UPDATE: Please see “CSUSB Community Expresses Sadness Over Tragedy.”
California State San Bernardino University Police Officers responded to the University Village, an off campus student housing complex, regarding a disturbance involving the suspect, 38-year-old graduate student Bartholomew Williams.
Officers made contact with Williams in the hallway of his dorm.
During the contact Williams became aggressive and an altercation occurred. Officers fearing for their safety fired their weapon striking Williams.
Williams was pronounced deceased at the scene.
One officer received medical treatment at an area hospital for non-life threatening injury.
Investigators from the city of San Bernardino Police Department are handling the investigation.
Anyone with information on this case is asked to call Detective Flesher at (909) 384-5655 or Sergeant Robertson at (909) 841-5361.
The issue of Williams being armed, or not, is irrelevant. People can kill other people with their feet and bare hands. I’ve seen it happen. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled many years ago that the use of force, similar to the force used in this situation and under these circumstances, is lawful. This isn’t the movies where you get perfectly placed shots, or a situation where you can Monday-morning quarterback. A shot to the arm or leg can sever an artery/vein and kill you just the same.
The focus should be this – police officers do not have the luxury of “asking” a psychotic person, “Excuse me sir, will you please stop attacking me so I may call you a psychologist?” It’s already been noted that the police had already used other levels of force (pepper spray and baton)which had no effect on Williams. Once he began the process of killing the officer by kicking her in the head, it is reasonable and lawful for those officers to use their firearms, shoot Williams, and protect the other officer; if he died, he behaved in a manner that resulted in his own death.
As tragic as any death is, the police carry guns to protect themselves and YOU.
No matter how you slice it and dice it if he was not armed he should not have been killed. I understand maybe shooting a leg or an arm to demobilize him but killing him? No.
Well, sad things just happened. It is useless to judge who should take the responsibilities now. All we need to do is what actions we should take in order to prevent those things to happen again.
Also, instead of using the forces, did the police tried to contact that student’s family/friends or even psychology counselors in order to calm him down? I personally believe that those sad things would not happen if there had been a helper to calm him down at that moment.
We are all human beings. Sometimes, our emotions may be out of our controls; however, if there is a helper to help control ourselves while the things become worse.
It is too late to remedy; but we should learn the lessons from this shooting, shouldn’t we?
People should never attack police officers. I’m not sure what happened beyond the article published. However police officers are also known to take advantage of their authority. We see this all the time. The occupation of a police officer can be mentally stressful and that is why I feel that they should impose mandatory counseling sessions yearly to determine if their resolutions to conflict are justifiable. Hopefully the current investigation will provide reasoning for the shooting behind this sad outcome. If not I hope the officer feels remorse enough to apologize to the family. My heart goes out to Mr. Williams family for his achievement on graduating and for the their devastating loss. God bless you guys and God be with you Mr. Williams. RIP.
I will reserve my judgement until after the investigation report is made public.
Right now, the only information available is that in this article. Any reasoning will be speculative at best, and that is not how an educated person’s mind should operate.
Give the situation time to play out before jumping to conclusions.
sounds fishy…
Where was Mr. Williams shot; how many times was he shot?
I don’t think Mr. Williams was armed or police would have said so right away.
How did the police fear for their lives?
What was the cause of disturbance? How many others were involved.
I find the police story hard to believe because a 38-year-old graduate student is not the type to cause a fight that threatens the police.
Mr. Williams attacked a police officer. It is against the law to attack a police officer and the police officer is allowed to protect himself. Clearly Mr. William’s actions prompted the officers to shoot. I highly doubt they wanted to shoot him. Don’t make assumptions about something you know nothing about.
It is so sad that those who are paid to serve and protect us, fail to utilize skills of conflict resolution. After all did this Mr. Williams have a weapon or just a strong attitude of pride from his recent accomplishments? Folks have a tendency to get loud and bold when there are filled with pride. Was he too loud and to proud? RIP and GOD BLESS those who are left behind,
Rob, NO. This is what happens when you go after a cop. Don’t f**k with the police and they won’t attempt to protect themselves. You have no idea the s**t those guys go through to protect the community.
Also, graduate student doesn’t mean he graduated lol.
They didn’t disclose all of the information, but I would think that they must have had a good reason for shooting, they might be police, but they are still human. They still have emotions, and I don’t think they’d shoot a man for a silly reason like that.