Civil rights groups calls for protests over Taser death

Southern Christian Leadership Conference president Charles Steele promised to “bring the whole world to Gwinnett County” after meeting with District Attorney Danny Porter and getting no commitment to reopen the case.

“We’re not going to take this behavior. It is racism,” said Steele, who has accused Porter of withholding evidence — including a videotape of the jolting — from a grand jury that investigated the death of 31-year-old Frederick Williams.

Williams died in May 2004 after deputies stunned him with a Taser gun five times within a minute while he was in jail.

The videotape of officers subduing Williams was so graphic that it was played on some local news programs with a warning. It shows a half-dozen deputies surrounding Williams and prodding him repeatedly with the gun, which delivers a 50,000-volt charge. The officers were trying to put a struggling Williams, locked in handcuffs and manacles, into a restraining chair.

As the electric volts ran through his body, Williams bucked and appeared to try to push himself out of the chair. Within minutes, he lost consciousness. He died two days later.

Porter presented the case to a grand jury April 27, but did not include the videotape. He said the grand jury, which did not return any indictments, did not want to see the video.

“The grand jury has the power to decide what they see and what they don’t see,” Porter said. “There is no legal mechanism to compel them to see what they don’t want to see.”

The videotape, he added, is only a small snippet of the reams of evidence involved in the investigation. “The tape doesn’t tell the tale. You have to take the whole investigation as a whole.”

Melvin Johnson, an attorney representing Williams’ widow, said Porter has had more than a year to decide whether to pursue charges against the deputies.

“This is personal. He is upset with the family,” Johnson said, adding that he will plans to file a wrongful death civil suit against the county.

Porter, who said he was still “willing to consider” taking another look at the case, denied racism was involved in the investigation. He said there was some disagreement between the SCLC and the NAACP on whether to convene a special grand jury or to wait until another regular county grand jury is impaneled in September.

Porter said he was waiting for a letter from the SCLC with more specifics and said once he got that he would respond within 10 days.

Gwinnett County police went to Williams’ home after a 911 call from his wife and 9-year-old son, who said Williams was “talking crazy” and that he had not taken his epilepsy medication.

If Porter decides a special grand jury should re-hear the case, it still requires a petition and a vote by Superior Court judges in the county. Porter could also wait for the county’s next regular grand jury panel to hear the case in September.