Pubdate: Fri, 20 Feb 2004
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Copyright: 2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Contact:  http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28
Author: Bill Torpy
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm (Racial Issues)

COLUMBUS KILLING STIRS TENSIONS

Sheriff's Deputy Shot Father Out With Friends

The last thing Kenneth Walker probably heard were shouted commands from
submachine gun-toting deputies in the night.

The 39-year-old black insurance manager from Columbus was either exiting an
SUV that had been pulled over on I-185 or was getting set to lie on the
ground. A bullet, one of two shots fired from an MP5 9 mm submachine gun,
ripped into Walker's brain. Six hours later, the husband and father of a
3-year-old girl was dead.

What happened depends on whom you ask in Columbus.

Some residents see it as the war on drugs gone mad. Many in the black
community see racial profiling. Other people, including the sheriff, see a
horrible mistake.

The Dec. 10 incident grew from a drug investigation. But none of the four
men in the GMC Yukon --- longtime friends who went out each week for dinner
at Applebee's --- had drugs or weapons on them.

"This was not a racially profiled random traffic stop," Muscogee County
Sheriff Ralph Johnson said in a statement. He said deputies saw the men in
the SUV visit an apartment twice that was under surveillance and where
cocaine was later found.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is expected to turn over a seven-volume
investigation today to Muscogee County District Attorney Gray Conger, who
will decide whether he should bring the case to a grand jury to seek
charges.

Deputy David Glisson, who shot Walker, was fired Thursday because of the
"totality of facts revealed in the [in-house] administrative investigation,"
said sheriff's spokesman Capt. Joe McCrea. Glisson, a deputy for 20 years
and a member of the department's Special Response Team, did not speak with
GBI investigators, said Special Agent Chris Hosey.

The FBI has started a civil rights investigation and will turn over the
results to federal prosecutors, said FBI spokesman Steve Lazarus.

The incident has drawn national attention, with numerous news stories,
Internet Web postings and chain e-mails. There have been memorials, public
hearings alleging police brutality, charges of cover-ups and racial
insensitivity, and calls for city boycotts and the sheriff's resignation.
Democratic presidential hopeful Al Sharpton even stopped in town in December
to expound on the case.

Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, one of the Walker family's attorneys,
said the case has drawn so much anger and outrage because Walker "is not a
drug dealer. He's not a thug. He's a guy like any other guy, enjoying life.
People imagine themselves in this situation.

"This is the nightmare of every African-American parent," said Campbell, who
now works for the Florida-based law firm of Willie Gary, who has won
hundreds of millions of dollars in civil rights suits.

"If Kenneth Walker can be killed without cause, then no African-American
male is safe on the streets," said Campbell, who pointed out that the driver
of the vehicle, Warren Beaulah, is a Columbus high school basketball coach
and another passenger is a probation officer.

Campbell called the sheriff's statement that the SUV occupants visited an
alleged drug dealer's apartment "an ugly, reprehensible effort to justify
the murder of Kenneth Walker, to paint him as involved with drugs."

Campbell says autopsy results show Walker had no drugs in his system.

The incident has brought to the forefront the oft-tenuous relationship
between the black community and police departments nationwide. At least a
dozen black residents at a Columbus NAACP forum last month alleged
mistreatment by law enforcement. One speaker was Walker's pastor, the Rev.
Douglas Force, the pastor of St. Mary's Road United Methodist Church.

Preacher Stopped

Force said a deputy a few months ago shone a spotlight on him as he got
ready for his morning walk at a Columbus park. The 6-foot-4, 59-year-old
black preacher said the deputy called for backup and repeatedly told him to
get off the walking trail. He said the deputy grew agitated and the
situation was defused only when some of Force's elderly white friends
arrived.

Force added that racial insensitivity, coupled with hard-nosed drug
enforcement, is bound to end in tragedy: "We have turned loose a SWAT squad
mentality that has run roughshod over people, usually minorities."

Beaulah, the SUV driver, could not be reached for comment and has retained
Birmingham lawyer Dwayne L. Brown, who said he plans on filing a
"seven-figure" civil rights lawsuit against the sheriff's department and the
combined Columbus-Muscogee County government.

Days after the shooting, Beaulah talked with a local radio station, telling
the host, "I felt like an animal.

"The way they had guns in the faces, not saying anything, you basically
didn't know what to do and you felt like if you even tried to turn your face
from one side to the other, they'd shoot you," Beaulah said. "It was that
scary."

Sheriff Johnson, in his statement, said a confidential informant told
investigators that an alleged drug dealer was about to receive a shipment of
cocaine from Miami dealers, who were said to be driving a vehicle like
Beaulah's Yukon. While deputies waited outside the apartment, Beaulah's
vehicle parked outside the building and the four occupants went inside
twice, McCrea said Thursday.

Beaulah's Yukon was stopped on I-185 shortly afterward. Authorities
initially said the deputies had difficulty seeing Walker's right hand as the
occupants were ordered from the vehicle.

McCrea would not discuss matters concerning the shooting.

Several local black leaders and organizations have accused the sheriff's
department of stonewalling.

"Where is the video and why is it being kept quiet for so long?" said Edward
DuBose, president of the Columbus NAACP. "The African-American community is
tense."

State Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus) said he's been in political life for 30
years "and I have never seen anything that has captivated or put a cloud
over Columbus like this."

He said the length of the investigation has allowed "a growing suspicion."

Robert Poydasheff, mayor of Columbus, which is 50 percent white, 44 percent
black, has called for patience. He said the public hearings looking at
alleged law enforcement abuses are "cathartic."

He said that Walker's mother, Emily, "has said that maybe Kenny was chosen
as a catalyst to right wrongs and bring the community together."
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