Elliott Williams
- Age: 37
- Name of Jail: David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center
- Location: Tulsa, OK
- Cause of Death*: Complications of vertebro-spinal injuries, as well as starvation and dehydration
- Incarceration Type: TK
- Private Company: Correctional Healthcare Management of Oklahoma
- Incarceration Duration: Six days
- Date of Death: October 27, 2011
On October 21, 2011, Elliott Williams, 37, was arrested while having a mental breakdown in a hotel lobby. He was taken to Owasso Police Department headquarters on a misdemeanor obstruction charge, where he displayed signs of psychosis. In a video-monitored holding cell, Williams was seen “crawling on his hands and knees, barking and screaming, and repeatedly slamming his head against the cell door and walls with great force,” according to a lawsuit later filed by his family. According to the lawsuit, the police department “took no action to protect Mr. Williams from harm,” despite evidence that he was suffering from serious mental illness and had injured his head and/or neck. On October 22, he was transported to the David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center, otherwise known as the Tulsa County Jail, where, according to the lawsuit, Williams exhibited symptoms “consistent with a serious brain injury.” But jail and medical staff on duty did not transport him to a hospital or mental health facility, the lawsuit alleged. A nurse indicated that she thought Williams was faking his injury. A few days later, he was examined by a pschaitrst and then placed in a video-monitored “suicide cell.” He died there on October 27. According to Williams’s autopsy report, he died of “complications of vertebrospinal injuries due to blunt force trauma,” though the medical examiner also noted evidence of dehydration. A medical expert who reviewed the case for the plaintiff’s side noted that he was “never provided with any meaningful assistance in obtaining adequate fluid, nutrition, pain control, meaningful evaluation, diagnosis or treatment of his complaints.” "I believe this is the civil rights violation of our lifetime," Daniel Smolen, the family's attorney, told the Yale Investigative Reporting Lab. "I get calls every single week about jail deaths."
In 2017, a federal jury awarded the Williams estate a $10.25 million payment that the county then appealed. The settlement announced on Tuesday eliminated the requirement for Stanley Glanz, who was the sheriff at the time of Mr. Williams’s death, to pay $250,000.