Page 1 of 4 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 41

Thread: Russell Ervin Brown III Sentenced in 2013 VA Slaying of State Trooper Junius A. Walker

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217

    Russell Ervin Brown III Sentenced in 2013 VA Slaying of State Trooper Junius A. Walker

    Master Trooper Junius A. Walker
    Virginia State Police, Virginia

    End of Watch: Thursday, March 7, 2013




    Bio & Incident Details

    Age: 60

    Tour: 40 years

    Badge # Not available

    Cause: Gunfire

    Incident Date: 3/7/2013

    Weapon: Shotgun

    Suspect: Apprehended
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217

    State Police confirm Master Trooper J.A. Walker killed

    Virginia State Police confirm a veteran State Trooper was shot and killed Thursday afternoon on Interstate 85 south.

    Master Trooper J. A. Walker was 60 years old and had been with Virginia State Police since 1973. He lived and worked in Dinwiddie since 1986.

    He was shot and killed by a man around 1:20 p.m. on I-85 in Dinwiddie. All lanes of Interstate 85 south are closed at mile marker 45, according to VDOT. They are expected to remain closed until 8 or 9 p.m.

    Another trooper responded to a call of shots fired and found Trooper Walker's patrol car in the woods off the right side of the highway. The responding trooper saw a man standing outside Walker's car and repeatedly firing into it, according to VSP Spokesperson Corinne Geller. The responding trooper shot at the man, who ran into the woods. He was arrested 40 minutes later by the Dinwiddie County Sheriff's Office and is now in State Police custody. Charges are pending and his name is not yet being released.

    Master Trooper Walker was transported to MCV Hospital in Richmond, where he died.

    Police determined a second suspect was not involved. A weapon was recovered at the scene, but police have not confirmed if it was the weapon used by the suspect.


    http://www.nbc12.com/story/21549056/...-walker-killed
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    More than a thousand turn out to honor trooper killed in the line of duty

    State police from as far away as Indiana and Ohio attended the wake of fallen Master State Trooper Junius A. Walker last night at Good Shepherd Baptist Church.

    A line of well over a thousand of Walker's friends and co-workers, as well as law enforcement and firefighters from Central Virginia, spilled over onto the sidewalk of Morton Avenue.

    Police and firefighters came in dress uniform and squad cars and trucks to honor their fellow serviceman.

    "We're all a part of the law enforcement family," said Barry Burnside, a Virginia corrections officer who didn't know Walker, but wanted to pay his respects.

    Walker, 63, was assigned to Dinwiddie County in the Virginia State Police's Area Seven Office in the Richmond Division.

    He was shot multiple times on Thursday afternoon and died on scene after he pulled up to a black sedan parked on the side of interstate 85 to check on the driver.

    Russell E. Brown, 28, of Chesterfield was charged with capital murder Friday in Walker's death.

    Amos Wingfield, who retired as Dinwiddie deputy sheriff in 2011, said that Walker talked to him about planning to retire only a few days prior to the shooting.

    "He did his job, but knew how to treat people," Wingfield said. "Everyone loved him and got along with him."

    Dinwiddie resident Rachael Hyman became an acquaintance of Walker's after he gave her husband a speeding ticket in 1993, the same year the couple moved to Dinwiddie.

    "He was nice and polite," she said. She continued to see Walker around the community on numerous occasions and began to buy him, and any other trooper with him, lunch or dinner to say thank you.

    "I wanted to show that I appreciated him in the community," she said. "No one broke my heart like Walker."

    Walker was described by numerous friends and acquaintances as a gentle giant.

    Andrea Simmons, a Surry County resident whose father worked with Walker, said that while he seemed intimidating, he was soft at heart.

    "When you look at him he's like a stallion ... but when he speaks he's like a lamb," she said.

    Harry Clay, who retired as Dinwiddie magistrate in 2010, remembered Walker's kind words after he lost his wife.

    Walker stopped his squad car and said, "Man, you have got to know someone's thinking about you."

    Many also commented on his aptitude as a police officer, including a Chesterfield man he pulled from a car seven years ago.

    Walker pulled Wayne Burch from his car on Boydton Plank Road after prying the roof off the car after an accident smashed the driver's side.

    "I was thankful he showed up. First cop on the scene," Burch said.

    Burch was hospitalized for three days with injuries to his neck, legs and back.

    When asked what he remembered most about Walker, Charlie Weaver, aretired Virginia State Police chaplain, said, "Nothing but good."

    Weaver will participate in today's funeral, which will also be held at Good Shepherd Baptist Church at 11 a.m., followed by a private burial.

    http://progress-index.com/news/more-...duty-1.1457080
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Trooper Walker’s alleged killer found incompetent to stand trial

    The man accused of killing Virginia State Master Trooper J.A. Walker last year was deemed incompetent to stand trial during a Friday court hearing.The Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney said that Russell Brown was found incompetent to stand trial after a mental examination by a psychologist.

    Brown, 28, was charged with capital murder of a police officer, attempted capital murder of a police officer and use of a firearm in committing a felony.

    During a brief court hearing in late October, Walker’s family came face to face with his alleged killer.

    Prosecutors and the defense agreed on the doctor that would perform Brown’s mental evaluation to determine if he was mentally competent enough to understand the charges he faces and stand trial. Since this is a capital murder trial, Brown could face the death penalty.

    Last year, a search warrant filed in Chesterfield Circuit Court in connection with the shooting death of Walker provided insight into the the mindset of the accused killer.

    After his capture, Russell Brown told state police that God told him to shoot and kill Walker, according to the court document. Brown also turned to the interviewing trooper and said that the trooper was the next to die.

    According to the warrant, Brown told troopers he smoked marijuana on March 7, the day of the shooting. Police said found residue of a “green leafy substance” in the vehicle Brown was driving. Police also found a magazine containing two live rounds inside the car, according to the warrant.

    Police said they spoke with Brown’s grandmother who said she’d spoken to Russell recently and that over the last month or so he’d been talking about the bible and not making much sense. She said that was unlike her grandson, the warrant indicated.

    The warrant also indicated Brown’s landlord recently called the suspect to inform him he was behind on his rent. The landlord said he noticed Brown had not been acting like himself.

    Thousands of people attended a funeral service for Walker last March. Gov. McDonnell was among the speakers who honored the fallen trooper.

    http://wtvr.com/2014/02/28/trooper-w...o-stand-trial/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  5. #5
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Defense rests after experts testify man who killed state trooper was insane

    Attorneys representing capital murder defendant Russell E. Brown III rested their case Tuesday after calling two forensic psychologists who testified that Brown was legally insane at the time of the killing of master trooper Junius A. Walker, developing psychotic delusions that he was fulfilling a mission from God.

    Dr. Evan Nelson, whom the prosecution asked to provide a second opinion about Brown’s sanity, and Dr. Sara Boyd, the defense’s expert, agreed in separate opinions issued months apart that Brown could not rationally appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions, one of the thresholds for an insanity defense under Virginia law.

    Nelson said Brown’s mental illness — which he diagnosed as bipolar I disorder with psychotic features — prevented him from knowing the criminal nature of his acts and disrupted his ability to perceive reality.

    “Mr. Brown expressed no remorse at that time because he was sure he was doing what was right, what God wanted him to do,” Nelson said in his written opinion submitted to the court. “He was not troubled that it was illegal and he might get the death penalty because he was on a religious mission that superseded the rules of the earthly world. In this regard, he lacked the capacity, the mental power, to rationally appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions.”

    Boyd testified that she essentially came to the same conclusion. “He believed his actions were right and God’s will,” she said.

    The prosecution countered that Brown was not so mentally impaired that he had no understanding of the wrongful nature of his crimes. As a rebuttal witness, the prosecution called Dinwiddie deputy sheriff Brad Mann to testify what he heard Brown say during his first court appearance more than three years ago.

    After defense objections that were overruled by the court, Mann said Brown told the presiding judge that day, “I’m guilty, go ahead and stick a needle in my arm.”

    Defense attorney Jacqueline Reiner said Brown was still psychotic at the time and his statement three years ago was irrelevant as rebuttal evidence to the psychologists’ opinions.

    After both sides concluded their presentations, Dinwiddie Circuit Judge Paul W. Cella sent the jurors home just after 2 p.m., instructing them to return at 10 a.m. today, the 13th day of the trial.

    The defense will make a motion to strike the prosecution’s evidence as being insufficient, which is standard in criminal trials. Should that fail, the jury will hear closing arguments and receive instructions from the judge. Jurors will then begin their deliberations.

    Brown, 31, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the fatal shooting of Walker, 63, off Interstate 85 in Dinwiddie on March 7, 2013. He also is charged with attempting to kill truck driver Thomas Hales, who stopped after seeing Walker’s police cruiser in the woods, and attempted capital murder of trooper Samuel Moss, who happened by the scene as he was driving home and engaged Brown in a gunfight before the defendant fled into the woods.

    In testimony about Brown’s insanity, Nelson noted that the defendant’s family has a history of mental illness — his father lives in a group home because of chronic schizophrenia, and his mother, now deceased, suffered from bipolar disorder — and that made Brown more susceptible to mental illness. Brown’s illness “didn’t just magically appear with his arrest,” Nelson testified.

    Nelson, who interviewed Brown and many members of his family and friends, said Brown’s world “imploded on him” in the summer of 2012. He lost custody of his twin children, was prevented by their mother from speaking with or visiting them, had child support payments set so high that it required “every penny” he earned and fell behind in payments by about $32,000 — “a veritable king’s ransom to a man who worked as a low-end barber,” Nelson said.

    His depression, debt and loss of will to keep a job “swung into mania and psychosis” in September 2012, and he developed delusional psychological defenses that resulted in latching onto extremist theories that the world was going to end and the government was hiding the truth, Nelson said. Brown remained armed constantly after subscribing to a belief the government would take away citizens’ guns, and he needed to defend himself in the anarchy of the coming apocalypse, Nelson said.

    Brown’s delusions tipped from paranoia to “hyper-religious grandiosity” during the month before the killing, Nelson said. Brown took his girlfriend on a spiritual pilgrimage to North Carolina, where they lived in the wilderness on the barest of provisions for about two weeks. His mental state continued to deteriorate after his return to Richmond, and the peaceful, laid-back barber became a manic, unkempt compulsive talker who gave away all his possessions, his family and friends testified.

    Nelson said Brown’s gradual slide into mental illness and the symptoms he displayed over several months — conspicuous to those closest to him — belies any notion that he was exaggerating or feigning a condition that did not exist. His psychosis also was on full display in an audio recording of his ramblings while in a patrol car after his arrest, and in a videotaped interview with state police investigators three hours after the killing, Nelson said.

    Nelson said that despite Brown’s mental illness, Brown was capable of knowing the nature, character and consequences of his acts, and under cross-examination by Dinwiddie Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill, the psychologist acknowledged that Brown had multiple rational motives for shooting at a police officer that day.

    They included: his frustration with a legal system he viewed as unfair and had failed him; driving on a suspended license; smoking marijuana while driving; and skipping a child custody hearing several days earlier and knowing police might be looking for him for nonpayment of child support.

    “It was certainly possible he was purposely laying in wait for the chance to kill a policeman, and when Trooper Walker pulled up beside Mr. Brown it created an opportunity,” Nelson wrote in his report. “But that theory is not supported by the data overall. From a psychological standpoint, there was no evidence Mr. Brown planned this. The focus of his delusions for months had been on the world ending, not on getting revenge against the courts or police.”

    But Nelson also acknowledged under questioning from Baskervill that having a mental illness is not the same as being insane and that many people with mental illness lead law-abiding lives.

    Nelson said Brown believed he had a mission from God and he had a rational concern that he was going to be arrested. But when Walker pulled up alongside him instead of behind him and looked Brown in the eye, Brown realized it was his mission to kill the man, Nelson said.

    “Whether at that moment or right afterwards, he filled in the story with the psychotic belief that Trooper Walker was sent there to die and he knew it, or was not really a policeman,” Nelson wrote. “His actions were both real to him and so surreal that they seemed like a movie and he was following a preordained script.”

    Nelson testified that Brown’s actions were designed to save the world.

    “In the police interview and the telephone calls he made later from jail, it was clear that in his grandiosity he thought the world needed to know about him through the news and Mr. Brown was so important that President Obama would be involved,” Nelson wrote.

    http://www.richmond.com/news/local/c...76c938c80.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  6. #6
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Russell Brown charged for killing of Virginia State Police trooper Junius Walker



    Russell E. Brown, 28, of Chesterfield, Virginia was charged Friday with capital murder for the shooting death of Virginia State Police trooper Junius A. Walker.

    Walker, who was fatally shot on a section of Interstate 85 south, is a 35-year veteran and leaves behind a wife and two adult daughters.

    Police say the incident occurred on I-85 southbound at the 45-mile marker. The trooper, who was patrolling alone, called for backup after being fired upon just before 1:30 p.m. The second trooper arrived within two minutes and saw a male suspect firing into the injured trooper's vehicle, which was down an embankment off the interstate near the woods, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corrine Geller said.

    The second trooper fired at Brownt, who fled into the woods. He was found nearby a short time later and was arrested and later charged.

    Geller said authorities found a weapon and were trying to determine if it was the one used in the shooting.

    Governor Bob McDonnell issued a statement on Walker's death, which read, in part:

    “Virginia’s public safety professionals are on the front lines every day protecting their fellow citizens from harm and pursuing those individuals whose actions put others in danger. These men and women are heroes who place their lives on the line to protect their fellow Virginians.



    ...On behalf of all 8 million of the citizens of the Commonwealth, I offer our heartfelt condolences and gratitude for the sacrifices these families have made to keep us all safe. Today, I offer such condolences to Master Trooper Walker’s wife Betty, his two daughters Vera and Clarissa, and the rest of his family, friends, and colleagues. Our prayers are with them during this difficult time. Virginia has lost a brave public servant and hero.”


    http://www.wjla.com/articles/2013/03...ond-86008.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  7. #7
    Senior Member Frequent Poster elsie's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    North Carolina
    Posts
    324
    So sorry for the Officers' family.

  8. #8
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Va. lawmakers honor trooper fatally shot in March

    The General Assembly took a few minutes at the start of its one-day reconvened session to honor a slain state trooper and his family.

    Master Trooper Junius A. Walker's wife Betty dabbed tears from the corners of her eyes during a tribute in the state Senate on Wednesday. She, other family members and some of Walker's colleagues listened as Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling praised the trooper for his dedicated service and many acts of kindness. Sen. Henry Marsh of Richmond called Walker "a compassionate man of integrity."

    Walker received a similar tribute in the House of Delegates.

    The 63-year-old trooper was fatally shot on Interstate 85 in Dinwiddie County on March 7. Twenty-eight-year-old Russell E. Brown III of Chesterfield County is charged with capital murder and other charges.

    http://hamptonroads.com/2013/04/va-l...lly-shot-march
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  9. #9
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Sanity of trooper's accused killer will be 'significant factor' in his defense

    Attorneys for the Chesterfield County man charged with killing Virginia State Police trooper Junius A. Walker believe the defendant’s sanity “will be a significant factor in his defense” and want a clinical psychologist to determine whether he was insane at the time of the slaying.

    Capital-murder suspect Russell E. Brown III’s public defenders also want to investigate the composition of Dinwiddie County’s grand jury system over the past five years in an apparent effort to detect racial or selection bias in the grand jury process, according to recent court filings in the case.

    Lawyers are seeking “the entire pool of potential members” of the county’s grand jury during the past five years, to include the race, age and gender of each person. They also have requested from Dinwiddie Circuit Court Clerk J. Barrett Chappell Jr. the list of people, along with their demographical information, who ultimately were seated as grand jurors those years.

    The defenders also asked, but were denied, a request to hire the same “victim outreach specialist” used by the defense team representing James Holmes, who currently is on trial in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shootings that killed 12 people in July 2012.

    Specialist Tammy Krause, who would have served as a “liaison” between the defense and family members of the slain trooper, was the subject of sharp acrimony in the Holmes case after Colorado prosecutors alleged she misled victims to gather information for the defense, and offered to leak sensitive information while trying to line up opposition to the death penalty, according to news accounts.

    In the motion seeking that Brown be evaluated, attorneys indicated they plan to mount an insanity defense and are asking the court to appoint Dr. Sara Boyd, a clinical psychologist from Woodbridge, to evaluate him. Boyd previously assisted in evaluations to determine whether Brown was competent to stand trial.

    “There is probable cause to believe that Mr. Brown’s sanity will be a significant factor in his defense,” his attorneys wrote.

    Dinwiddie Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill said she will not object to the sanity evaluation but will ask the court for a separate sanity evaluation of Brown by a different expert.

    In response to the request for grand jury data, Chappell said he has gathered the names of about 1,000 people who were randomly selected for the court’s master grand jury list during the five-year period, and an additional 420 names of people randomly selected from the master list to sit on grand juries during that time. Chappell said he cannot supply the races or genders of those people because the court did not acquire them, but the birth date of each person is available.

    Since grand juror information is sealed to protect their identities, the presiding judge, Paul W. Cella, will have to authorize their release, Chappell said. The judge has directed the defense to file a formal motion for the data and schedule a hearing if needed.

    Assistant Capital Defender Seth Shelley, the attorney who requested the data, did not respond to an email or phone message seeking comment on why the defense is seeking the data.

    Baskervill said the defense team could be setting up an argument about “our ultimate jury selection” when the case comes to trial. She said the prosecution and the defense must offer non-race, non-gender reasons for striking a person from serving on the jury, and “a defense challenge to juror strikes can carry a bit more weight if the defense can point to a pattern of bias or discrimination, and looking to grand jury statistics is one way to do that.”

    Cella already has denied the defense request for Krause’s appointment as a victim outreach specialist, who Brown’s attorneys said in court papers would be used as a “vital liaison between the defense and the victims’ families.” The attorneys said Krause would operate independently of the defense team and would not report “information, results, impressions, findings or conclusions” to the defense “unless members of the victims’ families agree.”

    Baskervill argued against the use of such an expert, saying it was not required to facilitate the case’s legal and constitutional requirements, among other reasons. Further, the trooper’s family “unequivocally and adamantly do not wish to work with, or avail themselves of any services of” any victim-outreach specialist sought by the defense, Baskervill said in court papers.

    Baskervill noted the “significant thread of acrimony” Krause’s involvement caused in the Holmes case, adding that “even assuming the best intentions, the Colorado experience forebodes trouble and unnecessary, undeserved pain if the defense request is granted here.”

    In rejecting Krause’s appointment, the judge said the defense team did not show a particularized need based on the facts of the case, nor did they demonstrate that information that might be obtained from the trooper’s family would be a significant factor in Brown’s defense.

    Brown is charged with eight felony counts, including capital murder of a police officer, in the March 7, 2013, killing of Walker, 63, who was shot in his police cruiser on Interstate 85 after the officer rolled up to Brown’s vehicle stopped on the shoulder to see if Brown needed any help.

    Police said that after shooting Walker with a Russian-made, .308-caliber semiautomatic rifle and exchanging gunfire with another trooper, Brown dropped his weapon and fled, disrobing as he ran. He was found hiding naked in the back of a car at a nearby towing company. After his arrest, Brown told authorities that God had directed him to shoot Walker.

    Brown’s trial has been set for four weeks beginning March 14.

    http://www.richmond.com/news/local/a...b633ff210.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  10. #10
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Affidavit says man charged in shooting death of Virginia state trooper says God made him do it

    The man charged in the shooting death of a Virginia state trooper told investigators God made him do it, according to court papers.

    Russell E. Brown also said one of the investigators interviewing him would be the next to die. His grandmother told police that Brown had called her several times in the weeks leading up to the killing to talk about the Bible, which was uncharacteristic of him.

    “Rose Brown stated that he would not make much sense during their conversations,” state police Special Agent J.M. Gunderson wrote in an affidavit that was used to search Brown’s Chesterfield County apartment.

    According to media reports, Brown also appeared to be acting strange to apartment complex manager Mary Wilson. She told investigators that when she called to inform him that his rent was past due, “He replied, ‘you do you’ and hung up,” the affidavit says.

    Court papers say Brown, 28, was naked when he was caught hiding in the back of a car at a towing business a few minutes after the fatal shooting of Master Trooper Junius A. Walker on Interstate 85 in Dinwiddie County. Brown exchanged shots with another trooper who came to Walker’s aid before dropping his gun and magazine and fleeing, disrobing as he ran, the affidavit says.

    Brown was taken to the Dinwiddie Sheriff’s Office to be interviewed, and after he waived his rights, he spoke with state police special agents about the killing.

    “Russell Brown stated that he knew this was going to happen because God told him to do it,” Gunderson wrote. “Russell Brown stated that the Virginia State Police Special Agent that was interviewing him was next (as in killing him).”

    Brown is charged with capital murder, two firearms counts and attempted capital murder. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...6cb_story.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

Page 1 of 4 123 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •