Roger Christopher Williams Shooting: Family Want Answers From The LAPD

SOUTH L.A. (KTLA) -- Family members of Roger Williams are questioning if deadly force was necessary after Williams was shot and killed by police officers Thursday night.

Officers were stopping a pedestrian at the intersection of Raymond Avenue and Florence Avenue around 11 p.m. when Williams, 41, pulled his car over and brandished a handgun.

Officers said that Williams waved the gun at them, placed it on the top of his car, and began yelling obscenities at them.

Officers shot at Williams after they saw him reach for his waistband.

Watch the video and click HERE for the rest of the story.

 

Comments

[jollygoodtimer]

07:46 PM on 03/11/2011

Here is what I want you to do Chief Beck. The standards cannot share priority with loyalty to the individual cop. It can be lonely at the top when you have to be the regulator, especially with department veterans whose career has paralleled yours. Dig down right now and find your inner drill seargent, Chief Beck or delegate someone as your Great Santini. Some of your top people are long overdue for an objective evaluation, a finding of unsatisfactory and a trip to the woodshed - door left open for all to see and hear.
Do you have guts to do the following with the shooting of Mr. Williams and every subsequent OIS. A minute by minute compilation of the 7 to 10 days in the cop's life and the citizen's life leading up to the shooting event. Treat an OIS like an airplane that fell out of the sky. Maybe the cause of the crash seems obvious. We still perform the same meticulous reconstruction of everything which may have had the slightest influence. There is always something new to be learned. Bring in academics and professionals with wide and varying expertise. The decision to fire is a split second burst of human brain wave activity which has connections to the whole storehouse of experiences and perceptions. Someone could spend a lifetime studying just one incident. Set a goal of gaining a complete picture of life one week up to the crucial event. You can take credit for the idea.

[jollygoodtimer]

06:50 PM on 03/11/2011

There is one man who holds the key to our collective future in L.A. - LAPD Chief Charlie Beck.
What I want from Chief Beck starting right now is nothing short of a reincarnation. Chief Beck is very likable. Everybody likes Chief Beck. In the long run that will prove to be a disastrous trait in anyone attempting to lead the organization that is the LAPD. He constantly writes about and talks about maintaining standards and how the process must take priority over the numbers. Yet he seeks to act as parish priest and forgiver of all sins whenever a member of the flock wanders astray. The cop on the beat needs a defender. They need someone who sees through to the good inside no matter what. But that cannot be the chief of the department. Does Chief Beck believe that by offering blind loyalty that he is earning loyalty? I hope not, or Mrs. Beck needs to kick a wake up call in through the side door of his thick skull. Instead of inspiring pride in performance and energizing esprit de corps, Chief Beck is fertilizing complacency and preparing a harvest of mediocrity. This is not the train system or the waterworks, and Beck is not a tech guy anyway. LAPD is a human behavior, human communication and human motivation organization.
If they are not experimenting, evaluating, innovating and educating themselves on an individual and organizational level - then dry rot is weakening their fibers each day.

[jollygoodtimer]

06:19 PM on 03/11/2011

We can close our eyes and try to view these life and death incidents through a narrow tunnel, but not only will we miss an opportunity for insight and understanding but maybe even perpetuate misconceptions and possibly create brand new misunderstandings. I am pleading with the residents of Los Angeles and the entire LAPD organization to drop the swords and accusations and call a ceasefire on this man's death so we can all emerge from our trenches and take a true measure of where we are and where we want to end up. We know about the higher rates of alcoholism and divorce and suicide related to the stresses of police work. The policeman involved in this incident is probably undergoing his own personal and emotional crisis. If the public is going to hammer the police unrelentingly with monolithic accusations, then the department will circle the wagons and place the pandora's box of truths about that evening into a locked vault. The department will once again feel that to survive it must force the individual officers to repress the truth. In effect, they will be forced to deny their own creativity, their own vulnerability, their own individual spiritual brilliance. If that is how we will punish them, then we are in effect punishing ourselves. We will bear responsibility when the police begin hating the job they once loved and learn to stand numb and stonefaced while hooligans emerge from their wormholes to carry torches block to block afire.

[jollygoodtimer]

05:28 PM on 03/11/2011

We are told that Mr.Williams began yelling Obscenities at the police. I don't know what that means.I think I know what it means to use profanities in your speech. But the term "obscenities" carries a very severe connotation and is a very important part of this event, because the term "obscenities" is placed as a crucial fact in the explanation of circumstances leading the police to open fire on Mr.Williams - who is now deceased. Whoever seeks to undertake a comprehensive and useful investigation of this man's short path from the neighbor guy with four kids who lives across the street and works for the city street services dept to cold corpse on concrete in the street will need to have some clear insight into what exactly the police thought they heard this man say to them before they opened fire.

[jollygoodtimer]

05:15 PM on 03/11/2011

We are told that he was waving or brandishing a gun before placing it on the roof of his car.
Now lets say for example that he is pulled over by the cops. They ask him if he has any weapons in the car and he answers "yes, I have my revolver laying in my lap for self-defense when i get home - i live in a dangerous neighborhood and it is late at night." The police then say we need you to step backwards out of your car and pick up your revolver by the barrel end and raise it up away from your body so that we can see it and raise it high over your head and then bring it down slowly and place it on the roof of the car.
I am not suggesting that this is what happened the night Mr.Williams was shot and killed by the LAPD. I don't know what happened. I am suggesting the description of events cannot so easily allow us to reach a conclusion about what happened and why. If we don't make the effort to really understand what happened and why then we will have passed up a chance for a tragedy to become the starting point of a renaissance.

[jollygoodtimer]

04:59 PM on 03/11/2011

One way to look at the description of Mr. Williams actions points right in the direction of trying to provoke a "suicide by cop". We have been told that he is age 40 and works for the city of L.A. and has four children. The City of Los Angeles has been going through mandatory work furloughs and forced layoffs due to severe budget problems. A guy in his 40's who supports children and may be facing layoff from a decent paying city job would be in a depressing situation. Lets say that he was feeling extremely vulnerable in his personal life and that his girlfriend had dumped him for another guy the day before and that he had already been pulled over by the cops earlier the same day and got a $450 ticket that he technically deserved but was nitpicky and now he probably won't make rent or pay his car insurance on time and lets say that he went a had a couple of beers. Now we can possibly understand how a decent man with a decent reputation might find himself acting in an agitated, reckless and provocative manner one evening. This does not justify his behavior, but we need to understand what happened here from both sides. I said that his actions fit an attempt to provoke a "suicide by cop", but I also believe that his actions had not yet reached the point of explaining or justifying why police opened fire at him.

[Jill1975]

12:39 PM on 03/07/2011

The fact that he did not have a gun or other weapon in his waistband suggests the cops lied when they said they saw him reach into his waistband.

[iuriggs6]

03:55 PM on 03/07/2011

You know this how?

[Jane Holowicki]

03:00 AM on 03/09/2011

I do for sure (cuz i was there).. after he was killed he was found to be unarmed

[yetiwatcher]

05:42 AM on 03/07/2011

yeah right,
that's the classic "ham sandwich"

[Ron Diaz]

03:07 AM on 03/07/2011

So don't get cocky with the police when your in possession of a hand gun?
Got It!

[yetiwatcher]

05:43 AM on 03/07/2011

I no longer believe officer accounts of incidents.
I would not assume the cops version of this or any other story to be factually correct w/o independent confirmation.

[Jane Holowicki]

12:13 AM on 03/07/2011

I think I should clear things up as I was actually there that night....he was not driving by but was pulled over...he was also intoxicated...from what I saw he did not seem to have a gun but a beer can but maybe the lapd saw something I didn't any way..did they really feel so threatened that 2 trained cops couldn't take down 1 intoxicated person? (who they later found was unarmed and chose to handcuff him after he was killed...uncanny right)im sorry but the arguments here seem to say that when a police officer has an overactive imagination it gives him the right to go in for the kill, multiple times mind u....in the upper torso area...not in my book... maybe the leg and once at that....think ppl think...

[mashableforce]

06:36 PM on 03/06/2011

This guy had some "problems" and WANTED trouble! A pedestrian gets stopped by the police and he pulls over and starts to wave his guy at the police. A normal person wouldn't behave like that!

Also, if he was a white person, nobody would care about this incident, since he is white and a member of a majority race. Many believe that he was killed only because he was black. That might be the reason, I don't know.

Whenever a black person gets killed by a white police officer, every black person says he was shot "only because he was black." Blacks always pull out the race card. And they always forget to look at the facts.

If things continue like this, in a couple years it will be illegal for white police officers to arrest a black person, only because he is a minority!

[medic628]

04:47 PM on 03/06/2011

Another reaching for the waistband? Or is this the beginning of open season?

[jcarterla]

04:17 PM on 03/06/2011

I am usually on the side of the shooting victims, but this seems like an erratic man who involved himself for no reason. I can see why the police acted in the manner that they did.

[deleweye]

10:37 PM on 03/05/2011

The cops see him put the gun on top of the car, so they obviously see it laying there. Then they shoot him when he reached for his waistband, so they must have concluded that he had another gun there that he'd rather use to shoot at them. While that may be possible, it seems unlikely enough that they might have held off on killing him until they actually saw that second gun. Or is it more likely they just shot him anyway since they figured they could get away with one more?

[dbrett480]

12:28 AM on 03/06/2011

The most likely thing is that Williams didn't comply with the officers instructions to put his hands on his head and step back. When he reached for his waistband (after already displaying one gun), they cops naturally thought he might be going for a second weapon. It is very unnerving for anyone, law enforcement included, to be faced with a person waving a weapon and shouting at you. When he doesn't comply with your lawful orders your options are limited. The cops' sole goal is to go home safely to their families.

[deleweye]

02:56 AM on 03/06/2011

"Not complying..." is not a capital offense - and one of my major irritations with your younger generation is that they get way too much into giving orders and expecting civilians to jump to it. In my culture a citizen - much less a gentleman - is not ordered about by the help. If you find that arrogant, imagine that attitude coming from a twenty-five-year-old punk who's allowed to carry a gun and use it with very few questions asked. And before you play that card, I have had guns pulled in my face, and found early on that I get very calm and extremely aware of what is happening. In truth, most street cops I've known act more paranoid than I would have expected - as though they know better than we do how many reasons they give civilians for hating them. That's even more the case with minorities and special units. If going home is your sole goal and you're willing to kill anyone who doesn't respond exactly according to procedure to do it, then I strongly suggest you turn in your guns - including throw-downs - and just stay home to begin with. It will be a lot safer for all of us.

[Jane Holowicki]

10:59 AM on 03/07/2011

i love how this report failed to say that williams was shot more than once in the upper torso area...again two officers..."one angry driver"...does it really makes sense to shoot more than once in a place less fatal? what happened to the pedestrian?....oh right there wasn't one...considering they didn't get a first account from him of what happened...he should've still been at the scene...somewhere....it seems they let any trigger happy person into the law enforcement these days:(

[TheFabOne]

09:05 PM on 03/05/2011

Another murdered minority for the LAPD to conjure up an explanation for.

Pretty soon, the LAPD will run out of excuses.

Then, it's on.

[deleweye]

11:09 PM on 03/05/2011

Why would they need to come up with new excuses when they're still getting away with the same two or three they've always used?

[TheFabOne]

11:21 PM on 03/05/2011

Good point.

[dbrett480]

12:29 AM on 03/06/2011

This isn't a race issue. I'm an African-American cop and in a similar situation the only thing I am looking at is a guy waving a gun. I don't care what race he is. Also the LAPD is becoming more and more diverse so the odds are one of the officers involved was also a minority.

[TheFabOne]

10:09 AM on 03/06/2011

I'm glad the LAPD is becoming more diverse. But their victims always manage to be the same color.

Now when some Hollywood starlets who steal $2500 necklaces start getting shot or getting locked up for time like regular folks do, I'll believe it.