Pinellas Deputy Kills Black Man During Drug Raid - Black Activist Group Wants Justice

A member of the Pinellas County sheriff's SWAT team shot and killed a 19-year-old man Tuesday night while a search warrant was being served at a suspected drug house. A sheriff's spokesman said Cpl. Chris Taylor fired twice at Jarrell S. Walker as Walker ignored orders to show his hands and reached under a couch for something. Although a loaded 9 mm handgun was found on a pillow on a different couch in the room, there was none under the couch where Walker appeared to be searching, sheriff's spokesman Mac McMullen said. To Walker's family, it seemed Taylor used his .45- caliber service weapon on an unarmed man. The family has enlisted the black activist group the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, and the group is holding a news conference today at its St. Petersburg headquarters. ``If they think they're going to get away with this, tell them don't,'' said Wanda Walker, Jarrell's mother. ``The gun is not the issue. The gun was not there.''  The shooting evoked last year's shooting of a St. Petersburg teenager, also African-American, by deputies.  The shooting was at least the third in the six-year career of Cpl. Christopher Taylor, who has been put on paid leave pending an investigation. He was cleared of wrongdoing in previous cases. [more] and [more]