Detective Young Clifton Hobson

Man paroled after murdering Chicago cop in 1968 gets life for Northwest Side bank robbery

Posted on JAN 22, 2021
Chicago Tribune

A Chicago man who was paroled after serving less than 20 years for the 1968 murder of a police officer has been sentenced to life in prison for a 2018 bank robbery, according to the U.S. attorney’s office and court records.
Judge Gary Feinerman on Wednesday handed the sentence to David Walsh, 74, who fired five shots into the chest of Detective Young Clifton Hobson after the officer spotted Walsh with a gun while both were in a crowded Chicago bar. Hobson had asked Walsh if he had a right to carry a gun. Walsh was sentenced to 20-to-40 years in prison.

After his 1983 parole, Walsh was arrested with an Uzi submachine gun, “disguises of all sorts,” restraints, ski masks and bulletproof vests, according to Cook County prosecutors. The prosecutor argued Walsh should be “securely locked up forever,” after he walked into a restaurant in 1987 and robbed it using a replica of an antique gun.
Walsh got 60 years and served half of it, winning parole in October 2017.

In seeking a lengthy sentence for Walsh this year, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kerwin pointed to the man’s lengthy criminal record, noting Walsh has been repeatedly arrested since his 1983 parole.
On July 14, 2018, Walsh robbed the U.S. Bank branch at 4725 N Western Ave. in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of about $3,700, according to the complaint against him. He was arrested by federal agents 10 days later, after he met someone at a city senior center and tried to recruit them as an accomplice for another bank robbery and that person contacted the FBI. He was identified in part because he used a Ventra card registered in his name to take the “L” to near the bank, according to the complaint against him.

Walsh pleaded guilty to robbery last February, records show.
Walsh made profane threats to the lives of the judge and his family during a sentencing hearing last year after Feinerman said he would give Walsh 13 years, records show. Walsh also referred to the murder of Hobson as something that happened over 50 years ago.
“That was another century,” he said according to court transcripts. Feinerman ended the earlier hearing after Walsh’s outburst and finished the sentencing this week.
Patrick Boyle, Walsh’s defense attorney, said his client planned to appeal his life sentence.

Retired Police Officer
NYPD

January 22, 2021