Department of Justice Seal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CRT

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2001

(202) 616-2777

WWW.USDOJ.GOV

TDD (202) 514-1888


JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CLOSES CRIMINAL CIVIL RIGHTS INVESTIGATION INTO

THE DEATH OF WILLIE J. WILLIAMS


WASHINGTON, D.C. The Justice Department today announced that it has closed the investigation into the death of Willie J. Williams, a Valdosta, Georgia resident, and has found insufficient evidence to justify federal criminal civil rights charges against Kevin Farmer, a Lowndes County Sheriff Deputy.

The Civil Rights Division opened an investigation into the death of Williams after allegations were made by the People's Tribunal, a Valdosta community activism organization, that he may have been the victim of unlawful excessive force, either at the arrest scene or while in jail.

On the morning of September 1, 1998 Williams was arrested after Deputy Farmer stopped him on a traffic violation. In the process of making the arrest Williams resisted, and according to Deputy Farmer, during the ensuing struggle, he pushed Williams to the ground in order to control him. After receiving medical treatment for injuries sustained in the struggle, Williams was taken to the Lowndes County Jail.

Later that evening while in the Lowndes County jail, correctional officers found Williams jerking violently on the floor of his cell experiencing a seizure. Medical staff treated Williams and monitored him throughout the evening.

The following morning he was found unconscious and was pronounced dead at the South Georgia Medical Center. The autopsy determined that Williams died as a result of complications arising from a large subdural hematoma, which was sustained as a result of blunt-force head trauma. The examination did not reveal any evidence of other significant or life-threatening trauma. Dr. Anthony Clark, who conducted the autopsy, concluded that the head trauma was consistent with the witness accounts of the fall at the arrest scene and that brain atrophy and liver disease caused by chronic alcoholism significantly contributed to Williams' death.

In evaluating the case, the Department of Justice consulted the autopsy report, physical evidence at the scene, including a video recording of the arrest from the deputy's vehicle, video footage from the jail booking room and more than fifty eyewitness accounts.

As a result of its investigation, the Department of Justice determined that the evidence was insufficient to contradict Deputy Farmer's claim that he pushed Williams to the ground in order to control him. Additionally, there was insufficient evidence that Williams was beaten at the jail, or that the actions or inactions of any correctional officer resulted in his death. Given that the evidence was insufficient to meet the rigorous requirements for a prosecution under the applicable federal statutes, the Department of Justice has determined that federal criminal civil rights charges are not warranted.

To bring federal criminal civil rights charges, the evidence must support the conclusion that the officers willfully deprived Williams of his constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force, and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officers acted with a bad purpose and with the specific intent to use force that they knew was unreasonable. In this case, the evidence was insufficient to establish these elements beyond a reasonable doubt.

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