‘The kid had no enemies out here’
Albertus great Walters killed in Hartford shooting
Eric and E.J. Crawford were in the yard of their North Hartford home shortly after noon on Saturday when they heard gunfire. Father and son went down the block to see what happened.
They were met with awful news. Jaqhawn Walters had been shot.
“I live right down the street,” Eric Crawford said. “The kid had no enemies out here. JQ and E.J. worked out together, they’re friends. He hung out with his buddies in that particular little area of Main Street. They never had a problem down there.”
There was a problem in front of 3385 Main Street. According to Hartford police, surveillance video from 3395 Main shows a brief physical confrontation followed by a shooting. Walters’ friends rushed him to St. Francis Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Jaqhawn Walters, one of Albertus Magnus’ greatest basketball players and one of the top Division III players in the nation in 2018, was 24 years old.
According to Hartford police, as they were responding to St. Francis and to the scene of the shooting, Jason Stone of Hartford called the dispatcher to say he had just shot someone. He turned himself in at department headquarters. Stone, 33, was charged with one count of murder and, with bond set at $1 million, is expected to be arraigned Monday. The gun suspected as the weapon in the shooting was recovered in Stone’s vehicle.
Albertus coach Mitch Oliver got a text around 1 p.m. Saturday from another former player, Darius Watson, who had heard Walters had been shot. They spent the next hour frantically trying to find out what was going on.
“This whole thing has
been devastating,” Oliver said. “I’m heartbroken.”
“E.J. was like, ‘I was just on the phone with JQ last night about working out today,” said Eric Crawford, who played at Hartford, and whose son was a star at Iona. “Of all the kids I’ve dealt with and my kid dealt with, the only time I saw E.J. cry like he did yesterday was when his grandma died.”
Oliver spent the rest of Saturday on the phone, sharing the tragic news with his current players, some who played with Walters, and tracking down his former players.
“It was difficult,” Oliver said. “Man, it was really difficult.”
This is a continuing tragedy in a very real sense. On Dec. 9, 2015, Hartford police got a call from near the intersection of Albany Avenue and Baltimore Street about a possible shooting.
Two years later, Walters told me his father and another guy were play-fighting. They were ready to peace up, he said, when the other man started stabbing him. Joseph Lindsey, too, was rushed to the hospital in a private vehicle. He, too, died at St. Francis.
After talking throughout the day with his mom, Trician Salmon, Walters sat with Oliver. He decided to play that night. He played all 40 minutes of a 106-89 victory over previously unbeaten Brooklyn College, No. 17 team in the nation. Walters scored 28 points, pulled in 12 rebounds and handed out four assists. He was brilliant.
“My father,” Walters told me in 2017, “was like my best friend.”
I knew JQ. Beyond writing a few columns on him, I’d see him at Albertus games. He’d go out of his way to say hello. My son plays in the GNAC, too, for Lasell, and JQ would go, “Hey! How’s your boy?” He’d give a big smile. I liked
him.
He was one of those guys who could identify with all colors, all ages. He’d go over to little kids at games and engage them. He was popping with energy and charisma.
“That’s what made him a great person,” Oliver said. “You saw his energy on the court. He was probably the first player that matched my energy, I’m out there coaching, going crazy. JQ was always on.
“Coaching and playing any sport is an emotional roller coaster and this guy was always high-energy positive.”
Among the many people who reached out to him, Oliver said one message from a Northeast region coach nailed it: “He had that thing where he would drop 30 on you and every opponent. Yet not only did we respect him, we actually liked him. Everyone loved him.”
Walters scored 1,821 points, pulled in 1,167 rebounds and twice was GNAC Player of the Year. Albertus Magnus has won seven of 11 GNAC titles. You win that much and, well, the Falcons have their rivals.
“But he was friends with everybody, and it went beyond helping a guy up after a foul,” Oliver said. “When you’re double-teaming him, and he’s dropping 30 on you, and we’re running through the league and he’s the best guy, he’s the guy you find a way not to like. Just for motivation. Yet it was impossible not to like him. That’s what made him special.
“And it spread through campus. He talked with everyone from the president of the school, to professors, to freshmen who didn’t play sports. We’re in a world now where people try to avoid everyone. JQ talked to everyone. He is someone who crossed over age generations. I’ve got freshmen who know him. There are guys, 50 and 60, who know him. He’s a legend in Hartford.”
In 2018, Walters played in ESPN’s The Basketball Tournament, an annual 5-on-5 event that included former NBA players. He signed and played in Argentina. With COVID hitting, everything went on hold. Oliver, who talked to Walters a week ago, said he was working with him to find a place to play. He was sure Walters would find one.
Walters and E.J. Crawford, according to Eric, played in a $10,000 tournament a couple of weeks ago when team coached by Ryan Gomes won over clubs from New Jersey and New York. Walters, Eric said, lit up one game with 40 points.
A few years ago, Weaver High coach Reggie Hatchett said he went through the 40-odd state players that were then playing in Division I and Walters was better than 35 of them.
“No doubt,” Eric Crawford said. “He had an incredible motor. Whether it was basketball, meeting people or rapping, he went at it 110 percent. I used to talk to him. With his personality, his look, his style, you could go to Europe and make a lot of money off the court. Doing commercials, whatever, he had that kind of potential. I think he had a hard time separating those kind of successful routes and staying loyal to his friends — that hood kind of thing.
“He’s smart. He’s no dummy. At the same time, when you’re brought up in a particular environment you take on those traits at times. Sometimes it’s hard for you to pull away and do the right things, because sometimes the right things, to kids, is abnormal, a little boring and not that exciting. He was a successful rapper. He was idolized by a lot of people.”
Eric Crawford, long a community leader in Hartford, said he doesn’t know Stone and didn’t recognize him as being from the neighborhood. He did write something profound and
foreboding on his Facebook page earlier Sunday:
“I don’t know what’s worst, the virus, the systematic racism or the streets of Hartford. I thought I would never say this, but I’m getting my son out of here as soon as I can. If a good man like JQ can be shot down, one block from my house in plain day light with no regard for life, imagine what can happen to the only (child) that matters to me?”
I asked Crawford about those words.
“Look, I am JQ, my son is JQ,” said Crawford, who grew up in Buffalo before playing at Hartford. “I come from the same streets from a different zip code. I understand the mentality of a kid who has had success, people admire, but it’s hard to separate. At my age, it scares the (crap) out of me.
“My thing is I don’t like the sense of people leading people when it comes to them having no idea how these guys think and operate. There’s a subculture in the hood. We have our own criminal justice system. We have our own educational system. We have our own parenting system. Most of the time it doesn’t look normal. So when you put a kid out of that environment and put him into a normal environment, it’s hard for him to function a lot of time. If JQ was following his dream, he’d be in Europe.”
From there, Eric Crawford talked about COVID and a lot of people being desperate, about violent acts that are property-driven and done out of a survival mode, and how we’ve got to bring these kids to the table to find the solution. I got the distinct feeling instead of leaving Eric Crawford was intent on staying and fighting.
We need to stop what happened to Jaqhawn Walters. These tragedies, man, they’re just too hard to take.