15 year-old shot and killed by DART police officer; department’s first ever fatal shooting
Categories: African-American, Dallas, Road and Transportation
Written By: Shawn Williams
Another young black male has died at the hand of gunfire, this time by a Dallas Area Rapid Transit Police officer. 15 year-old Bobby Walker was fatally shot around 3:20 a.m. on Sunday morning at the Ledbetter Station near the VA Hospital.
According to Monday's Dallas Morning News article, the Carter High freshman "leapt from the bushes" and attacked DART officer Stephanie Branch before being shot by officer Niksha Owens. Walker was pronounced dead at Methodist Dallas Medical Center about 4 a.m.
I don't want to rush to any judgments here, so I have a few questions:
1. Did the 2nd officer try to physically intervene before resorting to fatal gunfire?
2. Did the shooting officer at any point feel as if she had a non-fatal shot at the suspect without endangering the officer?
3. What is a 15 year-old boy doing out at 3:20 a.m.?
4. Shouldn't two police officers generally be able to subdue one juvenile suspect?
5. What was the ethnicity of the two officers? It ALWAYS matters.
I will reserve commentary for a later date , but for now I pray for the families of Bobby Walker and the officer who fatally shot him.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:55 am
I’m trying to be objective here, but this one stinks really bad.
From what I read, the kid was a runaway.
This should have NEVER happened. Two cops can’t take down a 5′5″, 115 lb boy? What the heck is all that police training for?
If they had to shoot him, why not in the leg? Was he REALLY a threat.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:09 am
There are two major points in my opinion. 1. Two police officers should be able to defuse this type of situation without anyone dying. I learned to shoot a gun growing up in the country and I can assure I can shoot a leg, foot, hand of a person without killing them even in the heat of the moment. So what training are the police getting??? 2. Why is a 15 year old boy out at 3am and we are being told by the family/media the child had ran away from home previously. Unfortunately many families are dealing with this type of issue with our youth.
June 15th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Well-what is missing is all the reall details- one was he was a nice kid.. quoted from DMNews “Ms. Walker said Bobby, a Carter High School freshman, took medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and ran away from home Thursday, as he had several times in the past.” This was Sunday- no medicine taken, 3am, abuse of alcohol and drugs per witnesses. God bless his soul!
October 24th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
THIS IS HORRIFIC. THIS WAS MY COUSIN, AND I BELIEVE THEY USED EXCESSIVE FORCE ON HIM. ANYONE WHO EVER SAW HIM AND KNEW KNOWS THATS HE WOULDN’T HAVE DONE THOSE TERRIBLE THINGS. NOW, YES, HE WAS KNOWN TO TALK BACK, LIKE ANY OTHER CHILD, BUT HE KNOWS HIS LIMITS,ESPECIALLY WITH THE POLICE. IT WAS MERELY TWO OFFICERS WHO DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO DO THEIR JOBS. YOU MEAN TO TELL ME TWO OFFICERS CAN’T RESTRAIN A 15 YEAR OLD, UNARMED, AND AS SMALL AS HE WAS. THOSE OFFICERS NEED TO RETHINK THEIR PROFESSIONS. THEY WERE WRONG AND OUT OF LINE. THEY COULD HAVE,IF THEY JUST HAD TO SHOOT, SHOT HIM IN THE LEG,ARM, FOOT. THEY TAKE ONE SHOT AND IT’S TO THE NECK. THAT IS CRAZY. I BELIEVE THE OFFICER PANICED,AND SHOT, WHICH IS UNACCEPTABLE. YOU DON’T NEED TO BE AN OFFICER IF YOU FREEZE UP AND PANIC AND DO THE FIRST THING THAT COMES TO MIND. THERE ARE STEPS OFFICERS ARE SUPPOSE TO TAKE BEFORE SHOOTING AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME BELIEVE THEY TOOK THOSE STEPS. THEY SAID THE HORRIFIC ORDEAL ONLY TOOK TEN SECONDS. HOW CAN YOU REPEATEDLY RESTRAIN A PERSON OR ASK THEM SEVERAL TIMES TO GET DOWN WHEN YOU SAY THE WHOLE THING HAPPENED IN TEN SECONDS. THAT JUST FURTHER LETS ME KNOW THAT THEY KILLED MY COUSIN WITHOUT THINKING, WITHOUT CARING ABOUT HIM OR HIS FAMILY. THEY SAY HE WAS ON DRUGS,NOPE! THE AUTOPSY SHOWED NO DRUGS IN HIS SYSTEM SO THATS OUT. I WISH I COULD SEE THE TAPE OR TALK TO THE OFFICERS AND ASK YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED. I KNOW THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO TAKE THE ROUTE THEY TOOK AND I HOPE THEY FEEL AS MUCH PAIN AS WE ARE FEELING.YOU NEVER PUT SOMETHING PAST SOMEONE, SO I WON’T SAY BOBBY(VICTIM)DIDN’T DO THOSE THINGS THEY SAID BUT CONSIDERING HIS SIZE, AGE, AND THE FACT THAT HE HAD NO WEAPONS, THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHAT HAPPENED. I HOPE THE SHOOTER GETS PUT UNDER THE JAIL HOUSE, GIVE HER LIFE OR GIVE HER DEATH. I HOPE JUSTICE IS SERVED
November 19th, 2007 at 10:36 am
i am a mother of 3 children.i could never think of something like this happing to one of my children.young children are dying.this is crazy you start to think what is going on with the world.i live in ny and almost everyday you here about a young child getting killed.rigt now i know what comment to write. but when you think about children you think about them playing,starting life.hanging out with friends and laughing,how do write about them getting killed.
December 28th, 2007 at 8:49 am
If the kid would have been at home where he was supposed to be and not out fighting with the Police, none of this would have happened. The Ledbetter train station has to be the worst area in Dallas for juvenile crime. Maybe if more parents would be parents and take control of their kids this kind of stuff would not happen. It sounds like this kid would have ended up in jail anyway, so the Police saved alot of unnecessary tax dollars by shooting him.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:34 pm
police are wrong these dayzz
April 30th, 2008 at 12:50 am
You people don’t understand. What if this kid were going for the officers gun, what if he had gotten the gun out of the cheap ass holsters DART buys their officers. Everyone keeps saying poor kid but I say poor us, I’m just glad he did it to the officers who could protect each other and not my grandmother because then she would be dead and he would be getting out of jail in 3 years when he became an adult.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:15 am
I’m late to this thread, but I want to make one thing clear. No one should ever shoot to wound. If you don’t need to risk killing someone, you don’t need to shoot them in the first place. Warning shots and wounding shots are for reckless cowboys and have no part in self defense.
I don’t know if this was a proper or improper shooting, but I know that if they had shot to wound him, it would have certainly been improper.
May 9th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I agree with you Phelps, when you pull that trigger, it should not be with the intent to wound only.
Police Officers get in hand-to-hand skirmishes all the time, and if all of these incidents unfolded like the DART incident, a lot more people would die unncessarily.
What about OC (pepper) spray? Does anyone know if that is used? That would have been effective in a situation like this. It works well, even if the actor is under the influence of drugs and/or alch.
My heat goes out to the family.
June 5th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
If DART would issue tazers, it may have resoved the issue. But since they do not, gun play came to being. LEO’s do not shoot to wound. They shoot to STOP. They are trained to shoot the largest target, being the torso.
And that question about what race were the officers was just simply uncalled for. Stop trying to make everything a racial issue. Isn’t there enough hate going around?
April 6th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
It is easy to play Monday morning quarterback. Even I wouldn’t have known how would I react in that situation. It was 2:30 am in the morning. It is dark. Who is to say that the officer couldn’t get a clear picture of who was attacking the other officer. By law, if a peace officer perceive that he/she, or a third party, is in danger of serious bodily injury or death, he/she have the right to use that force which is necessary to eliminate the threat.