Shooting suspect former JFK basketball standout

Staff report

WARREN

Local sports fans reading about the shooting death of Richard Rollison IV early Saturday may have recognized the name TaShawn Walker from sports stories in 2006.

Walker, 26, of Baytown, Texas, near Houston, played basketball for John F. Kennedy High School and Coach Shawn Pompelia and was named First Team Steel Valley Conference in 2006, his senior season.

TaShawn Walker is being detained by police in the Baytown area, charged in the murder of Rollison, 24.

Walker, the brother of Taemarr Walker, who was killed by a Warren police officer Oct. 19 on Risher Road Southwest, will return to Trumbull County in the coming weeks to answer to the murder charge.

He played alongside Desmar Jackson, Jay Townsend, Marc Rossi, Dorian Rodgers and Nick Moody at Kennedy on a team that had a regular-season record of 17-3 but lost at the district tournament.

By November 2008, TaShawn Walker had been charged with operating a motor vehicle impaired and was convicted the following January.

He was charged with drunken driving two more times over the next 16 months, failing to appear for court in 2011 to answer to the charge.

He also was charged with other traffic offenses in the Warren area but had no felony record in the Mahoning Valley or in the Houston area.