RALEIGH, N.C. — Civil rights attorney Ben Crump demanded Thursday that “swift justice be taken” and that the Raleigh police officers who tased Darryl “Tyree” Williams be fired and charged with manslaughter.
Williams, a 32-year-old Black man, died in police custody on Jan. 17. His family announced earlier this week it had hired Crump's law firm in the case.
Officers used a stun gun on Williams three times while trying to arrest him for alleged drug possession while they patrolled outside a sweepstakes parlor on Rock Quarry Road.
He died shortly afterward. His cause of death and whether the multiple shocks from officers’ Tasers played a part in it have not yet been officially determined.
“We are here in the capital of our home state, here in Raleigh, North Carolina, fighting for justice for Darryl Tyree Williams,” said Crump. “We come here to disturb the peace and the fact that we don’t want everybody to sleep comfortable saying we can just kill Black people unnecessarily and unjustifiably.”
Crump spoke at a news conference standing with the Williams family and Raleigh-based Emancipate NC, a police accountability group, at Mount Peace Baptist Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, around the corner from Williams' encounter with police.
“I am recalling what Martin Luther King said about what true peace is. ... It is not the absence of tension, but it is the presence of justice,” Crump said. “How can we have peace in North Carolina until we have justice for Darryl Tyree Williams?”
With his left arm over Sonya Williams’ shoulder, Crump denounced the officers’ actions on Jan. 17, as an image of her son was projected on the screens behind them in the church sanctuary.
Crump criticized police for overpolicing southeast Raleigh and said Williams’ Fourth Amendment rights were violated when officers approached Williams to search him as he sat in his car.
“We don’t see them going into white neighborhoods with this ‘proactive policing,’” he said.
“A second Tyree” in Memphis
Crump said there was “a second Tyree” in Memphis, Tennessee, where a special police unit was seen in footage from Jan. 7 beating 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, who died from his injuries. Ben Crump Law is also representing the Nichols family.
“The man said, ‘I’ve got heart problems.’ He begged (police) to stop,” said Crump, returning to Williams. “The people who was supposed to (hear) his cries the most made it fall on deaf ears when they tased him again.”
At one point during the news conference, Sonya Williams had to sit down and grab tissues.
“When you have willful and reckless regard for human life or safety isn’t that the very definition of manslaughter?” Crump said.
Asked about her son, Sonya Williams said Darryl was her firstborn and only son, and a loving person who “didn’t bother anyone.”
“He was a good boy,” she said, wearing a T-shirt with images of him. “He wasn’t perfect, but he was my son. He shouldn’t be dead, and I want justice.”
“What matters is from the moment the encounter happened, until the death occurred in the video, is that it gives us a wonderful opportunity to deal in the land of unrefuted facts,” said attorney Ken Abbarno, one of the lawyers on the case. “Nobody can accuse this legal team of making up any facts.”
A wreath after the conference
After the news conference, people marched down Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard toward Rock Quarry Road where a vigil was held.
Family members and others laid flowers and a wreath in the parking lot where Williams was arrested. Sonya Williams held a bouquet of flowers. She sobbed as she embraced Zayvien Williams, one of her children.
“We’re gathered here during Black History Month,” said the Rev. Gregory Drumwright of Alamance County. “For history that we’re tired of making.”
People there sang “Oh, Freedom,” a post-Civil War African American freedom song associated with the Civil Rights Movement.
What happened to Darryl Williams?
Raleigh police officers approached Williams around 1:55 a.m. while conducting “proactive patrols” of businesses in the 800 block of Rock Quarry Road.
Police struggled to arrest Williams after an officer found a substance that looked like cocaine inside a folded dollar bill in his pocket, according to a police report and body camera video.
Police say Williams resisted arrest and pulled away from officers’ grasps before he was first tased. Body camera footage released last week by the city of Raleigh shows Williams telling officers he has heart problems during the incident.
He was tased once but got up and ran a short distance until he stumbled and fell, the footage shows. He was tased a second time after not complying with orders to put his hands behind his back.
The officers used the drive-stun mode of the Taser twice on Williams, police said in a report.
The mode sets the Taser to give a more powerful shock when pressed against the body.
“I have heart problems. Please ... please. Please!” he cried out.
“Three, two, one,” an officer said simultaneously in the footage. Williams screams in pain as officers use the Taser on him a third and final time, after which he falls silent, handcuffed and unresponsive on the ground.
Six police officers are on administrative leave while police and the State Bureau of Investigation review the incident
“The investigations are ongoing, will be thorough, and will follow the available facts and evidence wherever they lead,” Lt. Jason Borneo of the Raleigh Police Department said in an email.
Police are conducting a separate investigation into “the actions of Mr. Williams,” and there is an internal investigation into the six officers involved. That investigation will be reviewed by command staff, Borneo said.
The state’s investigation is ongoing, and an autopsy report hasn’t yet been completed, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told The News & Observer on Wednesday.
An autopsy report after a law enforcement-related death may take the office of the medical examiner several months to complete.
Freeman will eventually decide whether the officers acted lawfully.
North Carolina native Ben Crump
Crump, who was born in Lumberton, has worked on multiple high-profile cases involving hate crimes and police killings of Black people across the country.
Crump has represented the family of George Floyd, the 46-year-old Black man who was murdered by Minneapolis police officers in 2020. He is also representing the family of Nichols, the man beaten by Memphis police officers on Jan. 7 who died from his injuries.
In North Carolina, Crump represented the family of Andrew Brown, who was fatally shot by police in Elizabeth City in 2021, and the family of Jason Walker, who was killed by an off-duty Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy in January 2022.
———
