Ventura City Hall Gadfly Is Arrested Over Assault

Ventura’s most persistent gadfly, notorious for his citizen’s arrests of the mayor and other city officials, was arrested Sunday morning after trying to run down a man serving him with a civil lawsuit, sheriff’s deputies said.

Carroll Dean Williams, 48, was held in jail for four hours on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon before being released on $5,000 bail, said Sgt. Cole McDaniel of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. He will be arraigned Friday.

Richard K. Hanna, a private process server, sought out Williams at his parents’ home on Pueblo Avenue in Meiners Oaks about 10:30 a.m., Sheriff’s Lt. Joe Funchess said.

While Hanna was at the door, Williams fled down the street in his red Volvo, Funchess said. Then he turned his car around and, witnesses told sheriff’s deputies, swerved at Hanna on his way past the house as if trying to hit him, Funchess said.

The California Highway Patrol found Williams’ car shortly afterward parked near Tico Boulevard and California 33, Funchess said, and deputies arrested him nearby.

Neither the Sheriff’s Department nor city officials knew the nature of the lawsuit that Hanna tried to serve. Hanna, an Oak View resident, could not be reached for comment, and Williams could not be located.

“Whoever arrested him is going to hear about it from now on . . . from here to the Supreme Court,” said Councilman John McWherter, who has been heavily criticized and has been arrested by Williams. “He’ll say all the reports . . . are not exactly right.”

Williams, a poet and an unsuccessful City Council candidate, has been an outspoken critic of the council for years, and until recently attended weekly meetings religiously since 1977. Last year he began carrying a video camera to the meetings to film responses made to him by public officials.

In February, city officials considered placing a restraining order on Williams to forbid him from approaching or touching officials after he brandished a pair of handcuffs at a meeting and put McWherter under arrest. McWherter’s arrest followed allegations by Williams that the councilman had been involved in a conspiracy involving the 1978 slaying of Ventura Police Sgt. Darlon Dowell.

Williams has not been at a meeting since, McWherter said.

“Maybe he has other troubles now and he won’t accuse me now of conspiracy,” he said. “If you talk to him outside of a crowd, outside of an audience, he’s a very intelligent person. But the minute he gets an audience he just goes berserk. And he won’t give up.”

City Atty. Peter Bulens said Sunday that the council decided in closed session not to pursue a restraining order.

Williams, a former manufacturing engineer, lost a bid for a seat on the council in 1987.

Last June, Williams arrested Mayor Richard Francis, complaining to police that the mayor had refused to let him address the council at a public meeting. City Manager John Baker and former Mayor John Sullard have also been arrested by Williams in the past eight years.

“When there’s a crime committed in my presence or a felony committed out of my presence, I will make that arrest,” Williams said at the time.

In 1988, Williams’ persistent complaints to the city staff provoked the council to pass a special policy aimed at staving off what they considered to be frivolous citizen requests, and directed staff to ignore the “unending and unproductive requests” of Williams.