First of all, to clear things up, the passenger-being of DIRECT relation to me- tried to get the driver to pull over and made several attempts to get out of the car. Knowing this family member, this is not a lie as most would assume, and he tried his best to get Danny to comply. To say that he was in on this as well is ignorant since knowledge of exactly what went on is unknown to everyone but those who were present.

Second of all, there are a few things to take into consideration concerning the shooting. Yes, it was necessary to shoot at the vehicle, especially with the actions that were made by the driver. Should they have shot AT any of the vehicle’s occupants: No. What if they would have missed and hit an innocent passenger? What if there was a CHILD in the vehicle? I know that if those cops would have missed and hit the passenger, there would be a heck of a court case for those cops.
What the cops should have done was shoot at the tires. This would stop the car quicker then aiming for someone would. The car would go out of control if it’s driver was shot and the engine wasn’t able to be shut off. Also, that way, they could have approached the car and if the occupants had weapons, they could then rightfully shoot. No way is Danny being SHOT IN THE HEAD justified. Not at all.

Instead of looking at the first instinct and seeing it as the right thing to do, you should look at the best option which endangers less people. A life is something that should be kept, not put in danger because we want to enact revenge.

In no way was what Danny did justified, but in NO WAY was what the cops did either.

I know law enforcement officers too, but the point with this case is that the Atmore officers shouldn’t have chased a vehicle around in Florida for the actual known law violations at the time, which were traffic infractions (stop sign running, speeding, etc.).

Had Atmore P.D. terminated the chase once they crossed the state line, this tragic situation would have been avoided and Williams could have been arrested on another day. Now consider Atmore P.D. has chased into Florida on other occasions without calling Florida authorities to report that they’ve entered the state in a pursuit. I’ll give you the high speed motorcycle chase that went down Greenland Road – and chased for what – a traffic violation, but this time the cycle got away. Just listen to your scanner sometime.

When one decides to pursue, in this case all on duty, someone has to weigh the costs against the benefits of the pursuit (and is it within policy) and step-up and say “uncle,” because the public deserves to be safe from overly aggressive police action.
In this case the bullets hit their mark, but what about the passenger, did he deserve to be shot at too? After all he’s just a passenger, and what if there were a two year old child in the car? I know we can what if this all day, but it is food for thought.

Now with that said, should Williams have run? No, of course not! But he didn’t deserve to die either, after all this started over a minor traffic offense according to the Chief of Police in the initial report to NorthEscambia.

Let’s look at some other considerations:

Is it reasonable to attempt to stop him? Yes, but attempts to stop him have to be tempered with reasonableness! Here there was an almost 20 minute chase without a secondary indication or call to the police about “shots fired” or any report of a gun shot injury during this time. Is it now reasonable to believe that all Atmore Police had on the driver were minor traffic offenses? Yes.

And by the way, there’re in Florida, so call the chase off!

If officers had called the chase after a reasonable amount of time, they would not have put themselves in danger in front of Williams’ car, which is now a thinly veiled attempt to justify shooting Williams. Like it our not, these are the standards and questions upon which Atmore P.D. will be judged.

You’ll never see any video of the events that transpired on early Sunday morning, because Atmore is a little, backwards, hick town that doesn’t equip its patrol units with that pesky technology stuff (uh oh, another liability area). This way, it’s their word against the driver’s. Oh, that’s right, dead men don’t talk!

God Help All……