Memorial Portrait Poster of Tekili Williams, killed by Cleveland police on October 26, 1999
“Tekili Williams was 17 years old. Nice looking fellow, slim and lived off of Cedar near 79th at Cedar. One evening he and his buddy decide they’ll go over to Tremont. They had friends in the Seventh Street projects. They came up the hill from the projects and he had a mask on and he went in the bar, the Treehouse. He had a pistol but when he saw the off duty cops having a beer say something, he threw his gun down. And before you know it, he’s trying to get out. He went this way and that way to try to get to the back door. The backdoor was locked. The cops made up shit like he was pistol whipping the bartender.
So I went with his uncle over to the Treehouse a couple days later and saw the bar was very wide and Tekili was a slight fellow. He was not a big guy at all. So that was a lie, and again, there is no reason to kill the man. They could have just arrested him.”–Bill Swain