http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/125065559.html
MILWAUKEE – “Officers did not use force in arresting this robbery suspect,” said Milwaukee’s police chief Ed Flynn, refuting a woman’s claims that her son died in Milwaukee Police custody because of officer brutality near Riverwest early Wednesday.
Sonya Moore, who says she is the mother of Derek Michael Williams, claims that witnesses told her he died while in custody after he was arrested for allegedly breaking into a home.
“Just stopped breathing? That did not sound right and it’s not right. They hit him,” said Moore.
“(The witnesses) said they looked in the back and he just stopped breathing after they left the window down about so much.”
“He was arrested without the use of force and without incident other than the chase. It was in the back seat of the cruiser that he became unresponsive,” said Flynn on Newsradio 620 WTMJ’s “Wisconsin’s Morning News.”
“Subsequent to that, our officers administered CPR and called for an ambulance…all preliminary indications are that no force was used and that the individual was administered first aid.”
The incident happened near the corner of North Buffum and East Center Streets by Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood.
Milwaukee Police said in a statement that officers saw what they thought was a a robbery at about 12:35 a.m.
They saw a suspect wearing a ski mask who, according to a spokeswoman, was “accosting two people.”
At that point, the officers ran after him and found him hiding in a yard near Buffum and Center.
“No force was used to take the suspect into custody and he was arrested without incident,” said Police Spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz in a statement.
“The suspect was placed in the back of a squad car in preparation for transport to jail. He was being monitored by one officer in the front of the squad, and the entire time he spent in the squad was captured on in-squad video.”
TODAY’S TMJ4 has requested a copy of that video.
Schwartz further explained that the suspect laid down in the car seat and an officer in the squad’s front seat went back to check on how he was doing.
“The video shows the officer checking for a pulse and listening for breath sounds. He removed the suspect from the squad and immediately began lifesaving efforts, along with two other officers. This also was captured on the video. After 10 minutes, the Milwaukee Fire Department arrived and continued lifesaving efforts for about 28 minutes. The suspect was pronounced deceased at the scene.”
Police did not confirm the identity of the suspect who died.
Moore told TODAY’S TMJ4’s Diane Pathieu she didn’t know how he died, but she believed it was police brutality.
Moore said she got a call from Williams’ girlfriend at the scene.
“She said he wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t moving, she said the police had just got through beating him in the back before they put him in the police car,” Moore told Pathieu.
“I called the phone number back, and another woman answered and she was like, ‘It doesn’t look good.’ She said they were pumping him for a whole hour. If they’d just opened the car door and let him out when they were hitting him, when they said he couldn’t breathe, they should have stopped.”
Moore claimed that when she got to the scene, he was wrapped in a tarp.
Milwaukee Police only said that a man had been pronounced dead at the corner.
Williams is a father of three children, according to Moore.
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner is investigating the death, and has not confirmed any of the details the mother gave on how Williams died.
They will conduct an autopsy.
Police said they and the District Attorney’s office is reviewing the incident, and they will place the officers who were involved on administrative duty.
