Cops Taunted Veteran as He Died

Cops Taunted Veteran as He Died

Elliott Williams spent the last five days of his life in a Tulsa County jail, paralyzed and lying on the cold concrete floor. But despite the 37-year-old Oklahoma man’s pleas for help, guards did nothing to save him, a lawsuit claims. At one point, jailers dumped Williams’s limp body into a shower and left him there for an hour. The dying inmate “would not stand up but we did give him a shower anyway,” a captain later testified, according to a sheriff’s office internal report. Another officer saw Williams face down in the shower, screaming, “Help me!” according to the internal report. In the days that followed, Williams’s father tried in vain to contact his son. He was denied visitation “because of Elliott’s condition.” “He’s acting like he’s paralyzed, but we know he’s not,” a mental-health worker told Williams’s dad, court papers allege. Detention officers, nurses and even a jail psychiatrist accused Williams of “faking” an illness. His family says they declined to administer medical care or transport Williams to a hospital—until it was too late. Cops arrested the Army vet, who had a history of mental illness, at a Marriott hotel on Oct. 21, 2011. Hotel staff called the cops after Williams, who was with his parents, appeared to have a mental breakdown in the lobby. At the time, his only alleged crime was misdemeanor obstruction. But he paid with his life. “This guy went almost six days and never got taken to the hospital with a broken neck,” Daniel Smolen, an attorney for Williams’s family, told The Daily Beast. “They’re throwing food at him and making fun of him in the cell while he’s going through a horrific death. You wouldn’t do that to an animal or any living thing.”
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Note I edited the original title because Iam not certain to what extent this has a racial angle, however it is notable that this was the same dept that had a black suspect bleed out as he was shot by

volunteer deputy, 74-year-old Robert Bates, fatally shot an unarmed black man at close range after mistaking his gun for a Taser.

last year, there seems to be extreme callousness on the part of some P.D why wasn't the appropriate mental case worker or institution called in , a man acting up making noise about suicide is a big red flag that should have set things off in the right direction , how the hell they are going to make that judgment about him faking when they are not qualified, this has happened all too often the top cop should be removed immediately.

a reply to: Spider879

This is an utter disgrace.

This man should have been treated, not caged like an animal and made an object of amusement. People need to go to jail over this. Veteran or not, no one should be subjected to such treatment at the hands of enforcers of the law. What difference, truly, can there be between criminal and agent of the law, if this is the best one can expect from appendages of the justice system?

I am disgusted, absolutely disgusted.

a reply to: Spider879

When he was arrested he walked in I am guessing. Otherwise they would have known he was already paralyzed? How he did get injured in jail? Something is't being told here.

I would say something silly to mock the USA for what a tyrannical police state its be comeing but I'm tired and this is just sad .

That guys death way vile and awfull.

originally posted by: LifeisGrand
a reply to: Spider879

When he was arrested he walked in I am guessing. Otherwise they would have known he was already paralyzed? How he did get injured in jail? Something is't being told here.

I took from it either a injury was caused during arrest of as a action as part of his breakdown.

With back injurys they can take a while to manifest especially if it down to inflammation or discs.

a reply to: LifeisGrand

It's all in the article.

When Williams arrived to the county jail’s booking area in the early morning of Oct. 22, Owasso officer Jack Wells slammed him to the floor while trying to handcuff him, according to the cop's own interview with OSBI. Officer Wells told OSBI he “landed on top of Elliott’s shoulder and head,” but that the prisoner “appeared to be fine with no injuries.”

Still, the Tulsa sheriff office’s appeared to disagree. In an internal report, the sheriff’s department says Williams struggled after the fall, and that his condition was captured on booking cameras. “At this time it is obvious that Williams is having a difficult time standing,” the document stated.

Sheriff Glanz himself later testified that his investigators, after watching surveillance video, were concerned Williams had broken his neck.

a reply to: crazyewok

It's not just police, nurses and psychiatrists all dismissed him.

Just a complete and utter failure of the system.

a reply to: Spider879
Horrifying. To think that a man who fought, likely with the interests of freedom and the feelings of patriotism in his heart, should be left to a demise unfit for any organism, let alone a person and let alone a person who fought for their country.

We all know nothing will come of this. It will follow the usual pattern, with none of the cops losing their jobs or facing any type of charges. The dept will lose the suit, taxpayers foot the bill and the cops go right back to what they were doing. Their huddled, gang mentality doesn't surprise me at all any more. We've seen them lie, kill, falsify reports, smash phones and cameras to hide their wrongdoings. They claim their job is so dangerous they need to shoot 5 lb dogs and unarmed people like they were paper targets, just so they can "Go home at night".
The largest, most dangerous gang in America wears a badge.
Many people may get the impression I am anti cop. That is not it at all. I am anti abuse of power. I hold the same disgust for anyone who abuses the authority of their position.
ETA - That "trained" mental health workers dismissed him as pretending is beyond words. I honestly believe that anyone involved in this should be fired and face charges along with serious jail time. How many others have they treated like this and got away with it, because the people feared retribution? This is not an isolated incident, it just happens to be the one time they got caught.

a reply to: Spider879

According to the article he was physically fine until he repeatedly banged his head against something after coming completely unhinged.
Though the incompetance of the sheriff's office and medical staff is staggering.
If he had a history of mental illness, he should have went directly to mental health and immediately sedated instead of taken to county jail.

a reply to: Spider879

“This guy went almost six days and never got taken to the hospital with a broken neck,” Daniel Smolen, an attorney for Williams’s family, told The Daily Beast. “They’re throwing food at him and making fun of him in the cell while he’s going through a horrific death. You wouldn’t do that to an animal or any living thing.”

How'd he get a broken neck, again?

Sounds like they needed him to die to save the embarrassment of people asking questions. It just took longer than they thought it would, raising even more questions.

Not that they care. I'll tell one way people become this insensitive to others, They do a stint in the US military in a combat zone. Anyone see HBO special Only the dead see the end of war? In the end they shoot a guy who doesn't die right away, and they stand around, waiting, refusing him medical attention…

a reply to: Spider879

I've long said that American police departments need to be kept on an extremely tight leash and monitored pretty much 24/7. Why do I say this? Because standards across the US are pathetic, training has been appalling, monitoring has been almost non-existent.

The psychological aspect of this is well known. There are numerous studies out there which prove, absolutely, without a shadow of doubt, that when you put a collection of Humans in a position of power over others, many of them become psychopaths and abusers - this is fed by a tribal mentality amongst that community of people, like police officers, who have a well known history of protecting themselves first, protecting each other second, and doing their jobs last.

The most famous study was conducted at a University in the 70's. A psychology study was attempting to prove collective and developed psychopathy in normal average everyday people. They split a group of students into two - prison guards and inmates.

The guards were given certain authority to inflict punishments, such as less food, less time out of cells etc. Within days it became clear that the psychology of both groups had drastically changed. The inmates became withdrawn and quiet, scared, some became extremely angry at the injustice of the situation.

The guards, most interestingly, became psychotic in their treatment of the inmates. They formed a club, where specific inmates were picked as targets for abuse, they lied to each other about what the inmates had done on their shift to encourage abuse from their colleagues, they became physically and emotionally abusive, it got worse and worse until the department had to pull the plug on the experiment because they feared murder or suicide.

All the participants were psychology students, they were all peers, all equal, but after only a short time they divided into abuser and victim.

Everyone needed psychological help after this experiment and most of them never talked about the experience, these people were traumatized by what they had done.

We know this happens, and yet we do nothing about it. I have no doubt at all that the same thing happened to this man. This is about a group of people in a position of power who have lost their Humanity, they have become psychopaths, they've become a close-knit group of abusers protecting each other while preying on their victims, who are delivered to them by law.

This is why there are so many problems in police departments all over the US. These people are not accountable to anyone but each other, and they have a clan mentality where protecting each other from the law and from consequences is their first priority.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you need national standards in policing from employment to screening to evaluation every six months. You need standard practices and standard procedures across every state. Most of all, you need a proper Police Complaints procedure run by members of the public who are charged with asserting guilt and punishment, and when a problem like this affects everyone in a department, that department needs to be ripped apart and replaced by something else.

And finally, you need to change public perception in the US and educate people about what police are there for. No police officer is responsible for asserting guilt, no police officer is responsible for delivering punishment of any kind, and no police officer should have the ability to treat anyone in their custody differently from anyone else. Police officers have three things to do and that's all:

1. Prevent crime.
2. Arrest those SUSPECTED of a crime.
3. Deliver those SUSPECTED of a crime to the relevant courts - safely and with respect.

That's it, that's all, it's not hard. Somehow, the American public has allowed Police officers to become Judge Dredd, where shooting someone to death is okay if you personally think they look like a criminal, or might have done something illegal once, or is just black (and therefore a "thug" obviously deserving of execution in the street). The American people have allowed all of this to happen because they gave their police far too much authority, far too much power, and absolutely ZERO oversight or accountability.

As you can tell, all of this makes me damn angry, and I get even angrier when I see that nothing is changing, nothing real has been done, the US government made a pathetically weak statement once about changing things, and so far f*ck all seems to have happened. The US government should have already passed measures to keep police departments in line, and those that reject those measures should be torn apart and replaced by new officers who have had adequate training.

Sheriff Glanz himself later testified that his investigators, after watching surveillance video, were concerned Williams had broken his neck.

Gotta love how the police speak and think.

"Williams had broken his neck"?

Reality is one of their officers had broken Williams neck.

Was there some kind of RoboCop upgrade that went bad a few years back?

a reply to: Rocker2013

Well said. Damn well said

a reply to: Spider879

This rot has to stop; name and shame all involved.

The offenders and the pathetic bystanders should have the book thrown at them. If it wasn't for Richard Craniums like these then there would be more respect for the system. I feel for the good cops who are being chastised because a few numbskulls in their profession that think they are their own judge jury and executioner.

And as for the Mental health workers? effing shameful. I know first hand how negligent and ignorant some mental health workers can be at times, my aunt is a shrink and she would be ashamed that she shared the same profession as these #@#$!.

a reply to: Spider879

Just something that SHOULD be also mentioned in this article?

Tulsa County Jail is a private corporation prison!!!!!!


PRIVATE JAILS IN OKLAHOMA: AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL DELEGATION OF LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY



I find it disgusting that the MSM seems to always omit the fact that many of these incidents happen in Corporate run prisons......

Although the source is not MSM usually the MSM won't even report on this kind of abuse of Human Rights..

a reply to: Rocker2013

The Stanford Prison experiment is relatively common knowledge here in the states. Everyone knows about it. Many believe its results were an aberration because 1) it was a liberal school, 2) because of the socioeconomic background(s) of the students involved, or 3) because we have all somehow become "weak."

The last is the most interesting response. The implication is that "some people" "deserve" to be tortured or mistreated and that such behavior is not only reasonable, but "right" in the context of "certain crimes." No one is sure where the line is, but everyone feels like they can spot it if they need to.

There is a veneer of civility, painted over the surface of western culture which pretends the moral high ground, while acting out in ways that are just as barbaric as the savages we pretend to fight. That veneer can be scraped off rather easily, with the proper application of stress, fear or pain.

Does everyone respond this way? Almost certainly. The threshold or tolerance for stress, fear or pain varies, but everyone is susceptible to human nature. This is why those with the most authority require the most oversight and supervision. The exact opposite of how we actually monitor each other.

"The biggest gang I know they call the government. And the gang is the weapon that you trade your mind in for."

a reply to: Rocker2013

You need standard practices and standard procedures across every state. Most of all, you need a proper Police Complaints procedure run by members of the public who are charged with asserting guilt and punishment, and when a problem like this affects everyone in a department, that department needs to be ripped apart and replaced by something else.

Well just march into that prison and inflict better standards. In the police, courts, judges, lawyers, law makers, prisons, guards…?

You'd need an army and then that army would abuse everyones rights, given the ultimately corruptible power as you describe.

Tear it all up and rebuild, huh? Form new organizations with even more rigorous procedures and standards…

Nice, but unsure how you plan to carry this out.

Maybe muster the National Guard?

originally posted by: 0zzymand0s
The last is the most interesting response. The implication is that "some people" "deserve" to be tortured or mistreated and that such behavior is not only reasonable, but "right" in the context of "certain crimes." No one is sure where the line is, but everyone feels like they can spot it if they need to.

Absolutely right, we even see it here on regular occasions. And you bring up politics in an interesting way too, I've found that it's generally Conservatives who preach the same disregard for due process as it suits, labelling black victims of Police brutality as "thugs", going through elaborate attempts to paint the victim as the criminal based on usually nothing more than an image they deem to be "immoral" or indicative of an entire persons lifestyle.

Forget the fact that millions of Conservatives take photos of themselves holding weapons and post them on Facebook, if you're black and do that you're a "thug" seemingly deserving of execution for a petty crime.

originally posted by: intrptr
Well just march into that prison and inflict better standards. In the police, courts, judges, lawyers, law makers, prisons, guards…?

In the police departments, yes.
You seem to imagine that this would require an end to all policing across the US. Not every state is as pathetically poor in standards as this one.
One police department being wiped out and replaced is not an impossibility. In fact, it's absolutely possible. Transfer one senior officer from another department and give them a team of fully trained officers who have been actually trained to a reasonable standard - something they should be doing anyway.

originally posted by: intrptr
You'd need an army and then that army would abuse everyones rights, given the ultimately corruptible power as you describe.

No, wouldn't need an army, you'd just need a police department comprised of officers who have actually been properly trained to a recognized standard rather than men who get off on wearing a uniform and making people submit to them, career cops who are more interested in protecting themselves and their colleagues than upholding the law and doing their jobs to an adequate standard.

When you implement appropriate training you soon have a whole raft of new recruits who would inevitably be more professional than the rotten corrupt club of old racists, bigots and men with daddy issues you just got rid of.

originally posted by: intrptr
Tear it all up and rebuild, huh? Form new organizations with even more rigorous procedures and standards…

Yes. I fail to see why you think having ADEQUATE STANDARDS in policing is such a disgraceful proposition.

originally posted by: intrptr
Nice, but unsure how you plan to carry this out.

Maybe muster the National Guard?

Here's how...

1. You change the recruiting process to include thorough psychological evaluation on a national level of standards. Anyone found to be unsuitable doesn't get past the first stage.
2. You pick out the real leaders who expressed a clear understanding of Policing and their responsibilities during training, and you offer them more pay to move to an area where they will likely have the opportunity to rise through the ranks more quickly.
3. You offer someone with an exemplary record the opportunity to be promoted from another region to lead this new department.

Job done.
You seem to think I'm talking about an end to policing across the country, or at least that's what you seem to want to imply I suggested.
That's not what I said, go back and read the post again.