Police Brutality: Milwaukee Mom says police killed her son.

Mike Shaner
July 6, 2011

Sonya Moore claims that her son died in Milwaukee Police custody because of officer brutality early Wednesday.

Derek Michael Williams, a robbery suspect in Milwaukee, died in custody this morning. The details at this time are unknown. Officers are saying the suspect just stopped breathing but Sonya Moore, his mother, suspects something far more sinister.

"Just stopped breathing?  That did not sound right and it's not right.  They hit him," said Moore.

So far, police are denying the charges, but few details have been provided.

"Officers did not use force in arresting this robbery suspect," said Milwaukee's police chief Ed Flynn.

According to a police statement, the officers saw a suspect wearing a ski mask who, according to a spokeswoman, was "accosting two people." The officers gave chase and found Williams hiding in someone’s yard.

"He was arrested without the use of force and without incident other than the chase.  It was in the back seat of the cruiser that he became unresponsive," said Flynn on Newsradio 620 WTMJ's "Wisconsin's Morning News."

Williams' girlfriend called Moore from the scene.

"She said he wasn't breathing, he wasn't moving, she said the police had just got through beating him in the back before they put him in the police car," Moore said

"I called the phone number back, and another woman answered and she was like, 'It doesn't look good.'  She said they were pumping him for a whole hour.  If they'd just opened the car door and let him out when they were hitting him, when they said he couldn't breathe, they should have stopped."

By the time his mother arrived on the scene,Williams was wrapped in a tarp.

Police and the District Attorney's office are reviewing the incident, and will place the officers involved on administrative duty.

Williams was the father of three children.


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