Witness: Walker targeted because he looked like Temple student

Moses Walker was 40 and a Philadelphia police officer for 19 years.

But as he walked to a bus stop shortly before 6 a.m. on Aug. 18, 2012 - in shorts, athletic jacket, and baseball cap, carrying a backpack, and wearing earphones - he could have passed for a student from nearby Temple University.

That's what his alleged killers thought he was.

The alleged accomplice of accused killer Rafael Jones testified Wednesday they targeted Walker because he looked like a college student: "Someone who looked easy, someone who wouldn't put up a fight."

Chancier McFarland told the Philadelphia judge hearing Jones' murder-robbery trial he and Jones had no idea Walker was an officer who had just finished a shift in North Philadelphia's 22d District when they tried to rob him.

McFarland, 21, who has pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Jones, said he and Jones had been walking the streets of North Philadelphia searching for someone to rob for about 15 minutes when they spotted Walker at 19th Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue.

Why Walker? asked Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy.

"He looked like a Temple student," McFarland replied. "He had a backpack and he might have had a computer."

McFarland testified that Jones, 25, shot Walker when the officer ran and appeared to reach for a weapon.

After Walker collapsed at Cecil B. Moore Avenue at Woodstock Street, McFarland said, he grabbed the officer's iPod and earphones, and he and Jones ran.

McFarland pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in June in a deal that lets him escape life in prison - he will spend 20 to 40 years behind bars - if he testified truthfully in Jones' trial.

Jones' trial began Monday after he agreed to nonjury proceedings in exchange for the District Attorney's Office's not seeking the death penalty.

The trial is expected to end Thursday. After the last witnesses and closing arguments by Conroy and defense attorney Michael Coard, Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart will deliberate and announce a verdict.

Wednesday's courtroom confrontation between McFarland and Jones was a study in contrasts.

They ignored each other as McFarland was escorted past Jones, as close as two feet away.

In the witness box, McFarland slumped in the chair, head tilted to the left and eyes on the floor. He never looked at Jones and answered most questions in a few words.

Jones stared at McFarland almost the entire time, worrying his beard with his left hand and tapping a pen on a legal pad with his right.

Jones' family sat in the gallery, muttering as McFarland testified. Coard called McFarland a liar and repeatedly asked about discrepancies in three statements he gave authorities after his arrest. Coard focused on a first statement in which McFarland admitted he "tried to put the blame on Ralph," Jones' nickname.

Suggesting McFarland was the actual shooter, Coard noted McFarland supplied the gun used to kill the officer.

McFarland said he had stolen the .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol from a friend about two months earlier.

He said he handed the gun to Jones because "I didn't want to walk with it. I didn't want to get stopped by the cops and I'm holding it."

"So the only time that Ralph has the gun is during the shooting, but every other time, you've got the gun?" asked Coard.

"Yes," McFarland replied.