State police investigating how rogue cop marshaled backup

The Delaware State Police is reportedly conducting an administrative investigation into its officers who responded to two scenes last summer where another trooper assaulted teenagers in an apparent response to one boy playing a prank at his home. 

A police spokesperson noted the existence of the investigation following a series of questions from Spotlight Delaware probing how law enforcement policies could have allowed an officer – who was told to go home by his supervisor – to marshal a manhunt across two departments that included a helicopter and a K-9 unit. 

Among the questions asked was whether other officers at the scenes of the assaults knew that their activity had come in response to a teenage prank.

“We are currently conducting an administrative investigation into the matter, and therefore, we are unable to disclose any information regarding our evidence at this time,” the spokesperson, Sgt. India Sturgis, said in an emailed response to the question.

In a follow-up email, another DSP spokesperson, Master Cpl. Lewis Briggs, said the agency is carrying out an “internal review for all aspects of this case to include policy and training.”

The assaults, which left one teen with a broken eye orbital bone, brought national scrutiny to Delaware’s police last year. They also prompted a rapid condemnation from Attorney General Kathleen Jennings, who described the actions of the offending officer, Dempsey Walters, as a “violent rampage” and his subsequent attempt to conceal his misconduct as “brutal, dishonest, and unacceptable.”

Jennings’ office indicted Walters in September on several charges, including the first prosecution of Delaware’s new deprivation of civil rights law. 

Walters pleaded guilty last month to six criminal charges, including two felonies. Jennings’ office has recommended that Walters serve up to18 months in prison. 

“We do not recommend prison sentences lightly – but there is no question that justice demands it here,” Jennings said in a statement following Walters’ plea. 

While the sentencing brings Walters’ case to a close, several questions remain unanswered including why officers did not intervene after he first assaulted the 15-year-old and before he punched the handcuffed teen in the face.

Jennings declined to comment for this story. 

A mistaken victim

The incidents occurred in early August after a 15-year-old ran up to the Elsmere-area home owned by Walters and kicked the front door before running off – an apparent rendition of the teenage game, ding-dong ditch.

Walters then alerted law enforcement to what he called a “home invasion,” prompting DSP troopers and officers from the Newport Police Department to conduct a manhunt for the teen.

There was no 911 call associated with the response, according to an official from the New Castle County 911 Center. 

Responding officers first went to Taft Avenue, a quiet dead-end street in a neighborhood adjacent to Walters’ home. There, Walters and Newport police officers directed their investigation on a house belonging to Chavuan Harris, who wasn’t home at the time. 

They knocked on the door. One Newport officer had his gun drawn when Harris’ 17-year-old son responded, opening the door. Walters grabbed the teen and tackled him to the ground, according to body camera footage.

While Walters held the teen to the ground, another officer stood over him with a rifle in hand.

Harris came home shortly after, but struggled to get a clear answer as to why police had detained her son. Police first said they targeted her son because a K-9 dog led them to her home, she said.

Later, an officer called it “all a misunderstanding,” she said.

“They just came in here, bum rushed him, and didn’t ask questions,” Harris recounted two days after the incident occurred.

The 17-year-old was not involved in the prank on Walters’ home. 

Prosecutors later said that Walters went to Harris’ home because he had encountered her son the previous week in the area, and the two had some sort of argument.  

A felony assault

While Harris received little information at the time, Walters told at least two of her neighbors that police were in their neighborhood because he had been the victim of a “home invasion.” 

He made the comments while going from house to house on Taft Avenue, asking the bewildered neighbors for recent doorbell camera video footage that might show individuals who had recently passed along the street.

After conducting his investigation on Taft Avenue, Walters then drove a few blocks away to DuPont Road, where troopers had detained the 15-year-old along with friends. 

Briggs, the DSP spokesperson, said Walters had been “directed to return to his residence” and encountered the DuPont Road stop while he was driving home.

But prosecutors’ account of the story differs. They said Walters had heard that the 15-year-old had been detained on DuPont Road while he was still at the scene at Taft Avenue. After that, he drove to the DuPont Road scene, they said.

When he arrived, the 15-year-old was “face-down on the ground with a different trooper attempting to handcuff him,” according to the statement from Jennings’ office.

That’s when Walters “dropped his knee onto the back” of the teen’s neck or head, according to Jennings’ statement.  

Walters then confirmed with another officer at the scene that the 15-year-old was the one who kicked his door before running off. The exchange appears to indicate that the other trooper knew that the police activity followed a teenage prank, and not a home invasion. 

Next, Walters again approached the 15-year-old, who at that point was sitting in the back of a police cruiser, and proceeded to punch the teen in the face. 

“Walters then walked around the vehicle and turned his body-worn camera back on,” Jennings’ statement said. 

Walters is expected to be sentenced in coming weeks.