Former NFL player Ricky Williams frisked by police while taking a walk in Texas

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On Friday, footage was released of former NFL star Ricky Williams being frisked by police while he was taking a walk in Texas.

Williams was in Texas to attend the Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award ceremony when police stopped him and asked him to stand in front of a police car while they searched him for weapons. The police claimed that they had received calls about a suspicious man hopping fences and loitering.

Williams denied hopping any fences, and an officer responded, “Here’s the thing. I know more than what you think I know. I know that you were in the back of somebody’s yard back there. Is there a reason you were in somebody’s yard?”

Williams continued to deny the accusations, saying that he had not been in anyone’s yard, and he was eventually allowed to leave and was not charged.

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After the incident, Tyler police department spokesperson Don Martin defended the officers to the Tyler Morning Telegraph: “We feel that our officers did a professional job and did the proper job. Bottom line, if this person had not gone back into an area and acted in a suspicious manner the way he did then this never would have happened.”

Williams, meanwhile, recounted the experience to the Austin radio station KLBJ 93.7 on Wednesday, saying, “They had me put my hands behind my back. They didn’t cuff me. They had me take everything out of my pockets and they started questioning me. I started to get upset. They told me to calm down. I said, ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be a black man, and it’s not the first time.'”

Martin has since reached out to Williams.

“We visited about the incident, and we came to the positive conclusion that he’s very welcome in Tyler, Texas,” Martin said. “And I hope I can spend some time with him when he does return. I even invited him to stay with my family when he’s here; we have a guest room he’s welcome to.”

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