Echoes of King Case Surround Death in S.F.

The day began with sorrow and ended with anger, ratcheting up the tension level in a city already holding its breath.

Ten days after a violent confrontation with police, witnessed by more than a dozen of his neighbors, Aaron Williams, 35, was mourned this week at a two-hour funeral service, punctuated with soft sobs and loud hallelujahs, calls for truth and demands for justice.

Williams died June 4 in a police station parking lot, after clashing earlier with 12 officers who witnesses said doused him twice with pepper spray and beat him as he lay on the ground with hands cuffed and feet bound.

Four separate investigations, including a probe by the FBI, were quickly launched into the circumstances surrounding Williams’ death. Police officials will not comment, but the arrest report alleges that Williams struggled and that several officers were hurt.

A police spokeswoman said that the department’s internal affairs and homicide investigators are focusing on nine of the officers involved. The cause of death still is in question. The officers, at least one a recent hire, remain on the job.

“I believe this incident suggests the need to review the Police Department’s current policies,” particularly regarding the use of pepper spray and the hiring of new officers, Mayor Frank Jordan said this week in a letter to the Police Commission.

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But many in one of America’s most ethnically diverse cities, where the black population is shrinking in numbers and in clout, believe that not enough is being done in response to what they view as their version of the Rodney King case.

Hours after Williams’ funeral Wednesday, 60 demonstrators took over a Police Commission meeting, waving placards and shouting slogans: “Let ‘em off, just try it; remember the L.A. riot.”

While members of the Williams family--eyes red, clothes black--disavowed the demonstration, they used the raucous three-hour meeting to deliver their own warning to a nervous city:

“Pretty soon there’s going to be a revolt,” Williams’ cousin Cory Clark told the five-member commission and Police Chief Tony Ribera. “People are going to stand up. They will meet force with force, and there will be an explosion.”

Clothilde V. Hewlett, vice president of the commission and its only black member, responded: “We are in a very highly emotional situation within all communities in the city. I acknowledge that it is a highly volatile situation.”

At 10:33 p.m. on June 4, police responded to a report of a burglary in progress at a veterinary clinic on Sutter Street--a neighborhood of alternately well-painted and peeling two-story Victorians called the Western Addition.

A witness told police he saw a possible suspect fleeing from the scene, a black man wearing a jean jacket. As two officers interviewed the witness, another searched for the suspect.

“During the [witness] interview, I heard [the officer] request cover on a possible suspect,” read one police narrative included in the police report. “Two more calls for cover were made with an escalation of urgency in the voice of the officer.”

The call for assistance came from a block away. According to family members and their attorneys, Williams, who was on parole and had a history of drug abuse, came down from his apartment to talk to the officers. They slammed him against a police car and a struggle erupted, some of the dozen witnesses said.

Of those interviewed this week by the family’s legal team, “everybody says he was restrained,” said Robert Kroll, one of the attorneys. “Pretty much everyone says he continued to be beaten after he was restrained.”

Another witness said Williams was cursing, screaming and spitting at officers, according to Kroll, and that the police were “in a frenzy, freaking out.” Williams was pepper-sprayed and several officers were injured, according to the police report.

Cecilia Lynch, a management consultant who lives across the street from Williams, witnessed the late-night struggle. She likened it to the beating of King in Los Angeles, captured on video in 1991 and replayed worldwide.

“It was gross,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle a day later. “There were so many cops on him and that one cop kicking him. . . . the same scenario [as the King beating]--a black guy on the ground with a bunch of cops over him.”

Once he was subdued, Williams was placed in a police van and driven to the Richmond District police station. By the time he arrived, he was breathing shallowly and police called for paramedics. He was pronounced dead at 11:40 p.m.

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In the days since, his family and some of the city’s black leaders have struggled, they say, to maintain peace in San Francisco, to keep the caldron of racial tension from bubbling over as it did in Los Angeles after police officers charged in the King beating were acquitted.

“Unlike King, whose beating by officers became a symbol of police brutality and racial bitterness in Los Angeles, the Williams case must not be allowed to tear at the fabric of our community,” the Chronicle editorialized.

But the Rev. Cecil Williams, minister of Glide United Methodist Church and a prominent leader of the African American community, pointed out that Williams’ death comes at a difficult time for San Francisco.

“A lot of people are frustrated,” said Williams, who has exhorted the city not to demonstrate in the wake of the death. “Money’s going to be cut from programs. There’s been the liquidation of affirmative action in the state of California. . . . There’s a lot of hopelessness.”

Add to that a decrease in the black community’s numbers and political clout in San Francisco, and the situation becomes that much testier, said Richard DeLeon, chairman of the political science department at San Francisco State University and author of “Left Coast City, Progressive Politics in San Francisco 1975-1991.”

“They feel isolated politically and feel like they’re going it alone,” DeLeon said. “They have not enough numbers to effect political change. They have to go back to demonstrations.”

At Williams’ funeral service, played on newscasts throughout the day in the Bay Area, a steady stream of friends, relatives and community leaders exhorted peace--and peaceful action.

Alex Pitcher, president of the San Francisco chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, told the 200 mourners to “forget about what they’re trying to do to us with affirmative action. Forget about what they’re trying to do to us on the street. Look to the Lord.”

The Rev. Williams told the group that “if we are going to make sure that this city does not explode, some of us are going to have to step forward and put our agenda forward--to find truth and make justice.”

Hours later, many of those who grieved for Williams in the morning went to the Police Commission to vent their frustrations over what they perceive as a slow investigation.

Scheduled far in advance of Williams’ death, the meeting was held in the Mission District to give residents a chance to speak their minds about life in what is the city’s most racially diverse and troubled neighborhood.

Residents spoke of increasing drug crime and fear for their safety. They also talked about Williams’ death.

Glenda Dowell, a longtime resident, urged the police to turn their investigation over to an outside agency. “If anything not valid comes out of these investigations, I will not be a supporter of this Police Department,” she said.

Williams’ family and lawyers, who believe that police are covering up what really happened, called for the immediate suspension of the 12 officers, without waiting for the results of investigations by the FBI, Police Department, coroner and an arm of the Police Commission.

Police Chief Ribera responded that the officers cannot be suspended without probable cause. He exhorted patience.

“If we rush this investigation to the point where we make mistakes, we could compromise the investigation,” he said. “We have certain guidelines and rules of law. I understand your frustration and I understand your pain. I’m doing the best I can.”