June 26, 2008
by Volt and Electra Penn

Unless there's a clear and present danger to other humans, no man should be shot dead in the middle of the street like a mad dog. But that's what happened on April 2, 2008 at the 200 block of Ameswood Drive, Round Rock, Texas, when Bobby Lee Williams was put out his misery - gunned down by local police. He was harmless. He was naked. He was a streaking target practice!

I'd bet my last Euro that it was Uncle Sam who first trained eighteen year old kids to shoot first and ask questions later.  Now, those pimply face soldiers have graduated into Iraqi vets in need of employment. Police departments all over the country are hiring them. Armed and dangerous with psychological wounds that may never heal, they are at this very moment patrolling your neighborhood.

A long time acquaintance of Bobby Lee Williams explained it this way 'Willie' was, ".a schizophrenic, manic/depressive, half-wit, bi-polar nudist who occasionally flashed his naked butt up against the see-through, double-pane, shatter-proof-glass storm-door of his mother's house. Instead of the cops," the man said, "somebody should've called a dog catcher."

I also found out that Willie was known, even by passing acquaintances, as an incorrigible cur. A high school dropout, he lasted three weeks at a trade school, two weeks in the army and only one day with the Bashrahami in the yogi's temple. From the beginning he was damaged goods. You know the kind, a child everybody tries to leave behind.

"Nobody could take Bobby Lee, even for a day," his own stepfather said. "The boy's been a real blue tick disappointment to his mama, too. You know, even I couldn't teach that mongrel to hunt. Not worth a plug nickel, if you ask me. Why his own sister tried to drop him off along side of the road, but he just kept findin' his way back home."

Bobby Lee's half sister, Crystal Herrera, was so pissed-off at her half-brother the night he died that she could have shot him, herself. It seems Bobby Lee and his crazy behavior had run off the last of Crystal's many boyfriends - none of which were the father of her 4 kids.

The boy's 'Mama' had been fed up with her son for years and had 'jerked his chain' so many times her arm was 'wore' out. It was the 10th time he stole her car - while completely naked--that she threw his clothes out the door. Mama was 'just plum tired' of apologizing to the neighbors about him running around the house 'without a stitch on'. Probably most of all, Mama had had enough of little Willie's butt prints on the door and his sick lame excuses for taking up space but never contributing 'a blessed thing'.

Willie started out that fateful evening by standing on one leg, flamingo-style, in his mama's front lawn. He'd pulled similar stunts. This one was no different---just another of Willie's unframed, outsider-art statements called 'tucking genitals between legs to make natural 'nekked-ness' disappear'. Too bad his stage was a postage stamp yard in suburbia and not the backwoods, because there were no leaves big enough to cover the erection sticking out Willie's back end.

Next-door neighbor, Mr. Valentin Olvera, admitted making the mistake of calling 911, and telling the dispatcher, "There's a maniac running around on Ameswood Drive who's naked as a jaybird". 

When Round Rock police officer Andy McKinney arrived at the curb, Willie took off for his back yard, flapping his arms. The ensuing chase was a scene from TV's Cops: a flailing naked windmill, a pissed off cop, huffing puffing ripping the rear end out of a new uniform, cussing and vaulting over a chain-link fence. All that was missing was a little 'Bad Boy-Bad Boy' cover music.

When Willie realized the back door of the house was locked, he reversed course, went barreling around the corner and scared the holy crap out of McKinney. In the confusion of the collusion McKinney lost his police baton. Who would've guessed Willie could lay his hands on it so fast, bolt across the lawn, then give up to crouch in the middle of the street. Immediately, almost as if choreographed, police officers McKinney, Craig Cargill and Sandra Wright sidestepped in a chorus line to surround him, guns loaded, drawn, cocked and ready to put down the whimpering mongrel.

The video tape from the dashboard camera of Officer McKinney's squad car shows a cop kicking Bobby Lee in his haunches, aiming a revolver and firing a shot.  But why? Where were the tasers? Where was the pepper spray? Where was the tranquillizer gun? And where was an ounce of compassionate common sense for a pathetic human being with fewer brains than God gave a Labrador retriever?

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After writhing on the ground in pain, Willie is seen struggling to his feet and staggering toward his mother. We can't hear what is said, but instead of putting him on a leash, all three officers unload BOOM!~BOOM!~BOOM!~and kill Willie - Haji Baghdad-style. 

Yes folks, these are more than just interesting times. No longer can we see the police officer as the kind, sympathetic buddy who saves our pets. There are new rules of engagement for police departments all over America and little of it has to do with protect and defend.

But should we really blame these cops for their dispassionate concern? 'Just following orders' is the excuse for 'the buck stopped over there in Iraq'. Lethal force that is used on an unarmed man today came from the top of the food chain. 

Didn't the original war president come right out and say 'it's okay to murder your fellow man'? Didn't the top-brass tell them, 'aim straight and shoot to kill'? And didn't Alberto Gonzalez, give everybody wearing a government issued uniform the authority to 'rid the world of sub-humans'?

It all makes one wonder just who were the psychopaths running around loose on Ameswood Drive that evening: totally nude Bobby Lee Williams, cowering and waving the stolen stick, or the uniformed gang of trigger-happy robo-cops armed with .40 caliber handguns?

We all better hope that it was this 3rd rate war, fought in a 4th rate country against a 5th rate army that has turned our children into 1st rate killers. Woe be to us if, in an evolutionary thrust of comet dust they were born that way.  Get pissed off, step out of line, mouth off the seven no-no words or pee on the courthouse lawn, those are the kind of actions that may cost you your life.

All Williams did that evening was forget to take his Zoloft. That's why he morphed into a buck-naked raving lunatic. The skinny 100 pound weakling was more of a threat to his front door than anything else. He needed a psychiatrist and a straightjacket, but not a bullet in the head.    

A couple of months after Bobby Lee Williams was fatally wounded, a Williamson County grand jury heard taped depositions of the officers and saw a dashboard video of the actual killing. After proudly reading their 'no-bill' verdict to the general public, district attorney John Bradley praised the Round Rock Police and said, "Our officers did the right thing. If Bobby Lee Williams had just dropped the officer's baton and laid down like he was instructed, then he would still be alive today."

There you have it, folks, case closed, cops exonerated and a person's life swept under the rug without so much as a 'gosh, we're sorry'. Mr. Bradley did propose that Williamson County try to raise awareness of its mental health unit. Well, that's a little late for Williams - he's dead.

If you can stand it, watch Mckinney, Cargill and Wright gun down a naked, defenseless Bobby Lee Williams, here.

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Have Penn they'll listen. Volt Penn writes speeches for Progressive Populists and reasoned arguments for those on the left of center. He has also written speeches for anybody who has read his work. You can reach Volt Penn through his artist friend, b.b.kemp, at bbkemp@bbkemp.com

Volt/Electra Penn copyright 2008

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