Walter Collins’ family Faces Retaliation, Harassment after Filing Brutality case Against Minneapolis Police

“This case is about police lying,” said David Schulman. Schulman is an attorney for the family of Walter Kenyon Collins, a 21-year-old Black man who was shot and killed in 2003 by Minneapolis Police Officer Jamie Conway. The second trial in the wrongful death lawsuit brought against the City of Minneapolis and Conway by Collins’ family began on April 20. The first trial was conducted last October. Hennepin County District Court Judge Richard Scherer declared a mistrial when one juror said she was intimidated by a car that was parked outside of her home the night before jury deliberations were to begin.  Walter Collins’ killing was one of three high-profile cases that took place within the span of a week and a half where charges of brutality were leveled against police by victims, family and community members. The case revolves around charges made by Collins’ family that Conway shot Collins in cold blood and that police officers and investigators for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s department attempted to cover up the killing by planting a gun that they claim belonged to Collins. The City of Minneapolis claims that these charges are baseless.  Walter Collins’ family has also charged that Minneapolis police have harassed them in an effort to intimidate them into dropping their lawsuit. In a letter of protest to the City Attorney’s Office, Schulman said that on March 30 of last year police harassed Walter Collins’ mother, Sara Collins, at her home. The letter says that police “entered Collins’ home allegedly because of a call concerning loud music. This reason was false, however. No loud music was playing, and the neighbors had not made any calls to complain of loud music. During the March 30 incident, Sara Collins said that police searched through her legal papers and other personal effects.  Walter Collins’ sister, Linda Collins, also said that she has been harassed by police. “About a month ago, six squad cars pulled me over for nothing,” Linda Collins said. “They pulled me out of the car and forced me to the ground at gunpoint. They did not care that I am pregnant.” She said that police claimed she fit the description of a man they were looking for. Walter Collins was killed in the early morning hours of October 10, 2003, on the lawn of the Phillips Eye Institute on the corner of East 22nd Street and Park Avenue South. According to court documents, Walter Collins and his friend Chandan Hurd were driving northbound on Park Avenue when the truck they were in broke down. Officers Conway and his partner Charles Greaves pulled up on the two young men in their squad car and shined the car’s searchlight on them, at which point Collins began to run. Conway got out of the squad car, chased Collins on foot and shot at him three times, hitting him once fatally. Conway claims he shot Collins because he saw him with a gun. Conway also found a gun at the scene that he claims belonged to Collins. In the brief cited above, the City Attorney’s Office states that Greaves “chose to follow Collins based upon witnessing Collins shove something into the front of his waistband.” However, in his affidavit, Hurd testified that when the police approached both young men, they pulled up their shirts to show the officers that they were unarmed. Hurd also testified that he did not see Walter Collins with “a firearm, nor did he suspect that Collins was in possession of a firearm.” There were no fingerprints belonging to Collins on the pistol, according to forensic test. In addition, during the first trial, no other eyewitnesses, including Conway’s partner Charles Greaves, could testify to seeing Collins with a gun at the time before or during the shooting. Another inconsistency in the City’s case, which came out during the first trial, was that surveillance camera footage from the Phillips Eye Institute, where the shooting took place, contradicts Conway’s account of what happened on that night. The footage shows that at no time did anything Conway describes in his testimony happen in the area where he claims the shooting took place, which is in full view of the cameras. “I want people to know that they can fight. That just because they have a uniform and a badge don’t mean you can’t fight back — you can,” said Sara Collins. [MORE]

Comments

[Rhonda Grove]

I am glad that Bumper's death is being noticed. So many people shrugged it off as soomething that is expected from the ghetto. And whatever people might say about Bumper's life, is bogus. If you knew him, you loved him. The minneapolis robbed his family of a son, a brother, an uncle. They robbed me of my heart.