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Brother of man killed by police Oct. 19 charged in Saturday homicide at gas station
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Warren Police Department spokesman Lt. Jeff Cole discusses the arrest in Texas on Monday of Tashawn L. Walker of Girard in the death of Richard Rollison IV. Walker’s brother, Taemarr Walker, was killed by a Warren police officer in a confrontation one week earlier.
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TaShawn Walker
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Police say Tashawn L. Walker, older brother of Taemarr Walker, came to Warren last week to attend his brother’s funeral but shot to death a 24-year-old Niles man at a Warren gas station, then went back to Texas before his brother’s funeral.
Monday afternoon, the U.S. Marshals Service’s Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Fugitive Task Force in Houston arrested Tashawn “Boo” Walker, 26, at a residence in Baytown, Texas, without incident.
Walker will be brought back to Warren to face a murder charge in the death of Richard Rollison IV, 24, of Royal Mall in Niles.
Warren police said that Rollison was shot six times in the parking lot of the Sunoco gas station, 805 W. Market St., at 12:54 a.m.
Rollison died at 4:58 a.m., his father, Richard Rollison III, said Sunday.
Police issued an arrest warrant for Tashawn Walker later Saturday charging him with murder.
Rollison was still conscious and talking at the gas station and told police and his father who shot him, according to Richard Rollison III and dash-cam video from one of the Warren police officers’ cars.
The dash video indicated that the blue Tahoe Rollison was driving was missing after the shooting, and a gun and spent shell casings were found near the shooting scene.
Lt. Jeff Cole had a news conference Monday afternoon, saying police do not yet know why Rollison was targeted or whether he had been at a Warren Township tavern a short time earlier in which Tashawn Walker and his father, Thomas L. Walker of Transylvania Avenue Southeast, reportedly confronted people earlier.
Warren Township police called the Warren and Lordstown police departments for assistance at the J&L Tavern on Highland Avenue about 12:30 a.m. after Tashawn Walker and Thomas Walker had arrived during a private birthday party and fought with a young male named “Cart” and others, accusing people in the tavern of celebrating Taemarr Walker’s death exactly one week earlier.
The argument continued in the J&L parking lot and shots were fired, but no injuries have been confirmed. The Walkers and others had left the tavern by the time police arrived.
While Warren officers were still at the J&L, they received word that there had been a shooting at the Sunoco and responded there.
Taemarr Walker was killed by a Warren police officer in a confrontation on Risher Road Southwest near Palmyra Road at 1:50 a.m. Oct. 19. Walker had a lengthy criminal record and numerous complaints filed against him for making threats, frequently involving guns.
He was sentenced to one year in prison in 2009, but grand juries refused to indict him twice earlier this year on aggravated robbery and felonious assault charges in Warren and Niles.
Richard Rollison III said he didn’t know why his son would have been targeted for retaliation, saying he was told his son was not the intended target.
Tashawn Walker has had numerous traffic citations out of Warren Municipal Court dating back to 2007, but no criminal cases in Trumbull or Mahoning counties.
Cole said police believe the J&L Tavern gunfire is related to Rollison’s death “or where it started.”
The Warren Police Department did talk to the owners of the 2 Hype tavern on Mahoning Avenue and asked its owners to keep its doors closed part of the weekend because of Taemarr Walker’s funeral on Saturday, Cole said.
Cole added that the police department has been on a “higher alert” since Taemarr Walker’s death, and that “emotions are running high” in the city since that death.