Posted on Wed, Aug. 29, 2007
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Sun Herald gains release of jail video
Surveillance footage reveals Williams' last moments alive
By ROBIN FITZGERALD
rfitzgerald@sunherald.com
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GULFPORT --
The Sun Herald on Tuesday made 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 federal court orders. U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. made the video available in response to the Sun Herald's public-records requests and a resulting lawsuit that asked for the documents to be unsealed and returned to the public domain.
The public's first access to the video of Williams' beating was at sunherald.com, where it was posted Tuesday afternoon.
Filmed by booking-room surveillance cameras, the tape has no sound, but shows pictures snapped every two or three seconds from the time Williams was brought in to the booking room at 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 4, 2006 until an ambulance crew picked him up around midnight.
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. Co-defendant Rick Gaston was acquitted of a conspiracy charge and other assaults that didn't involve Williams.
Nine former jailers await sentencing in the federal investigation, which, according to prosecutors, proves a culture of violence existed at the Harrison County jail and may produce another indictment.
The release of the video for public view marks the conclusion of months of legal action by the Sun Herald in efforts to restore public records to the people of Harrison County and shed light on what has been taking place behind the bars of the county jail.
The Sun Herald began filing public-records requests in search of answers within days of Williams' death. In October 2006 the FBI seized thousands of pages of records from the jail without making copies. That December the Sun Herald filed public-records requests that led to a lawsuit in Chancery Court.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Gulf Publishing Co., which publishes the Sun Herald and is a subsidiary of The McClatchy Co. Named as defendants were Sheriff George H. Payne Jr. and the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, which includes the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
The newspaper won a key decision in May when Chancery Judge Jim Persons ruled the records requested are public records and the newspaper was wrongfully denied access to them in violation of the state's public-records laws.
