www.njcopsmagazine.com n FEBRUARY 2015
43
Walker feels like ‘I’m starting all over again’
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Early on Monday morning, Feb. 9, Joseph Walker woke up, made
himself a cup of coffee, got dressed, kissed his beautiful wife Marie
goodbye and did something he had not done in exactly 18 months:
He went to work.
Walker officially returned to duty that morning as a detective in
the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office. About five days earlier,
Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office Local 232 President Will Caicedo informed Walker that the paperwork had finally come through
for reinstatement from the suspension handed down when he was
arrested for shooting and killing a man during a roadside incident
on a highway near Baltimore.
And upon returning to duty, Walker, who was acquitted on all
counts this past July, said he had one important order of business
to take care of before he got down to business.
“I wanted make the rounds and see people I haven’t seen in
more than a year,” he asserted. “Not just because I missed seeing
them, but I know there were a lot of people who supported me that
I didn’t get a chance to thank. I wanted to tell them how much I
appreciate them.”
On June 9, 2013, Walker was returning from a family gathering
near Baltimore when the driver of another vehicle perceived he
was cut off when Walker entered the highway. The driver started to
shout obscenities and racial epithets at Walker and his family.
In an effort to diffuse the situation, Walker identified himself as
a police officer but he was eventually forced off the roadway and
came to a stop on the shoulder. Two men exited the other vehicle
and charged toward Walker’s minivan u