INQUIRER: The night of Feb. 12, six months before he allegedly gunned down Police Officer Moses Walker Jr., Rafael Jones was arrested and charged with sticking a handgun into the chest of a man walking to a Germantown bus stop and stealing his designer jacket, Nike sneakers, and $65. The victim, identified in court papers as E.J., 26, ran barefoot two blocks to his girlfriend’s apartment to call police, who quickly arrested Jones, still on probation for a previous gun offense. In the months that followed, E.J. made a fateful decision. He failed to testify. Despite extensive efforts by 
prosecutors and police to get him into court, E.J., who has a history of narcotics arrests, failed to appear at three court hearings between February and June. With no gun recovered and without the testimony of E.J. and his girlfriend – who told police that she, too, saw Jones with the gun, but also failed to show up in court – the District Attorney’s Office was forced to withdraw charges and was denied a chance keep Jones in prison. MORE
PREVIOUSLY: Mayor Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey led a solemn procession of police officers along Lehigh Avenue on Sunday as a horse-drawn carriage bore the body of slain Philadelphia Police Officer Moses Walker Jr. to a church for a viewing. Walker, 40, was fatally shot Aug. 18 in an apparent robbery attempt shortly after finishing his shift in the 22d District in North Philadelphia. Late Sunday afternoon, minutes after a police honor guard had carried his flag-draped casket from the carriage into the sanctuary of Deliverance Evangelistic Church in North Philadelphia, word spread among the officers outside that the second suspect in his killing had been apprehended in Alabama. MORE