JC's new ‘transparency' webpage covers police lawsuits related to Sean Williams

Yahoo

14-05-2025

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — Johnson City's municipal webpage now features a 'transparency' page related to the Johnson City Police Department (JCPD) and its handling of alleged serial rapist Sean Williams — a page that acknowledges up front 'the deficiencies of some police investigations.'
The page includes 'frequently asked questions' (FAQs) as well as 'an open letter' signed by the five city commissioners and a message from JCPD Chief Billy Church. One FAQ, 'Who has been held accountable,' acknowledges 'the community's deep frustration and disappointment over what has occurred' and 'the real harm and deterioration of trust, which we are working diligently to strengthen.'
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The rollout comes three months after the Johnson City Commission approved a $28 million settlement in a federal civil lawsuit filed by alleged victims of Williams. The former downtown resident was never charged with any sex-related crimes by JCPD but is now suspected of drugging and raping more than 60 women in his downtown apartment based on videos and still images he allegedly produced and possessed.
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'Once we hit the settlement, this gave us an opportunity to kind of put everything that we can say at this point in time in one location, so that people can have questions answered related to the settlement and ongoing litigation,' Mayor John Hunter told News Channel 11 Tuesday.
The new page drew a mixed reaction from the leader of a group that's been pressing for town halls on the issue since city commissioners approved a $28 million settlement with plaintiffs in one of three federal civil suits against the city.
'It's a good step, but it kind of feels like, we're trying to push them to talk to us more and they do a little bit but they don't come all the way,' Victoria Hewlett said of the city commission specifically. 'They lean on (City Manager) Cathy Ball a lot, the elected officials do.'
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The webpage notes, and Hunter and fellow commissioner Jenny Brock both stressed, that with two active federal civil lawsuits remaining the city is still limited in what it can and can't post to the page.
'We encourage everybody to read this website and the information listed in it because it's telling what we can tell,' Hunter said. 'There were shortcomings in our police department that have been addressed.'
But a webpage, no matter how thorough and detailed, is a static instrument and not an in-person give and take. Hewlett's group has had one meeting with city officials and had a couple more postponed, and she said they'll keep pressing for a town hall-style meeting.
'When you sign up to be a leader like that you've got to take accountability when things happen,' she said. 'You know, it's not comfortable, but it looks even worse frankly if they're not gonna be willing to come up and dialogue with people.'
Brock and Hunter both said that time will come, but it may have to wait until the other two federal lawsuits conclude.
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'We look back at a class action lawsuit, which is nothing that we've ever dealt with before, it's very complex,' Brock said. 'There are many tentacles to it, many people to it and so that's what has made it so hard to be able to talk as we wish we could talk.
'We're kind of dancing between the lines now because we've got the one settlement, but now we've got two other suits. I think the way will become clear when we get a little bit further along the line, and we really want to encourage people, go check out the website. I know that's kind of a throwback here, but the documents that they need to see are there.'
Hunter said the city's lawyers are advising against an open forum. The city did have a 'listening session' during which citizens had up to three minutes to speak on the subject, but there was no back and forth.
'I feel like we're setting people up for frustration if they're coming to a town hall expecting to ask questions that they may not be able to get answers to at this time,' he said.
The page stresses the city's claim that all allegations of JCPD officer corruption in the Williams case are false — claims the plaintiffs who settled made, but ones that so far have been debunked or at least not proven.
But Hewlett said the nature of Williams's crimes, the allegations themselves and the fact that police appear not to have aggressively followed up on complaints against him leave the community needing more than just answers on a webpage.
'The community has been hurt by this, and there's been steps taken by the police department, but one thing I'd love to see is another investigation to see what the results of those steps have been,' Hewlett said.
'But for people to feel like their police department, their local government, the people that are supposed to be in charge and are supposed to be there for the public good, are turning a blind eye to something like this — women and children getting hurt, a girl died, you know?'
'It's so so painful and it makes you not trust your government, which is not a healthy thing for our local civics. There's a lot of gravity here … I don't know all the details about what all of this stuff is, I'm just one person, but people sense corruption.'
'They don't trust their government right now, and I think there's things that we can do to try to improve that. There's just been an erosion of trust that needs to be addressed.'
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Hunter said the city plans on meeting with Hewlett's group again. Brock said she's having individual conversations with community members she runs into around town and that she sees the importance of something more than one-way listening sessions or a webpage.
'They want to ask questions that we can't talk about and so it's just frustrating for them and they think we're hiding something in that,' she said. 'So at this point in time, in a controlled environment that we can get out there and have the dialogue that is most healthy, we just need to figure out how to do it.'
Brock added that her belief is that weaknesses found in an independent audit of the department's handling of sexual assault cases, commissioned after the first Williams-related lawsuit, showed deficiencies that could allow a situation like Williams's to develop without corruption being present.
That 'Daigle Report' found that the JCPD had a number of 'certain investigative practices' that 'could negatively affect the quality and efficiency of their response to sexual assault cases.' Daigle noted a common theme running through many of these weaknesses: 'JCPD's response to sexual assault was challenged based on gender-based stereotypes and bias.'
'It's really important at this point in time to recognize what those weaknesses were,' Brock said. 'And again, the Daigle report was framed around constitutional policing, so there was a framework for him to study what was going on in the police department. But we've got to look forward now, and the changes that have been made are profound.'
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