Police Brutality / Individual record
Arthur R. Williams Jr.
The Washington Post's Fatal Force database records Arthur R. Williams Jr. in a fatal on-duty police shooting on 2016-05-09 in El Paso, TX. Individual circumstances and legal outcome require case-specific review.
- Record ID
- PB-427
- Incident date
- May 9, 2016
- Outcome
- Fatal
- Location
- El Paso, TX
- Agency
- El Paso Police Department
- Category
- Fatal on-duty police shooting
- Age (reported)
- 33
What happened
Arthur R. Williams Jr., 33, was fatally shot by El Paso police on May 9, 2016, after his mother sought help getting him to behavioral treatment. Court records say the family described his diagnoses as bipolar disorder, depression and schizophrenia. Officers visited the family's residence twice that day after a domestic dispute; during the later encounter, two officers fired when Williams pointed what appeared to be a firearm at them. The object was later classified as a toy weapon in the Fatal Force database. A subsequent federal court opinion examining El Paso police's response to mental-health crises considered Williams's shooting while assessing an unrelated civil-rights lawsuit, concluding the available record did not establish unconstitutional deadly force in his case. That discussion is not a criminal conviction or a trial focused on Williams.
Investigation & findings
Individual legal and investigative outcome not yet reviewed.
Washington Post Fatal Force v2; 2015–2024
Source record details
- Source incident ID
- 1844
- Race code in source
- B
- Race source method
- not_available
- Gender (source)
- male
- Armed status (source)
- replica
- Flee status (source)
- not
- Agency IDs (source)
- 110
Sources & records
- Primary source
- Additional source
- Methodology and national police killings trackingMapping Police Violence · Dataset/methodology
- Fatal Force v2 — fatal on-duty police shootings, 2015–2024The Washington Post · Dataset