DA Clears Tullytown Cops in Tasered Teen Incident

A Tullytown police officer was well within his rights to taser 14-year-old Joey Williams in November after the Bristol Township teen ran handcuffed from them following his arrest, Bucks County Distirct Attorney David Heckler announced Thursday afternoon at a press conference.

The Tullytown Borough officer who fired his taser at the teen has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the district attorney’s office.

“It’s sort of a no-brainer for me,” Heckler said as to why the officer tasered the teen. “There were officers at risk.”

Tullytown Chief of Police Daniel Doyle said when reached Thursday evening said he was “pleased with the outcome of the D.A.’s investigation.”

The district attorney explained and later showed dashcam video of Williams fleeing from officers as they attempted to move the handcuffed teen to the back of a patrol car on the overcast afternoon of Tuesday, November 12 along Route 13 near the Levittown Walmart the teen and his uncle are accused of shoplifting from.

While it is too far away for the dashcam to show the teen’s take down, the video shows an officer chasing after the teen as he ran through a lane with traffic in it. A short time later, Williams is seen being escorted back to a police vehicle by Tullytown and Bristol Township officers. Inside the back of the patrol vehicle, a wire from a taser barb can be seen hanging from Williams cheek. Heckler said the officer fired the taser as the teen was fleeing, striking the boy in the hand and in the cheek as he looked back.

“This is a 14-year-old knucklehead who took off,” the district attorney told reporters gathered inside his Doylestown officer.

Several witnesses county detectives spoke with backed up the officer’s claim the teen was warned he would be hit with a taser shot after running in a dangerous area of busy roadway. Heckler said the witnesses were of several different backgrounds and not all saw the whole incident.

The controversy over the tasering started when William’s mother, Marissa Sargeant, posted graphic photos of her son with a number of visible injuries to his face on social media on Friday, November 16, alleging Tullytown police assaulted her son as he was being pursued on Route 13 after he was arrested with his 19-year-old uncle on retail theft charges.

Heckler said there has been no evidence of “excessive force” or racism, as some have claimed.

Williams never made any complaints that police mistreated him, Heckler told reporters.

The county plans to move forward with an escape and shoplifting-related charges filed in juvenile court. Heckler said the charges were relatively minor.

Sargeant in an interview with LevittownNow.com on Saturday, November 17 described her son’s injuries and also alleged that Tullytown police officers violated her son’s constitutional rights by not allowing her to see him at the police headquarters. She also said they never received her permission for the hospital treatment of her son’s injuries. Those claims were once again made by her representatives Thursday after the district attorney’s press conference.

Williams allegedly would not give medics basic “demographic information” as they transported him to Lower Bucks Hospital for treatment and to have the barb removed. Heckler said the teen suffered a broken nose and other injuries sustained when his handcuffed body slammed face-first into the ground.

Private investigators Gregg Brinkley and Ed Lloyd, who are working for Williams, called for the district attorney to remove himself from the investigation. The two made their claim to reporters outside the district attorney’s office in the courthouse following his press conference.

Brinkley stated several times they had evidence disproving the district attorney’s findings. However, when asked the two private investigators could not produce evidence and said they were waiting for a later date to reveal it.

A former corrections officer at Graterford Prison, Brinkley said he knows when he sees signs of excessive force used by law enforcement and he sees them in Williams’ case. Sargent shook her head in agreement with Brinkley.

Locally, the controversy lead to angered exchanges and debates about the entire incident  leading to two rallies taking place in Tullytown from opposing sides on the issue. Brinkley and Lloyd said another rally against Tullytown authorities is being planned.

The two investigators said Williams, who sat nearby donning a blue hoodie and winter cap, is starting to remember more details of the incident as a concussion suffered during the arrest fades away.

Sargeant and Williams met with Philadelphia law offices of Fortunato Perri Jr. previously. Perri told LevittownNow.com in a one-on-one interview in his office in November that all accounts from the boy indicated borough police used “excessive force.”

Lloyd said Thursday that letters about the incident will be sent to the President of the United States and the Attorney General, who is the nation’s top law enforcement official.

A “Justice for Joey” rally was set by private investigators  that fell well short of desired turnout in Tullytown for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. In response to the rally, a social media  group was formed to support the Tullytown Police Department, which held its own rally days later with hundreds turning out.

Tullytown officials provided support for both rallies in support of each groups constitutional right to protest.

An FBI investigation into the incident was requested by Tullytown Chief of Police Daniel Doyle, but Heckler said he has not heard from the FBI yet.

Attorney for the family Fortunato Petri could not be reached for comment at publication time.

More Coverage:

• DA to Announce Information on Tullytown Tasering Investigation
• Support Rally for Tullytown Police Draws Large Crowd
• Rally Draws Few in Tullytown; Organizers Speak About Investigation into Tasering
• Protest Organizer: ‘Injustice Doesn’t Take a Break for Anything, Weather Included
• 1 Rally Canceled, DA Warns About Threats as Ugly Weather Approaches
• EXCLUSIVE: Tasered Teen Wasn’t Locked in Police Car, DA Says; Rally Organizers Meet with Officials
• Tasered Teen, Mother Meet with Civil Rights Attorney
• Controversy Brewing Over Arrest, Tasering of 14-Year-Old-Boy