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GULFPORT -- The Sun Herald today makes public the videotaped beating of a Harrison County jail inmate whose death 18 months ago spawned a federal investigation and a growing list of civil lawsuits.
Until the recent trial of two former jailers, the graphic images of what happened under color of law to Jessie Lee Williams Jr. have been kept secret, sealed by a federal order. U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. made the video available in response to the Sun Herald's public records requests that related documents be unsealed and returned to the public domain.
Jurors in a nine-day trial ending Aug. 17 found former jailer Ryan Teel guilty of conspiring to deprive inmates' rights, using unnecessary, excessive force in Williams' fatal beating and obstructing justice by writing a false report. Williams, 40, of Gulfport, died of brain trauma from the assault of Feb. 4, 2006. Co-defendant Rick Gaston was acquitted of a conspiracy charge and of assaults involving different inmates.
The video has no sound and was recorded by booking-room surveillance cameras in a freeze-frame style, with a picture snapped every two or three seconds. The video didn't record every move, a fact Teel's attorney claimed could indicate Williams threw some punches or kicks at Teel. Witnesses at trial testified the assault on Williams was unprovoked.
The video shows Williams was brought in to booking at 10:30 p.m. and was pushed against the wall when he stepped away from the wall. His handcuffs were removed and he was standing at the booking counter, unrestrained, when Teel threw back a leg and thrust a forcible kick toward his stomach or chest area. Williams leaned back, attempting to avoid the blow.
At trial, Teel testified he kicked Williams because he failed to obey an order to keep his hands on the booking counter.
The video shows a tussle followed and Teel stunned Williams with a Taser while Williams lay face down with two jailers holding him down.
"I feared for my life," testified Teel, who was 6-foot-2 and 285 pounds at the time, compared with Williams' 5-foot-6 frame and 160 pounds. Teel said he Tased the inmate because he wouldn't give up an arm to be re-handcuffed. Williams was re-cuffed.
"There was no need for us to be hitting Mr. Williams by the time he was restrained," testified former jailer Regina Rhodes. "It should have been over."
But it wasn't over, as the tape shows. In court, Teel admitted he hog-tied Williams and sprayed a spit mask with pepper-spray before placing the mask over his face. Teel rolled Williams in a blanket and carried him like a suitcase a few feet away to a portable restraint chair and strapped him down. Teel spewed more pepper-spray up the mask toward Williams' chin and nose.
Although Teel denied witness accounts that he repeatedly punched and kicked Williams in the head during the ordeal, Teel admitted he struck Williams several times after the inmate was strapped in the chair, but told the court Williams was moving his legs and kicked him in the groin.
Around 10:54 p.m., Teel punched Williams in the face and, according to the testimony of a 14-year-old student visiting the jail booking area for a school assignment, an officer in the control tower shouted for Teel to stop.
Around 11 p.m., a nurse checks on Williams. The video shows officers resumed their activity as Williams sat restrained in the hallway. An inmate worker returned to the hallway to mop blood and pepper-spray from the floor. A detainee stood against the wall, waiting his turned to be booked in.
About an hour later, an ambulance crew arrives to take Williams to a hospital and the recording ends. According to a neurosurgeon's testimony, Williams was brain-dead when he was evaluated at 2:30 a.m.
Teel, 30, is held without bond for federal marshals at an undisclosed location. He faces a life prison sentence when he is brought before the judge on Nov. 1.
Read more about this story in Wednesday's editions of the Sun Herald.
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