer on a narcotics investigation, something that had nothing to do with Walker. But somehow, the two men got into an argument. A shot was fired -- and Shem Walker was killed.
After the shooting, law enforcement sources released records of a prior three-year sentence Walker had served for drug possession. But those who knew him said the army veteran had changed after that and was known to chase drug dealers off his mother's stoop. One theory is that's who he may have thought the undercover officer was.
In an unusual step for a controversial killing, Kelly with Lydia Walker and other family members late Tuesday afternoon at police headquarters. Since it was a private meeting, the commissioner's office said he will have no comment.
When asked what it would mean to her if the police commissioner said something like, "We are very sorry for your loss." Lydia Walker replied, "That won't bring back my son."
But she still met with the police commissioner.
It might be one of those tragic series of events, though, for which there will never be answers that satisfy.
"I just can't understand it. That's what I'm trying to do. I just can't understand. How simple … He gunned down my son," Lydia Walker said.
She has five other children and many grandchildren, but this is the son she keeps coming back to.
The Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said the case is still "under investigation." The question is will it ultimately be submitted to a grand jury?
As for the undercover officer, he is still on "modified duty," pending the outcomes of the investigations by the district attorney's office and the NYPD.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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