When Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News tweeted out the surveillance photos of a sexual assault suspect in Center City Philadelphia, I naturally checked The Philadelphia Inquirer, and noted that their story didn’t include the photos. Well, to give credit where credit is due, the newspaper surprised me and updated that story to include the photos released by the Philadelphia Police Department.
Then, earlier on Hiroshima Day, the Police identified him, and Mr Keeley tweeted out that information, including a photo which was taken from his driver’s license records. It didn’t take too long after that for an atomic bomb exploded on the suspect, who was apprehended Wednesday afternoon:
Police said Dynel Walker was taken into custody in connection with six attacks in Center City and South Philadelphia in the past three weeks.
by Ellie Rushing | Wednesday, August 6, 2025 | 12:13 PM EDT | Updated: 5:19 PM EDT
A Northeast Philadelphia man was arrested Wednesday after police said he committed a string of sexual assaults in Center City over the last month, attacking women as they walked or entered their homes.
Dynel Walker, 37, of the 13000 block of Philmont Avenue in Somerton, was taken into custody in Montgomery County to face multiple counts of aggravated assault, indecent assault, and false imprisonment in connection with assaults on six women within three weeks in Center City and the Schuylkill section of South Philadelphia, police said.
Capt. Margo Alleyne-Parker of the Special Victims Unit said she believed Walker likely attacked additional women who had not yet come forward.
Walker’s arrest comes just days after police had asked for the public’s help in identifying a man responsible for a rash of assaults, and whose behavior was escalating. An anonymous tipster then told police that Walker resembled the photo officials had released of the suspect.
So, publishing photos of suspects does help in their identification and apprehension!
If you want to read the details of Mr Walker’s (alleged) crimes, you can get that at the inquirer’s original. This is the part that I see as important:
Court records show that Walker has been arrested multiple times over the last decade in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs, albeit for relatively low-level crimes.
Between 2011 and 2016, he was in and out of jail in Philadelphia for charges including drug possession and improper use of a motor vehicle, according to the records.
In Bucks County in 2021, he was convicted of disorderly conduct. And most recently, in Montgomery County in 2023, he pleaded guilty to identity theft and receiving stolen property, and was sentenced to five years’ probation.
Mr Keeley noted that Mr Walker had 21 prior arrests, though none were for sexual assault. And that makes me wonder: why, in 2023, was he allowed to plead guilty in Montgomery County and receive five years probation? By that time, with his record, surely someone in the prosecutor’s office should have realized that Mr Walker is not a very nice guy. Under Pennsylvania Title 18 § 4120, Identity theft can be either a first-degree misdemeanor, if the value of the property stolen using identity theft is less than $2,000, (c)(1)(i), or a third-degree felony id valued at more than $2,000, (c)(1)(ii). Under Title 18 §106(b)(4), a third-degree felony has a maximum sentence of seven years in the state penitentiary. Both offenses were charged as third-degree felonies.
The media have not reported all of the particulars, but if Montgomery County had enough evidence, couldn’t the distinguished Mr Walker have been behind bars when the crimes with which he has been recently charged were committed? Shouldn’t a man with that many priors not be given a break? Shouldn’t a man with that many priors be locked up for as long as the law allows?
It’s simple: if Mr Walker is the man who committed the sexual assaults for which he has been charged, and if he had been behind bars at SCI Greene, those six sexual assaults would not have occurred!
If Mr Walker committed the sexual assaults with which he has been charged, one thing is obvious: five years probation neither punished him nor deterred him from committing other crimes. There comes a point at which the bad guys need to be locked up, and that point is long before 21 separate arrests.
