*Martell Williams, 15, a basketball player at Waukegan High School, was arrested recently and charged with attempted murder and aggravated battery. He was alleged to have shot at a store clerk at a Dollar General store in Waukegan, Illinois. The reality is that Williams had been playing a high school basketball game in Lincolnshire (Illinois) at the time the shooting happened. However, he gave a false confession that his lawyer and the State’s Attorney – Eric Rinehart – explained was because of the way police questioned him.
“Some people who were in the store wrongfully identified him out of a lineup and one thing led to another, they went to the school, they arrested him and they started telling him they already knew he’d been at the store,” Lake County States Attorney Eric Rinehart said. “And so by confronting him in that way, by telling him we already know this to be true, they led to this problem.”
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The family reviewed the video of the interrogation at the police department after their meeting with Rinehart. They allege that detectives tried to coerce young Williams into a confession.
“They tried to bribe him with McDonald’s saying, ‘Look. Just tell us you were there,” his attorney Kevin O’Connor said. “They don’t even tell him about a shooting. ‘Just tell us you were there and we’ll have you home in ten minutes.’”
The teenager ultimately spent two nights in the Lake County Juvenile Detention Center charged with attempted murder and aggravated battery.
However, after he and his family were able to show that Williams was not near the scene of the shooting—he was released.
According to the latest state law that took effect last month, a confession obtained from minors with deception by the police is not admissible in court. Rinehart said that it is time to improve from such crude methods to prevent incidents such as Martell Williams’ from happening again. According to the family’s lawyer, the meeting with Rinehart was promising, but they may still file a lawsuit against the police department if they don’t get a fair outcome.
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