Justin Walters; Fort Drum cop killer has a long juvie record
We talked a little about Justin Walters yesterday when we learned about his murder of a New York State Trooper Joel Davis after Walters killed his wife, Nichole and injured another woman. Now we read that Walters had pretty long record of arrests before he turned 18 from WOOD-TV;
Justin Walters grew up in the Holland area, where his family still lives. He has a lengthy criminal record in juvenile court in Michigan. He was convicted of six felonies and three misdemeanors before his 18th birthday, including malicious destruction of property and possession of marijuana.
In December 1999, 24 Hour News 8 reported that Walters and another student, both 15-year-old ninth-graders at Holland’s Macatawa Bay Middle School the time, were charged after compiling a ‘hit list’ of fellow students and then trying to obtain a weapon.
Both were eventually convicted of conspiracy to carry a concealed weapon and ethnic intimidation — authorities said some of their classmates were targeted because they were gay or minorities. Walters was sentenced to detention and a treatment program.
Ottawa County Juvenile Court records show he last attended Sheldon Pines School — an alternative school — in 2000.
24 Hour News 8 did not find an adult criminal record for Walters in Michigan. It’s unclear exactly when he moved to New York state.
I guess that the Army wouldn’t be aware of these crimes when he enlisted because they were dealt with by the juvenile court system. You recruiters out there would know more about that than I know.
According to the article, Walters told the judge that he wasn’t aware of why he was in court yesterday – I’m guessing that he’s going to blame PTSD for his criminal behavior, but that long juvie record indicates that he wasn’t all there before he enlisted.
Category: Army News
I often see recruiters in the juvenile court clerk’s office, checking on juvenile records.
Most juvenile records are difficult if not impossible to get, even for Recruiters. Also, when I recruited we were only required to get police and court checks from local agencies and places the Applicant admitted to having lived. If they had arrests elsewhere or especially as a juvenile they could slip under the radar. I was honest with my Recruiter and admitted to having spent time in Juvenile Detention. It was a pain getting a moral waiver but it was the right thing to do.
They introduced a new system before I left USAREC that was much more thorough. Applicants place their fingers on a scanner and their prints are run through a nationwide system.
It is a much better system but still relies on the states to provide criminal history information based on their interpretation of the Federal guidelines for submitting criminal history to the NCIC data base. Some state only submit adult felony info, others provide class B misdemeanor and higher, still others provide all criminal history regardless of offense level or classification (adult vs juvenile)to NCIC. Bottom line if the court does not release juvenile criminal records, you aint gettin it.
Would he be in a position that requires a security clearance? If so did he own up to the juvenile record when completing the SF-86.
What I read indicates that he’s an infantryman, so no need for a clearance.
He either lied his ass off to the recruiter, classifier, and the folks when he got to boot camp.
Don’t know about Army, but Navy had MOT (moment of truth) at boot where they got one last chance to fess up. Between that and the PRC’s we routinely did (and yes, we got juvie records too) he shouldn’t have slipped through the crack–not with SIX felonies.
Army has the same thing. Though, you get a couple chances at that before you start Basic.
I had to go in on a waver, because I was a 14 year old dumbass. I stole a pack of smokes, was arrested, and went through Youth Diversion Program.
I even had to interview with a Navy LT as part of the waver process during my initial MEPS visit in 1987.
As my dad said: that was the most expensive pack of cigarettes he ever bought, and never even go to light them up. ($101.05)
PS: To this day, I still get somewhat paranoid, and freak out when my wife opens a soda in the store while shopping.
Does a juvenile felony count against owning a firearm as an adult?
Not if he was convicted as a juvenile. If they charged him as an adult, then it would. But it seems this was all juvenile which is why he got into the Army.
Those must have been concealed. The process in the late 90s was you needed to be in DEP a certain number of days, and shipped once background check came back. You could depart without it, but only with personal interview by OPS Officer or Senior NCO. There were a couple/few times shippers coughed up charges on ship day.
The questions asked at enlistment were very thorough, ‘arrest, charged, cited or held…including juvenile, expunged, erased, dismissed etc’. And even expunged Juvenile charges sometimes came back on the background. I think it depended on the court. And the juvenile courts were complicit, telling offenders they didn’t have to admit to sealed records.
Hope his recruiter didn’t tell him to conceal these, have a feeling this one gets some scrutiny.
They likely rushed or changed that background process after 2001.
Should have gone in in the ’70s. “You ever smoke pot? By which we mean did you smoke pot. Handle pot. Sell pot. Know someone who carried it and didn’t report it. Went to a party where someone was smoking pot, whether you did or not. Hung out with someone smoking pot.Knew someone you knew occasionally or habitually smoked pot or sold pot and didn’t report them. We need an estimate of how many times you have done any of the above.” Uh…maybe two thousand or so?
In ’93 going through MEPS they asked, “Have you used illegal drugs within the last 3 years?” If you were under 21, “Have you drank alcohol within the last 30 days?”
I don’t know why they asked with the 15 freakin’ blood tests I was given. They probably knew what I ate every night of the last 3 years.
By the time I was done in recruiting, my standard question was not, “Have you…”, but rather, “Which ones and how many times?”
Same here. I remember a mid-morning interview when I asked our standard “how many times have you smoked pot” question. The mental midget looked at me in all seriousness and asked “Do you mean today?”
Yeah, in my HS in the late 60’s early 70’s I had a hard time avoiding Mary Jane. I was routinely offered a joint by some classmates as I was walking from the bus to the school. There was at least one boys bathroom where you could get high just going in to take a piss.
I never touched Mary Jane, but sure know what it smells and looks like.
I can neither confirm nor deny that I ever touched Maria, however.
I’ll take a stab that his recruiter was already tracked down and asked to provide an MFR of his dealings with this fine upstanding young dipshit.
“According to the article, Walters told the judge that he wasn’t aware of why he was in court yesterday – I’m guessing that he’s going to blame PTSD for his criminal behavior, but that long juvie record indicates that he wasn’t all there before he enlisted.”
Him and Kang can be roomed together so they can trade notes on the “PTS Defense!” that will fail miserably in court.
I had a secret clearance as an Infantryman -because I also operated the blue force tracker. But I had also been active navy from 1984-93. Something does not sound or smell right?
Some Recruiter must have been STARVING to make quota to put a POS like that in!
I got busted in 1976 for pot, a miniscule amount of it too…
I got an Article 15 for the stuff and became a PV-2 for a while…
That was back before they were doing piss tests, I took my first piss test when I had 3 days left in the Army. I don’t think they even ran the thing, it would have been hot as hell though…
Those were the days…
My recruiter put the fear of God into me about not disclosing EVERYTHING on my application. I didn’t have any legal stuff, other than a parking ticket I got when I went to MEPS for some paperwork because I parked where my recruiter told me to (he paid the ticket). However, on the medical form, they didn’t tell me to omit minor, self-diagnosed stuff that hadn’t been treated by a doctor*, so I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get my medical cleared up before I could ship. Between that and my 92/60 blood pressure when I did my entrance physical, my recruiter was really worried I would be medically disqualified.
* Dumb stuff like, have you ever lost weight? Well, yeah, I had been dieting. Have you ever lost consciousness? Yeah, I fainted once at 8yo due to a gas leak in the house. Never saw a doc for any of that stuff, but I was too scared not to admit to it.