Former Hendry County Sheriff’s Office deputy Tyler Williams will serve nearly three years in federal prison for violating an individual’s civil rights and obstructing justice.
Williams, 30, was found guilty in February by a federal jury and was sentenced Tuesday by United States District Judge Sheri P. Chappell. Williams was also a former Fort Myers police officer fired for not reporting suspected child abuse.
Williams was fired from the Hendry County force at the close of the investigation in 2023.
“Just as in any other sector, law enforcement is not immune to the presence of a small number of individuals who tarnish the reputation of their profession, who erode public trust, and who damage community relations,” U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg said at the indictment in 2024.
On July 4, 2023, while investigating a possible burglary in Hendry County, Williams allegedly threw a suspect to the ground while the man was handcuffed, which caused the suspect to lose consciousness.
Williams then obstructed justice by writing a false justification for the use of force on the man. The use of body-worn cameras by the Hendry County Sheriff's Office allowed Sheriff Steve Whidden to see Williams’ unreasonable use of force and to request an investigation.
“When I watched the body camera, I was shocked and I was appalled. And what I saw on this body camera, it violated the trust of our community. And that trust is so sacred, and we work very hard to keep that trust between our deputies and our community of Hendry County, which is one of the reasons we have body cameras, because it documents everything that they do,” Whidden said in 2024.
Williams was formerly employed as a Fort Myers police officer but was fired from that department when he was investigated for not reporting suspected child abuse at a traffic stop.
In that January 2020 case, he stopped the van of a woman who had narcotics and paraphernalia in her car, and an unsecured 3-year-old sleeping in the back seat.
A month after the traffic stop, the child suffered fatal injuries in a crash on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard in Fort Myers. The child suffered the injuries when she was thrown from the same van driven by her mother, who was under the influence of narcotics.
At a press conference in 2024, Sheriff Whidden said that Hendry hired Williams despite the black marks on his record because the Fort Myers charges against him were ultimately dismissed.
WGCU reporter Cary Barbor contributed to this report. WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you.