An overseas-based Guyanese who was shot by and killed by an undercover officer in Brooklyn just over a week ago was laid to rest yesterday amid concerns about the manner in which he died.
Shem Walker, an army veteran, was reportedly shot during a struggle with the officer in front of his family home at Clinton Hill. Reports say that Walker spotted the undercover policeman in front of the home and chased him, believing that he was a drug dealer when a fight broke out. But while the police are insisting that Walker, 49, attacked the officer, there was an eyewitness account that a struggle never happened and that Walker was instead shot as he spoke with two officers.
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office is investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting, but already two public figures in the area have spoken out against the police, with one even criticising how the investigation is being handled.
On July 11, the day of the shooting, the New York Times reported police spokesman Paul J. Browne as saying that the police were on a “buy-and-bust” operation in the area, following recent drug complaints and a shooting in the neighbourhood. Browne said when Walker emerged from his family home and encountered the officer, he “starts pummeling him in the back of his head.” He said that a second undercover officer went to assist his colleague but by then Walker had struck him on the nose and they were both on the ground.
He said that the first undercover officer pulled his weapon, while his colleague held Walker from behind by the shoulders. Walker, he continued, then grabbed the gun with both hands and it went off twice. One round hit Walker in the left side of his chest, he added.
Walker was transported to the Brooklyn Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival while the first undercover officer went to the Long Island College Hospital, where he received two stitches for a laceration to his head.
Browne said also that two uniformed housing offers that were passing at the time of the incident briefly held the two undercover officers at gunpoint until a third office on the operation identified them. He said that several civilian witnesses told police that they heard “freeze” and “no, don’t,” just prior to the shots being fired.
Further Browne said that officers, when working undercover, try to blend in and, to the greatest extent possible, defuse situations without blowing their cover. He noted that the shooting was under review.
He said too that Walker was on parole in Pennsylvania, adding that the army veteran was jailed there in 2004 after being convicted of intent to sell and deliver drugs and was released in 2007.
According to him, it was the first time that the officer whose gun was discharged had been involved in a shooting since he joined the force in 2002. He said the officer has been temporarily placed on administrative duties.
The New York Times report said that it was not immediately clear from the police narrative why the officer drew his gun. It went to say that Councilwoman Letitia James who visited Walker’s family after the shooting told the media that she spoke to a number of people who had heard the events, but that none of them heard an argument or heard police identify themselves.
Walker’s family has since spoken out against the shooting saying that he never hit the officer and there was no fight as some news accounts reported. The family recalled that he had stepped out of the home to get a cigarette.
The New York Times said it spoke with Mohammed Omar who works next to the Walker residence who said that he saw Walker talking to two men, but that there was no fight. Omar was standing outside during his break when he reportedly witnessed the incident.
Residents in the area where Walker was shot have since held a vigil and are demanding answers from the New York Police Department (NYPD), according to the Times report.
“We want to show the family first and foremost that we stand by them. And we want to make an overarching statement about justice and how these incidents between the NYPD and residents only happen in certain areas,” Pastor Clinton Miller of Brown Memorial Baptist Church was quoted as saying by the paper.
