Wichita officer involved in ‘ultimate de-escalator’ text message thread cleared in killing
A Wichita police officer involved in a text message scandal won’t be charged in a December 2020 fatal shooting in Riverside, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said Friday.
The man who was killed — Jason Williams, 37 — had shot his estranged wife and killed his mother-in-law before he was shot by a SWAT officer laying prone on the ground about 30 yards away, according to a 22-page report on the incident released by Bennett.
Two months later that officer was involved in a text message thread where four officers, all who served on SWAT, talked casually about shooting and killing people.
During a Wednesday morning in December, Williams shot his way into his mother-in-law’s home in the 900 block of North Faulkner. His estranged wife, their children, then ages 5 and 7, his mother-in-law and brother-in-law were inside. Williams shot his wife in the shoulder and his mother-in-law multiple times before agreeing to let the children and his wife go, the report says. His brother-in-law, who had previously forced Williams to leave at gunpoint when he showed up unannounced, escaped through a window.
“Additional information was put out over the police radio that Mr. Williams ... intended to release the children and (his wife), at which point he intended to kill himself.”
An order associated with a domestic battery charge to keep Williams from contacting his wife expired two days before the incident, court records show. Police have said Williams’ wife had him served with a protection from abuse order the day before the shooting.
The report said Williams texted his lawyer earlier in the morning and wrote on Facebook: “I’m so sorry everyone. (My wife) has gone too far and I have to fix this for our kids.”
The SWAT officer who shot Williams was watching the back sliding glass door. He was set up across the alley in another backyard and removed two pieces of wood from the fence to have a clear line of sight.
He saw a blood-stained wound on a woman’s right shoulder. The children came out but the woman didn’t, the report said.
“Mr. Williams was not letting her go, and appeared to be moving further back into the home with her,” the report said. The officer said “he could not let that happen.”
The officer saw the blinds move and believed it was his last opportunity to save the woman’s life, the report said. The officer said he believed Williams was “taking (her) back into the interior of the house to kill her” and also feared her mother, Michelle Barr, 52, was bleeding to death inside.
He fired one shot and Williams fell immediately, the report said. An autopsy found alcohol in his system.
Another officer who had planned to shoot said they were set up with their guns pointed at the back door for 30 to 45 minutes. Police were first called just after 7 a.m. The incident lasted about 90 minutes.
Williams’ wife, identified as witness two in the report, said she felt was going to pass out and was physically unable to make it out the back door after being shot. The report doesn’t say whether she reported Williams holding her back. She had filed for divorce the month before.
Bennett didn’t know if Williams had a gun in his hands when the officer shot. A handgun was found on the ground next to where he was shot and another was in his holster, Bennett said. The report says the officer’s body camera was obstructed when he laid on the ground.
“Whether they saw a gun or not, it’s really immaterial,” Bennett said. “They knew he had one, he had been shooting the whole house up. 36 shell casings in or around the house ... the front door was littered with shots. The brother had gotten out of the house and described having seen his mother been shot and I believe he is also the source of the information about the sister, the wife, being shot, so they knew he was armed, they knew he had shot at least two people. Whether he had a gun in his hand in that very moment or he had set it at his feet as he was letting the kids out, I don’t know, but it would not change my assessment of the volatility of the situation or the officer’s decision.”
Bennett did not name the officer, but his report outlining the shooting included what the officer said in a text message thread that started with a former sheriff’s deputy calling the group the “Ultimate De-Escalators” who “permanently descalated (sic) people who needed permanent deescalation.” The officer who shot Williams loved the comment and replied back: “Good stuff ... Thank you.”
The Eagle had previously reported the names of officers involved in that thread; the officer who replied “Good stuff ... Thank you” was Jeff Walters.
Bennett said that the private messages “may well fall below the public’s expectation of the professionalism of which officers should hold themselves but it does not change the clear facts of this case.”
Other officers sent racist, homophobic and extremist messages. All told, 13 Wichita officers (12 who have been on the SWAT team), three former Sedgwick County deputies and two Wichita firefighters were involved in message threads.
Only one of the Wichita officers, one who called former chief Gordon Ramsay a tool, was suspended. None of the other Wichita officers were suspended until after The Eagle reported the messages and the lack of punishment. They were punished last month.
Last month, interim chief Lemuel Moore announced new punishments for officers involved in the messages. Three officers were given suspensions. Walters and another officer involved in the “Ultimate De-Escalators” thread were given a written reprimand and sensitivity training. The third Wichita officer in that thread resigned for unrelated reasons during the investigation. The officer who started the thread is a former Sedgwick County deputy.
Walters has been with the department for 20 years, six with the SWAT team and three of those as a sniper. This was the first time he had been involved in a shooting, Bennett’s report indicated.
Bennett’s report includes more details about the shooting and what led up to it. The full report can be found at tinyurl.com/8yvb5tfd.
