27 OCT 08: THE SHOCK OF IT ALL

The most dramatic event in Columbus Sunday was NOT at the Springer Opera House. It was publicized for days, yet surprisingly did NOT draw a capacity crowd. And before you get the wrong idea - it did NOT involve a Pentecostal church removing demons from a visitor.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I went to the Columbus Public Library Sunday. I knew Sheriff Ralph Johnson would present details about the Kenneth Walker case, but the big question was what would happen beyond that. Would there be fireworks? Would there be political grandstanding? Would a church choir show up to sing, "We Shall Overcome?"

The answers to all three questions turned out to be NO. What unfolded was a reasoned discussion about what happened almost five years ago, and how the Muscogee County Sheriff responded. No one even shouted during the 90-minute forum. I suppose those people were at sports bars, watching the Falcons game.

The Columbus Public Library auditorium is not that large, yet there were several empty seats for Sunday's forum. I doubt that would have been the case in 2004, shortly after Kenneth Walker was shot. For one thing, civil rights groups might have organized bus rides from Tuskegee and Albany.

It was also interesting to find the racial mix at the forum was about 60 percent African-American, 40 percent Euro-American. And amazingly, hardly any of the Euro-American people in the house wore badges - much less campaign buttons.

Sheriff Ralph Johnson began his presentation by addressing speculation that the forum was timed to be "purely political." He said plainly, "That's not true." And to make sure of it, neither opponent in next week's election stood up to ask questions.

The Sheriff explained the public forum was timed the way it was because a legal settlement in the Kenneth Walker civil case was finalized only Friday. But after nearly five years of waiting, the forum certainly was scheduled in a hurry. Maybe Ralph Johnson is planning a long post-election vacation in Mexico....

Ralph Johnson explained he kept quiet for 58 months about the Kenneth Walker case because he wanted to avoid a blame game -- along the lines of, "If the Sheriff hadn't run his mouth...." If they ever bring back the old game show "I've Got a Secret," Johnson is bound to be a big winner.

But with the legal settlement final, Sheriff Ralph Johnson revealed some interesting new details about the Kenneth Walker case. For one thing, he was talking with attorneys about how to arrest David Glisson in November 2004 - and that day, a grand jury decided NOT to indict him. Instead of a "walk of shame" for Glisson, grand jury members ran away from the Government Center.

Asked specifically if he was "outraged" by what happened in the Kenneth Walker case, Sheriff Ralph Johnson admitted he was "shocked" by the lack of a grand jury indictment. In his case, the word "outrage" may be limited to some of his son's run-ins with the law.

Sheriff Ralph Johnson said he was "very upset that Kenneth Walker was killed. I was very upset that David Glisson shot him." Yet he kept quiet while the legal process and lawsuits played themselves out - so we may never know if he really planned a quiet boycott of Riverfest.

Ralph Johnson spent 30 minutes carefully going over what led to the Kenneth Walker shooting, and how his office responded to it. The sheriff said Walker's trip with three other people to an alleged drug house matched what an informant recalled seeing before - right down to the drug-dealer not answering his phone for several minutes. Of all the nights for someone to have weak cell phone batteries....

The sheriff added he visited Kenneth Walker's family within 24 hours of the shooting, accompanied by a local judge. Wow -- that means Ralph Johnson was about the only party in this case who didn't hire his own attorney.

You may recall Kenneth Walker's family wondered why Sheriff Ralph Johnson didn't rush to the emergency room that night in 2003. Johnson indicated he was busy assembling all the facts about what happened. This is why the officers on "Dragnet" never seemed to have love lives....

Sheriff Ralph Johnson explained the Georgia Bureau of Investigation handled the criminal investigation of the case. He says his department was limited to an "administrative investigation" of whether policies were violated -- and that led to David Glisson being fired for six separate violations. In Johnson's eyes, he scored a 6-0 shutout over the grand jury.

In his strongest statement of self-defense, the sheriff noted he was the only person who took action against David Glisson for the Kenneth Walker shooting. The grand jury didn't indict him, the Justice Department found no grounds for a civil rights complaint - and Glisson apparently can't even get work on a security desk at the mall.

But as you might guess, some people were not satisfied by the sheriff's explanation. NAACP President Bill Madison insisted Ralph Johnson should have pressed criminal charges against David Glisson - but the sheriff insisted he had no authority to do that. Would Madison really believe one "rogue cop" deserves another?

Bill Madison's wife Shirley then spoke, saying a flowchart of events drawn on an easel by the sheriff was a "sketch.... passing the buck." She wondered why Ralph Johnson didn't examine the reported use of racial slurs at the shooting scene. It's almost as if one wrong word counted more than a finger wrongly placed on a gun trigger.

Ralph Johnson contended the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division exists for complaints such as that. He wondered why the African-American community would not trust that division to investigate such a claim. No one told Johnson the obvious answer - because Republicans are in the White House.

Yet Columbus Urban League President Reginald Pugh rose during the forum in the sheriff's defense. Pugh repeated some comments made to this blog in August [11 Aug], and declared Ralph Johnson did NOT kill Kenneth Walker. So that makes two Sheriff's Department employees to be cleared....

Bill Madison left the forum before I could ask him more about his complaints. And Sheriff Ralph Johnson left quickly out a side door, with assistants explaining he had a campaign event to attend. So any reconciliation between them about the Kenneth Walker case will have to wait for another day - but which sports bar is a good neutral location to host this?

THE BIG BLOG QUESTION will count down to Election Day, by asking which candidate you support in the Muscogee County Sheriff's race. It's certainly the contest which has brought the most discussion here. And we've even gone one step beyond the Election Board - as you don't have to write in the write-in candidate's name.

E-MAIL UPDATE: Speaking of local law enforcement....

Any luck getting new recruits to fill all of those positions at the Columbus Police Department?

Yea, I didn't think so.

Maybe if little Ricky and the stooges stopped treating people like cr*p, the good Police Officers wouldn't leave.

Well, hold on here. I heard someone say last week that the city hired about a dozen new officers at a recent job fair. That's a start, on the way to 100 additional officers. It's not like Columbus can organize a "player draft" of spare talent from LaGrange or Valdosta.

We returned to the poker table this past week, after a few weeks away. Read how we did at our other blog, "On the Flop!"

BLOG UPDATE: Former Shaw High School pitcher Edwin Jackson took the mound for Tampa Bay Sunday night, in game four of the World Series. But when you come in with your team down 5-2 and you give up a home run to the Philadelphia pitcher - well, Tampa Bay's manager may have been a genius to leave him out of the rotation after all.

Fox's Joe Buck praised Edwin Jackson as a pitcher who can "really bring it." Well, I guess those are words of praise. But I wonder how many politicians use that phrase to describe big donors....

(It's clear that Fox Sports is run separately from Fox News Channel - because after four World Series games, no one has called Joe Buck "Joe the Plumber.")

Edwin Jackson gave up one run in two innings, and escaped a sixth-inning dilemma with a double play. But Philadelphia won the game 10-2, and can win the World Series tonight - so I hope Jackson enjoys his souvenir American League championship T-shirt.

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