Cop Cleared of Choking Teenage Skateboarder

Here’s the follow-up to an earlier story we published.

I’m dumbfounded right now and don’t know how to react to this. Here was a definite abuse of power, yet Officer Joey Williams got of. To be fair, there are more good cops than bad ones but Joey Williams is a definitely bad apple. There’s no justice. Regardless of the events leading this act (skateboarding?, breaking an ordinance, 13 year olds, not a bank heist), there was no excuse for his action and we all know it!

I think I’m most dumb founded by the reward they gave Joey the strangler. The so called, leave with pay. This is my translation of this so called “punishment”… “Well done Williams, here’s some extra vacation time with pay for beating up a little girl man handling and boys”. I wouldn’t doubt if they end up giving him some sort of award and plague. The board that investigated him just went through this process for the sake of the public and think we’d be satisfied with an announcement that Joey indeed messed up, when he left the 13yr old kid cuffed and alone to pursue the other kids. Let be real here this is nepotism amongst cops and seriously wrong.

All I can request for now is to keep sending letters demanding justice. Get your parents and friends involved, demand justice, and spread the word:

Hot Springs Arkansas Police Department
Phone: (501) 321-6789
Fax: (501) 321-6708
Chief of Police, Bobby Southard
Email: bsouthard@cityhs.net
641 Malvern Avenue

The Associated Press Prints:

A police officer who appeared to choke a skateboarder and put two others in a headlock in a video posted online used appropriate force when making his arrests, an internal police investigation found.

The Hot Springs Police Department Internal Affairs Board found the use of force was within the police department’s policy on non-deadly force and recommended ‘no changes to this policy.’ The decision was released Monday.

Officer Joey Williams confronted a situation that ‘would have overwhelmed any single officer’ when he stopped those breaking a Hot Springs city ordinance by skateboarding on a downtown sidewalk June 21, the report said.

However, Williams was faulted for leaving a handcuffed suspect unattended while chasing another youth in the resort town’s historic Bathhouse Row.

Williams has been on administrative leave since the video hit YouTube on June 25. Police said he would return to active duty July 5th 200 in the city’s downtown.

‘I think it was fair,’ City Manager Kent Myers said. Witnesses ‘consistently supported the actions of the officer and his efforts to control the situation.’

Video from a business’ security cameras shows 10 skateboarders rolling down the city sidewalk at a good clip, followed by Williams, who sprints past the last skater.

A video taken by skateboarders and later posted on YouTube shows Williams on top of one of the skaters, apparently choking him. The video also showed Williams putting another two skateboarders in a headlock, and the officer can later be heard threatening to use pepper spray on a skateboarder lying on the ground.

Police said they arrested Matthew Jon McCormack, 21, and Skylar Nalls, 19, both of Hot Springs, and four juveniles. McCormack faces a misdemeanor battery charge accusing him of pushing or striking a 67-year-old city employee during the melee. Nalls was cited for skateboarding and faces misdemeanor charges of fleeing and obstructing governmental operations.

McCormack has previously disputed many of the police allegations, especially his battery charge. He has said he pulled on the city employee’s arm after the man lifted a girl off her feet in a choke-hold.

Hot Springs is a resort town about 50 miles west of Little Rock.