ST CHARLES, Mo. – Never-before-seen surveillance video has just been released in the March 2019 shooting over a St. Charles handicapped parking spot.
Multiple surveillance cameras captured the shooting and the events leading up to it.
The aftermath is well-known. Former Amazon delivery driver Jaylen Walker was left wheelchair-bound after being shot in the back.
The shooter, Larry Thomlison, now 70, is serving a 16-year prison sentence. The two men came face-to-face in a series of events that lasted about five minutes, yet forever altered their lives.
The parking lot had plenty of open spaces, as you can see in the recently released video from the St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. You can also clearly see the delivery van in question parked in a handicapped spot just after noon on a Tuesday. Shoppers are coming and going with no idea of what’s about to happen.
One camera angle shows Thomlison walking in the store, apparently to complain about the parking job. Yet another angle shows him in a customer service area, where he speaks with three associates for nearly four minutes before returning to the parking lot.
Then you see delivery driver Walker leaving the store. Exactly 15 seconds later, Thomlison walks out behind him.
Out in the parking lot, you can see Thomlison apparently taking pictures as he stands behind a red vehicle that separates him and Walker.
Thomlison then walks up to Walker, who is seated in the driver’s side of his delivery van with his door open. Thomlison remains there for nearly two minutes as a second delivery driver watches.
Michael Mayfield, whom we interviewed last July, showed us last year how Thomlison allegedly held his mobile phone up to Walker’s face.
“…Video recording Jaylen. And Jaylen, he snatched the phone, but he had a good grip, so they started scuffling over the phone,” Mayfield said at the time.
You can see that moment on the video as the two men move near the back of the van and then disappear to an area outside the camera view. Then you see Walker run and then fall to the ground about five parking spots away after being shot.
A paralyzed Walker has since said he’s forgiven Thomlison.
“If you can forgive others that have wronged you, then the sky’s the limit on what you can do in this world,” Regina Lewis, Walker’s mother, said after the sentencing.
Last year, a St. Charles County jury found Thomlison guilty of assault despite his attorney’s claims of self-defense. A judge then sentenced Thomlison to the full jury recommendation of 16 years, despite medical issues at trial that required an ambulance response as well as Thomlison’s reported terminal illness.
Walker informed the judge that the shooting had cut short his life expectancy by nearly twice as much as the shooter’s prison term.