Mother of teen injured during 2017 encounter with Troy police files federal lawsuit

Kirsten Fiscus | Montgomery Advertiser

The mother of a teen who says he was severely beaten by Troy police two days before Christmas in 2017 has filed a federal lawsuit against the five officers who were allegedly there at the time of the incident.

Angela Williams, in a news conference with attorney Julian McPhillips, said her then 17-year-old son Ulysses Wilkerson had at least one hand bound in handcuffs when officers kicked her son in the face, using excessive force for what ultimately resulted in two misdemeanor offenses.

None of the officers were charged in the incident.

The lawsuit comes after months of trying to get video and audio evidence from the incident.

"I've tried every way to get it but guess what, it's stonewall, stonewall, stonewall by the Troy law enforcement community including the policemen," McPhillips said. "If they could show us he was, you know, causing it all or fighting at all then you know we probably never would have pursued this case."

Williams, during the conference, said her ultimate goal is to keep this from happening to anyone else's child.

"On December the 23rd 2017, my 17-year-old disabled son was severely beaten by a few Troy Police Department officers because he was a black young male walking late at night," she said. "If the beating was justified, why not show the bodycam or dashcam videos? I'm fighting for all mothers who have to go through this because if we stop it now we won't have to worry about them doing it to someone else."

Wilkerson was walking behind a downtown business in the city of Troy when he was startled by police that night. He ran from the officers and when police caught up to him, they beat him, the family said.

Williams, shortly after the incident, posted a photograph of her son's bruised and bloodied face on Facebook which garnered national attention. In the picture, the left side of his face is engorged from his eye socket down to his jaw line. The swelling spread across his nose where dried blood remained.

Pike County District Attorney Tom Anderson said shortly after the incident that officers used force after Wilkerson reached into his waistband for what they feared might be a weapon.

Wilkerson was charged with two misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and obstructing governmental operations. He was adjudicated of those charges in juvenile court, which sealed his records from public view.

In May, McPhillips filed a petition in Montgomery County for "pre-litigation discovery" on behalf of Williams naming the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, Troy police Chief Randall Barr and Anderson.

McPhillips argued that documents, photographs, audio and video recordings should be made available to determine the viability of a lawsuit.

An attorney for ALEA argued the petition was filed improperly, claiming Williams could not be a petitioner as her son was now over the age of majority and also that it should have been filed in Pike County where the alleged incident took place.

The case was ultimately moved to Pike County and Wilkerson was added to the petition, but McPhillips argued his mother still had a right to be on the filing as she was responsible for his medical costs at the time of the incident.

The petition, once it was transferred to Pike County added the five officers now named in the federal suit — Brandon Hicks, Barry Rodgers, Jason Barron, Brandon Kirkland and Michael Watts.

A process server, sent to serve notice of the filing to the officers, dropped them off with a woman working a temporary assignment as a receptionist at City Hall. At the time of the filing, Hicks no longer worked with the Troy Police Department.

An attorney for the officers filed a motion to dismiss the petition on the grounds that the filings were never properly served to the named officers. Exhibits attached to the court record show that the woman, not the officers, signed the service records.

The petition was ultimately dismissed after McPhillips also filed a motion to dismiss the petition.

During the news conference McPhillips shrugged off the previous issues with discovery and whether the officers were properly served or not.

"There's been some issues of them, I hate to say it but, dodging service," he said. "But we don't yet know what they'll say is the status of that."

Without evidence from the incident, McPhillips and Williams are relying on Wilkerson's recollection to identify officers involved for the federal suit.

"We don't know for sure who did all the dirty work if you will, we think, one or more did, but we think all of them were there kind of supporting one another," McPhillips said.

"In the hospital we pulled up the Troy page and he just scrolled through pictures and pointed out officers he remembered," Williams said.

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Kirsten Fiscus at 334-318-1798 or KFiscus@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @KDFiscus