Shakopee, MN: Fatal police shooting ruled justified by county attorney

Submitted by Mathias Baden on October 22, 2010 - 2:12pm.

Shannon Fiecke of the Shakopee Valley News reports:

Two Shakopee police officers who shot stabbing suspect Joshua Walker on Highway 169 five months ago are found to have appropriately used deadly force.

Scott County Attorney Pat Ciliberto issued the determination late Tuesday after reviewing the completed Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigative report for any wrongdoing by officers in the shooting death.

Walker, who stabbed his brother’s longtime girlfriend Asia King to death at her home near Huber Park, was shot and killed May 11 after a dangerous high-speed chase through Shakopee.

Ciliberto’s report reveals more of the 911 call from King, as well as the circumstances that led Shakopee police officers Brad Bisek and Molly Moonen to shoot Walker on the highway ramp.

King called 911 from a cell phone at 8 a.m. screaming, “Help me, help me.” Before the line went silent, she told dispatchers her brother-in-law was there, he had stabbed her and she was going to pass out.

Bisek was the first officer to arrive at the Main Street residence. He encountered Walker speeding out of the alley in a black vehicle.

Paramedics found King unconscious, curled up in a corner behind a badly damaged bedroom door. She had been stabbed twice in the abdomen and later died during surgery at St. Francis Regional Medical Center in Shakopee.

After ramming into Bisek’s squad car, Walker fled down County Road 101 and up Marschall Road. A squad car video showed him swerving into other cars.

As Walker turned left onto northbound Highway 169, Bisek rammed the rear of Walker’s car, spinning the vehicle toward him.

The car rolled backward down the access ramp. The driver’s door opened as Bisek ran up to the car with his weapon drawn and ordered Walker four times to get his hands up.

Bisek could see Walker fidgeting around in the car and a black object in his hand.

Bisek believed Walker had a gun and he was about to be shot. “I thought I was gonna die,” he told investigators.