Buffalo News
July 7, 2015
The man shown viciously beating a young woman in a cellphone video was taken into custody early Thursday without incident, city police said.
D’Shalen Walls, 18, was tracked down at a motel on Niagara Falls Boulevard at about 8 a.m., police said. He was there with his girlfriend, Barbara Schreiner, 23, who was charged with hindering prosecution.
Walls was charged with a felony count of robbery and misdemeanor counts of assault and menacing, in connection with Monday’s attack on a 16-year-old girl in an alley behind 925 Pine Ave.
“They apparently had some sort of relationship at some point,” said Lt. John S. Conti of the Criminal Investigation Division. “She was punched a number of times, and her phone was taken by the suspect,” Conti said.
The victim, who was beaten about the face and head, was examined at a hospital.
Somebody standing nearby recorded the assault with a cellphone and posted it on social media. Images from that recording were broadcast by local television stations as police searched for Walls this week.
“We don’t know who recorded it,” Conti said. “Once it got posted online, people started calling about it.”
Members of the police Warrants Division and the U.S. Marshals Service had been looking for Walls before the video surfaced, Conti said.
The Buffalo News reported in May that Walls was charged with a felony count of rape, as well as endangering the welfare of a child, after having sex with a girl younger than 15. Bail had been set at $2,000 after that arrest.
Walls and Schreiner remained in police custody Thursday pending arraignment in City Court.