Texas Police Confirm Frisk/Search Incident With Heisman Winner Ricky Williams

The Tyler, Texas Police Department has confirmed the occurrence of an incident in which they searched former Texas running back and Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams in the parking lot of his hotel after he went for a walk in the city on Jan. 11 before an awards ceremony.

Texas Police Confirm Frisk/Search Incident With Heisman Winner Ricky Williams

Williams, 39, traveled to Tyler to support two other former UT running backs, the awards’ namesake, Earl Campbell, and the eventual winner of the award, D’Onta Foreman. 

The 1998 Heisman winner was staying at a Courtyard Marriott on the south side of the city and decided to go for a walk to kill some time before the ceremony, which was held at the Willow Brook Country Club.

“I realized at the moment I’m a black man walking in the south and there’s a dog barking,” Williams told Austin radio station KLBJ on Wednesday.

” … I started to realize there’s something going on here. So I say ‘OK, I’m not going to walk over here because it doesn’t feel comfortable’ and I turn and I just take a walk around the neighborhood.”

Williams said when he returned to his hotel about an hour later, four white police officers were there to question him after someone called saying they saw “a black male wearing all black crouched down behind his wire fence in a green belt area that backed up” to the hotel, according to a statement from Tyler police.

The man who made the initial call said Williams “didn’t threaten me in any way.”

 Williams said the officers made him put his hands behind his back– though he wasn’t handcuffed– and then forced him to empty his pockets (including his room key) and spread his legs so one of the officers could frisk him and then question him.

Tyler Police released the dash cam video of the incident, in which one of the cops is heard asking Williams if he hopped a fence, to which the former football star said he didn’t.

“I usually don’t consider where I am because I’m ‘Ricky Williams,” and I think that’s good enough,” Williams told the radio hosts. ” And I started to get a little bit upset and they said, ‘Calm down,’ and I said, ‘Listen, you don’t know what it’s like to be a black man, this is not the first time this has happened to me when cops have harassed me and I haven’t done anything.'”

The Heisman winner also said one of the officers thought he was Ricky Williams, although he wasn’t sure. When Williams confirmed this, he proceeded to drop Earl Campbell’s name, but said the other policemen thought he was lying.

“Honestly, to their defense (the officers), and I don’t know why I’m defending them, they’re not used to seeing people and they get a call, they have to follow up,” Williams said. “And I hope that after this situation, they realize that black lives do matter. I’ve never wanted to say that, but this was a time where it fits. It fits in Tyler in that moment.”

 Williams noted in the radio interview that he was told by an attorney friend that he was illegally searched. Williams said the interaction with police lasted around seven minutes.

Williams was drafted fifth overall by the New Orleans Saints out of Texas in 1999. There, he spent three seasons before being traded to the Miami Dolphins, with whom he played nine seasons. Following his suspension from the NFL in 2006, he briefly played with the Toronto Argonauts of the CFL. He then played for the Baltimore Ravens in 2011 and retired at the end of that season. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2015.

 FOXBORO, MA – NOVEMBER 08: Ricky Williams #34 of the Miami Dolphins carries the ball in the second quarter against the New England Patriots on November 8, 2009 at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)