By Corey Dade and Mae Gentry, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
| Ronald W. Jones |
| Photo: Billy Smith II/AJC |
| Robert Williams shows a wound he says he received from DeKalb County Officer Ronald W. Jones. He was initially accused of kidnapping Jones, but police now say it was the other way around. |
From the back of a DeKalb, Ga. police cruiser, Robert Williams realized they weren’t heading to the county jail. He saw I-20 behind him. The road became bumpy. Street lights vanished.
“Who said I was taking you to jail?” Williams recalled the police officer saying.
Moments later, Williams found himself in the thick woods of Rockdale County, locked in a struggle with the officer. That officer later told his superiors that Williams attacked him, took his pistol and threw him into the trunk of his police car.
But Friday, in a bizarre turnabout, DeKalb police said it was the officer, Ronald W. Jones, who abducted Williams. They charged the officer with three felonies, including kidnapping, and released Williams from jail.
“At the very beginning of this investigation,” DeKalb County Police Chief Louis Graham said Friday, "[investigators] determined something was amiss.”
Graham had expressed no such doubt Monday when he announced the arrest of Williams. He told reporters then that he believed Williams “acted with the intent of killing the officer.” But by Thursday, investigators had found enough holes in Jones’ version of events to drop the charges against Williams.
Jones remained hospitalized Friday at Atlanta Medical Center with cuts and wounds from Monday’s scuffle. Hospital officials would not discuss his condition.
Six complaints
In three years as a DeKalb police officer, Jones, 47, drew six complaints for alleged use of excessive force, conducting an illegal search and acting rudely, according to police Internal Affairs records.
In four of those cases, the officer’s accusers failed to pursue their complaints, the records show. The charges were not upheld in one case, the records show, and Jones was exonerated in another.
Jones could not be reached for comment Friday. Graham said Jones had resigned from the force.
Graham declined to discuss details of the struggle between the officer and Williams, but said, “We have information that he has done this before.”
“We encourage anyone this has happened to before to come forward,” the chief said.
A frightening night
In an interview at his south DeKalb home on Friday, Williams, 33, told a dramatically different story than the officer told his superiors.
On Sunday, as midnight approached, Williams had settled on a wooden bench at a MARTA bus stop along Wesley Chapel Road, he recalled.
He was clutching a lottery ticket, he said, and contemplating how to will himself back into rehabilitation for his addiction to crack cocaine.
“That’s, like, where I would hang at when I would get high,” Williams said. “I was in recovery. . . . I was kind of embarrassed. I didn’t want to go home and tell my mother because I had relapsed.
“I had, like, eight months, almost nine months, before I relapsed. That happens. Not looking for no excuses.”
He said he was sober when Jones, sitting in his patrol car nearby, called to him and ordered him to move along.
Williams said he crossed the street and circled to the back of a Chinese restaurant. The police officer pulled up moments later and threatened to take him to jail if he didn’t leave, Williams said.
“I said, ‘I don’t mind going to jail for loitering. I don’t have nowhere else to go.’ ”
The officer put him in the back seat, Williams said.
“He didn’t get on the interstate to go to the jail,” he said. “I asked him where he was taking me and he said . . . ‘I’m taking you where I take all the guys that walk around on my beat.’ ”
The cruiser stopped.
Williams said the officer ordered him out of the car, removed a long, slim weapon from his waistband and struck him at least twice.
Williams said he began to fear for his life and decided his only chance to survive was to fight back and escape.
“I thought, I got to go for what I know, it’s life or death. I lunged at him,” Williams said.
The men locked onto each other and fell to the ground. Williams said he was on top of Jones when the officer pulled a knife and stabbed him several times.
As they wrestled, Jones drew his gun, fired and missed, Williams said.
Police confirmed Jones’ gun was fired.
Williams said they continued to tussle and he pried the gun away from Jones and struck the officer in the head.
The struggle continued until Williams freed himself and ran off and hid in the woods until daybreak, he said.
Jones, in his account to police, said Williams overpowered him on Wesley Chapel Road near Snapfinger Road and took his gun.
The officer said Williams stuffed him into the trunk of his patrol car and drove to Rockdale County. During the ride, Jones said, he unlocked the trunk from the inside.
Once the car stopped, Jones said, he and Williams fought again. Jones said he drew a knife and stabbed Williams, and that Williams fled.
Jones said he then drove back to DeKalb and called for help.
Police mounted a seven-hour hunt for Williams and found him near Flat Bridge and Klondike roads on Monday morning.
— Staff writer Ben Smith contributed to this article.