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Michigan parole officials say Taemarr Walker’s father was ‘involved’ in Rollison killing
Thomas Walker in Mich. jail for violating terms of probation
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Thomas L. Walker, whose son, Taemarr, was killed in a confrontation with a Warren police officer Oct. 19, has been locked up in the Macomb County, Mich., jail since November for a probation violation he committed while in Warren Oct. 26.
The violation?
He was caught on videotape at the Sunoco gas station on West Market Street “involved” in the shooting death of Richard Rollison IV, said Russ Marlan, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections.
Thomas Walker, 45, of Detroit, “pointed his finger in the direction of the victim, then his son [TaShawn Walker] exited the vehicle and fired at the victim,” Marlan said by telephone Wednesday.
A probation officer from the Michigan Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections asked a judge with the Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens, Mich., to revoke Thomas Walker’s probation based on his actions in Warren, and the judge agreed, Marlan said. He was on probation after pleading guilty to two drug charges in March 2012.
The judge sentenced him Nov. 25 to one year in the county jail with credit for 75 days already served. Jail records say he could be released as soon as soon as July 12.
Warren police had not previously mentioned any link between Thomas Walker and Richard Rollison’s shooting death until this week, when Police Chief Eric Merkel mentioned that Thomas Walker is in jail on a probation violation connected to the shooting.
“He was there,” Merkel said.
Thomas Walker’s older son, TaShawn “Boo” Walker, 26, of Baytown, Texas, was charged with killing Rollison, 24, that same day, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
He was brought back to Warren from Texas early the following week, and has remained in the Trumbull County jail awaiting a trial scheduled for May. If convicted, he could get a life prison sentence.
Thomas Walker’s son Taemarr Walker, 24, of Kenwood Avenue Southwest, died on Risher Road early Oct. 19 when a Warren police officer fired his service revolver at him.
The officer later told his commanding officer that Walker and a female crashed their car into a ditch while trying to avoid a tow truck. The officer was on Risher with a tow truck driver who was attempting to pull an abandoned, crashed vehicle out a ditch.
The officer said Taemarr Walker reached for a handgun in the car before the officer fired the fatal shots. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation has completed its investigation into that killing.
It turned its findings over to Dennis Watkins, Trumbull County prosecutor, who said in January he was reviewing the findings and will decide later whether to either release information on the investigation to the public or take the matter before a county grand jury.
Both Thomas Walker and TaShawn Walker had come to Warren for Taemarr’s Walker’s funeral, but a Warren Township police report says Thomas and TaShawn had gotten into a confrontation at the J&L Tavern Oct. 26, two days before the funeral.
They confronted people at the tavern they accused of “celebrating” Taemarr’s’s death, Warren Township police said.
They got into a fight with someone nick-named “Cart” at the tavern, then shots were fired in the tavern parking lot, police said.
A short time later, Rollison lay mortally wounded in the Sunoco parking lot, having been shot six times. He could be heard on dash cam video from a Warren police cruiser telling bystanders and police the man who shot him was “Boo Walker” but he said he didn’t know why Walker had shot him.
TaShawn Walker returned to Texas after that, having not attended his brother’s funeral.
Richard Rollison III of Warren, the shooting victim’s father, confirmed recently that his son had been at the J&L that evening prior to his death. Rollison III told The Vindicator he wants to know why others were not charged in his son’s death because he believes others were in the car with TaShawn Walker.