by Bracken Mayo

“I’m not a drunk[en] cop fighter, but that’s the story they have to tell to justify what they did,” Adam Williams tells the Murfreesboro Pulse.

It has been a year and a half since the morning Williams emerged from the Rutherford County Jail bruised, battered and broken.

His misadventure began on the Murfreesboro Public Square on a summer night in 2012 as Williams and his brother, Jared, exited Social nightclub (an establishment located on North Church Street, which has since closed).

Williams said he saw another individual urinate on the sidewalk nearby as he was hanging out on the Square.

Social’s head of security approached Williams, thinking he was the one who had relieved himself right out in the open.

Williams maintained that the security guard had the wrong guy, he did not urinate on the sidewalk. But the situation escalated from there.

The security guard motioned over some police officers near the courthouse.

“They closed in on me in a semicircle,” Williams said. “I asked three or four times if I were being detained or if I were free to go, and no one would answer me.

“Finally, the bicycle cop told me ‘You ain’t being detained, buddy. You can go anytime you want,’” Williams said. He asked to talk with a supervisor, and Keith Sanders identified himself as the “@#$% supervisor.”

About to turn and go home, Williams said, “You’ll hear about this tomorrow”—the words that would drastically affect the next couple of years of his life. He admits he was upset by that time; he could have kept his mouth shut, but even if he was getting smart with the officers, that didn’t justify what happened next.

“He (Sgt. Sanders) grabbed me by the wrist and said, ‘That’s it,’” Williams said. “He didn’t say I was under arrest, he didn’t read me my rights. He said, ‘That’s it.’”

That’s when, according to Williams, he was tackled and beaten; one of the Murfreesboro Police officers speared him, Goldberg-style, he said, followed by the others piling on top of him, pinning him to the ground and delivering blows to the head.

Williams said he knew better than to try and fight back.

“I went straight activist when I hit the ground, totally limp, I yelled, ‘Why are you hitting me?’” Williams said. “I was making a scene, but it was very much a pacifist scene.”

Williams ended up with not only a black eye, torn shirt and broken wrist, but also pepper spray in his face as he found himself in the back of the police car on the way to jail.

“It was all 6 or 7 minutes, from when that bouncer accused us of urinating on the wall to when I was in the back of the car on the way to 940.”

Sanders later said that “It was obvious to me he was intoxicated . . . He was being unreasonable, he was being belligerent in public.” Sanders wrote in his arrest report that “Mr. Williams was taken off his feet to effect the arrest. . . . He was a danger to himself and others.”

Williams faces charges of simple assault, resisting arrest and public intoxication, with the next court date coming up in January.

The morning after the arrest, after being further brutalized by a jailer, Williams said he admitted himself to the hospital to treat his broken wrist and other injuries.

Williams said the brutality, and the charges, are ridiculous.

“The only offer I will take is a retirement (of the charges),” Williams said.

However, the police department and other witnesses have a slightly different version of what transpired that night on the Square.

MPD Sgt. Craig Snider addressed Williams’ concerns in October 2012.

According to his interviews with the officers and witnesses, Williams continued cussing, shouting, being argumentative and aggressive and causing a scene after being repeatedly told he could leave.

Ray Lane, the head of security at Social at the time, went so far to say Williams was taunting the officers, that he was “combative toward them and highly intoxicated.”

Snider’s reports said the officers gave Williams numerous opportunities to leave the area. Only after his cussing and shouting escalated did they place him under arrest; only after Williams pushed Sgt. Sanders in the shoulder did the officers take him to the ground.

Williams “continued to resist all the way to the patrol car,” according to the reports.

One witness said Williams was “shaking around in protest” and that he would characterize his actions as resisting arrest.

Officer White stated that while they were attempting to place Williams’ hands in handcuffs, he laid on top of his hands; Officer Harris did deliver two strikes to the side of Williams head in an attempt to get him to comply.

Once the handcuffs were on, Williams then went limp, according to the report, and the police officers had to drag him to the car.

After he was finally seated in the back of the car, witnesses then say Williams repeatedly smashed his own head against the window and cage of the police car while in the back.

According to police reports, Williams continued to be aggressive and combative after arriving at the jail. He continued to struggle, yell and curse as deputies Matthew Arrington and Hailey Stone attempted to escort him into booking.

“The injuries you sustained were a direct result of your own actions. By not leaving the area and cussing at the officers, you created a hostile environment. At the time of your arrest, witnesses stated you were actively resisting the officers’ attempts to take you into custody. These actions led to the officers’ force against you to accomplish the arrest,” Sgt. Snider concluded. “I do not find that your rights were violated, nor do I find that the officers used excessive force in taking you into custody.”

At any rate, while the matter of the criminal charges is pending, Williams filed suit in U.S. District Court against the Murfreesboro Police Department, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, the four individuals involved in the altercation on the Square—Keith Sanders, Richard Presley, Kenneth White and Timothy “Shane” Harris—plus the member of the sheriff’s department whom Williams said slammed his head on a door while at the jail. Williams has serious problems with the way the whole incident was handled (and the way law enforcement agencies are conducting themselves across the nation); for one, there is no reason for the police to beat a restrained person.

The law enforcement officers used excessive force in detaining Williams that night in July 2012, the suit claims.

“Such physical force under the circumstances was reckless and subsequent striking in the face was willful, wanton, intentional and malicious,” Williams’ lawsuit states.

He was restrained in the car where he could not be a physical threat to the officers when he was pepper-sprayed.

Secondly: “The officer’s audio-visual recording devices were disabled, in violation of MPD policy and requirements,” the lawsuit continues.

There is, however, video footage of the sheriff’s officer slamming Williams’ head at the jail.

Furthermore, on the night in question, Williams maintains he was not even impaired or intoxicated, and was given no tests to prove otherwise, other than Sgt. Sanders’ judgment, who reported Williams as being “extremely intoxicated,” observing his “glassy” eyes.

“I’m out an estimated $10,000 at this point,” Williams said. “Bond, lawyer fees, lost work, hospital bills. It cost me a good job” (when a company refused to hire him after discovering the pending charges).

Plus, the idea of the Murfreesboro Police investigating themselves and determining they have done nothing wrong is a miscarriage of justice, Williams said.

“I would love citizen reviews, body cameras (on all officers),” Williams said.

The city has ramped up police presence on the Square on weekend nights to the point that “they’re not going to sit out there all night and not arrest anyone,” he continued.

“It’s not the first time Kenneth White has messed with audio. . . . He was the one who beat that firefighter up; it’s not the first time Sanders has grabbed someone,” Williams said. “Another girl just got her ass kicked.”

Rather than seeing the police pitted against the public, Williams said he wants law enforcement and the people of Rutherford County to exist in harmony, for the public to help out the police, the police to act in a way that is worthy of respect, and for this trend of the U.S. turning into an authoritarian police state come to an end.

“It’s about my kids not growing up in a society like this,” Williams said.