On Tuesday, a former Delaware State Police trooper received a prison sentence for beating a restrained juvenile who had pranked his home the previous year.
The court sentenced Dempsey Walters to a year in jail. He is the first Delaware police officer in recent memory to face a prison sentence for violence committed while on duty.
Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty to multiple counts of official misconduct and assault after fracturing the boy’s face while restrained in the back of a police car, as well as attacking another teen unrelated to the hoax.
“You are a coward; that’s all you are, with a damn costume,” the parent of one of his child victims told Walters in court during the hearing. This was Walters’ first glance at his victims’ parents.
Walters apologized to his victims in court, claiming that post-traumatic stress from a police chase the previous year had motivated his actions on that day.
Prosecutors sought a year and a half sentence, stating that Walters attempted to conceal his assault on the detained youngster and “weaponized” the power of Delaware State Police and other agencies to “terrorize and assault two teenagers.”
While some may interpret Walters’ prison sentence as punishment, other policemen who participated in a multi-agency manhunt involving a state police aircraft, police dogs, and long guns facilitated his actions.
A State Police spokesperson stated that an internal investigation “identified policy violations” involving other troopers but declined to provide specifics. They cited the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, a controversial law that allows police to conceal how they enforce accountability among their ranks.
Meanwhile, the victims’ families announced plans to file a civil rights case.
The crime
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In August 2023, a 15-year-old and others were playing “ding-dong ditch” in Elsmere.
Security footage from Walters’ home shows the 15-year-old youngster kicking the trooper’s door around 8:30 p.m. and then fleeing. According to the Delaware Department of Justice, after watching the camera footage, the trooper’s girlfriend called Walters at work and explained what had happened.
Deputy Attorney General Dan McBride stated that the audio of the call shows Walters was aware that his home had been pranked, that no one was attempting to enter it, that children had kicked his door, and that there was no emergency.
“He knows there is no danger,” McBride informed the judge.
Walters described his girlfriends’ claim as a “attempted home invasion,” which resulted in a swarm of police brandishing dogs and long weapons, as well as a helicopter, descending on the scene.
At the time, Walters utilized a police database to locate the home of a 17-year-old with whom he had engaged in a verbal fight four days earlier after witnessing the child smoking marijuana at the entrance of his development.
Walters proceeded to the 17-year-old’s home and, at gunpoint, yanked him from the doorway, forced him to the ground, and dropped his knee into his back, permanently damaging it, according to McBride. In court, his mother revealed the anguish of hearing her child scream over the phone while the police, who are meant to be trustworthy, hurt him.
“Every day, I kick myself because I told him to open the door,” the mother told the court.
McBride claimed Walters also lied to investigators about accessing a police database to obtain the teenager’s address. Despite having nothing to do with the prank, police detained the youngster for several hours and later offered his mother conflicting explanations, eventually dubbing it a “misunderstanding.”
After holding the uninvolved 17-year-old, Walters discovered that the genuine offender, a 15-year-old boy, had been apprehended a few blocks away during the manhunt.
When Walters arrived, the 15-year-old was face down on the ground, and other troopers were “very forcibly” arresting him, McBride said, adding that they had things “under control.”
However, Walters slapped the 15-year-old with a knee drop similar to the one used on the 17-year-old, McBride said.
Walters shook his head upon hearing McBride’s depiction.
With the 15-year-old’s hands cuffed behind him, another trooper led him to a state police SUV and seated him in the back. McBride claimed Walters then paced like a “caged bull” until another officer confirmed the 15-year-old was the one who kicked the door.
McBride stated that here is where Walters sought to cover up his activities.
Despite turning off his bodycam, it stayed on for 30 seconds. Footage shows Walters approaching the police cruiser, pushing another officer aside, and striking the child.
According to his attorney, the police SUV left the 15-year-old, who had a concussion and a cracked eye socket that required 11 screws and a mesh to repair, unsupervised for nearly an hour.
Is prison appropriate?
Dan McBride, the deputy attorney general, urged that Walters receive an 18-month jail sentence.
He stated the offense was particularly severe since Walters abused the public’s trust as a police officer and used violence against children to exact “personal vengeance” for perceived “disrespect.”
He also lied about it, according to McBride, and did not express adequate regret.
“He is a bully, and a brutal one at that,” McBride explained.
Walters’ defense counsel, John Malik, told the court that his client’s acts were the result of a “psychic scar” from extreme stress, not bullying.
Malik spoke to the court at length about a December 2022 incident in which Walters responded to a complaint of a suspicious individual brandishing a gun. He stated that the individual was a fugitive who pointed the stolen weapon at Walters as he responded.
Walters described the encounter as preparing “for my own mortality” because he stumbled while following the fugitive and believed he would be shot. The incident culminated in a lengthy police chase that concluded with more than a dozen cops opening fire and killing the suspect on Interstate 95.
Malik stated that shortly after his assault on the teenagers, Walters received a diagnosis and treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. He suggested that the court would sentence someone differently if they drove intoxicated, crashed, and injured someone than if they had a medical emergency while driving and injured someone.
“This doesn’t happen without PTSD,” Malik told the court.
McBride, the prosecutor, said it was “convenient” that Walters sought treatment for PTSD after striking the children rather than after the incident that Malik claimed caused it.
Malik responded, “This isn’t made up.”
Malik further stated that other cops have similarly beaten detained people while avoiding prison time, requesting “parity” in other circumstances.
Waters, who wept at times, apologized to his victims and their families in court. He stated that his wife was the victim of the prank, a personal attack on his home, and his reaction stemmed from his anguish and the collision of his personal and professional lives.
Judge Francis Jones concluded, after examining the reasons, that the victims’ vulnerability and the betrayal of public confidence justified some sort of prison term.
Questions over larger accountability
After the hearing, the victims’ families stated that they did not believe the PTSD explanation. They were relieved he earned some prison time but believed he deserved more.
“I just think he was unhinged, and I’m just glad that he’s off the streets,” one of the teens’ moms said.
The mother of the older boy that Walters attacked thinks the police department needs to be more accountable.
“Dempsey rounded up his posse and acted like a gang,” the woman stated after the hearing. “Several officers were present and they allowed all that to occur.”
There are more general questions about what transpired that evening.
Attorneys for the victims said last year that after punching the child, police SUVs took him and his friends to a partially hidden parking area where Walters and about ten other officers gathered.
According to attorneys, the officers lingered in Angerstein’s Building Supply parking lot for around 30 minutes. Only after one of the boys’ fathers approached authorities, threatening to block them in the lot unless they released his son, did the authorities release the boys.
The Delaware State Police have not discussed any bigger accountability measures resulting from the incident.
They stated that an internal assessment “identified policy violations” involving additional officers but did not clarify what they were or how they were addressed inside the department. Delaware law allows them to keep that information private.
The family plans to bring a legal complaint in the following year.