Street Sentence

Vigilante justice in Buffalo

The Fourth of July festivities had barely subsided in Town Garden Apartments, a housing project in Buffalo's low-income black section of the inner city, when Cecelia Williams, her two children tucked in bed, decided to visit her sister elsewhere in the complex. While she was away, a man in blue jogging shorts and a T shirt broke a window, climbed into the sparsely furnished home, and carried off Williams' ten-year-old daughter Andrea. Hours later, as police combed the area, Williams' husband Willie and a restive throng of worried neighbors crowded into the small apartment to speculate on the girl's whereabouts. A local television camera crew covering the abduction shot heart-tugging footage of the angry, grieving parents.

Suddenly, just after 1 p.m., Andrea, crying and covered only with a pillowcase wrapped around her hips, rushed up to the apartment door. She haltingly told of a man named Charlie, with a head of wild, tangled hair, who had twice sodomized her. Several men in the group, including Williams, instantly reacted to the description and headed off to another apartment in the project.

Five minutes later, the TV crew caught up with the men on a lawn in the complex. The cameras recorded Willie Williams, 35, as he apparently stabbed the suspect, Charles Dean, 32, several times with a long knife. The other men kicked and punched Dean. "They got him and they got him good," said Cecelia Williams just after Dean, bleeding badly, was hauled away by police who had rushed to the scene.

The demonstration of vigilante justice, in a widely televised version on Buffalo stations, evoked praise and sympathy from city officials to the man on the street, as well as controversy. "He should have kept on stabbing," said a bartender in downtown Buffalo. "He did what any father would have done, and he shouldn't be charged." Williams, a truck driver and avowed street minister, was arrested for first-degree assault. He spent one night in jail; a sympathetic judge freed him the next day on an unsecured $10,000 bond. "Cop after cop came up to him in the cell and congratulated him," said Paul J. Cambria, a prominent Buffalo attorney who is defending Williams. Said Buffalo Mayor James Griffin: "Dean should be thrown in jail, and if a judge lets him out he should be run out of town along with the judge who released him."

Area residents have started a trust fund for Andrea and a legal-defense fund for Williams. Contributions in $5 and $10 amounts arrive daily. "We've gotten phone calls from Iowa, Utah, Florida, Delaware, you name it," says David Collins, a city councilman who has led the defense-fund drive. "last week a white man stopped his car in traffic and jumped out to say how much he was behind our efforts to help Willie and his little girl."

Much of the sympathy for Williams stems from dissatisfaction with the courts and the police. Dean is a twice-convicted felon with a total of 28 arrests since 1970, some for robbery and rape. A month before the Williams incident, he had been set free on $2,500 bail (actual cost to Dean: $250) facing charges of sodomy and sexual abuse of his girlfriend's 15-year-old sister. Some black residents argue that the inability of the city's predominantly white police force to cope with crime in their areas also lies behind rage like Williams'. "You dial 911 and half the time the car won't come," says Councilman Collins. "I'm not indicting the police--there are just too many criminals, too much crime."

But sanctioning street justice strikes many in Buffalo as a scary proposition. "That kind of anarchy is no good for anyone, especially minorities," contends City Court Judge Wilbur P. Trammell, a black. Says Erie County District Attorney Richard J. Arcara, who is responsible for prosecuting Williams: "If you allow people to put themselves above the law, where do you draw the line?"

Suspect Dean, who maintains his innocence, is currently being held in isolation on $250,000 bail. He faces life imprisonment if convicted on charges of kidnaping, burglary and sodomy. Meanwhile, a grand jury is looking at the evidence against Williams. A softspoken, Bible-quoting man with a tenth-grade education, Williams is confident he will be vindicated. Said he: "God is on my side, and God looks out for his people." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.