Alleged Bronx cop-shooter Robert Williams ‘upset’ since gun death of son: grandma
The grandmother of accused Bronx cop-shooter Robert Williams said that he had been “upset” since his own son died from a gunshot on the borough’s streets.
“He was depressed at times because his son got shot in the street,” said Mary Williams, 80, describing the gunplay that took the life of Robert Williams Jr. about two years ago. “That was his only child.”
A Robert Williams, 18, was found shot dead near the intersection of Watson and Ward avenues in Soundview in June 2018, according to NYPD records.
The teen was struck by a round accidentally discharged while playing with a friend’s gun, according to the department.
No charges were filed in the accident, according to a department spokesperson, who couldn’t immediately confirm whether that teen was indeed the son of the man now accused of shooting two uniformed cops in less than 12 hours.
“My granddaughter called me [and] I said, ‘No, it can’t be,’ ” said Mary Williams, recalling the moment she learned of the accusations against the grandson she raised “from a baby” and still lives with. “I was really shocked.”
Williams, 44, allegedly stormed into the borough’s 41st Precinct station house around 8 a.m. Sunday and opened fire with a 9mm SIG Sauer handgun in a chaotic scene caught on video.
He allegedly wounded a lieutenant before running out of bullets and surrendering, according to cops.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said in a press briefing that he’s “confident” that Williams is also behind an ambush attack on two cops sitting in a marked department van Saturday night, in which one officer was struck by a round that narrowly missed his carotid artery.
Lou Turco, the president of the Lieutenants Benevolent Association, described Williams as a “career criminal” whose record includes a 2002 attempted murder conviction — a case that saw him trade bullets with cops — for which he was paroled in 2017.
Williams was re-arrested for resisting arrest and DUI in 2018 after a cop allegedly found him sleeping in a car near the Major Deegan Expressway, according to police sources.
He was briefly locked up on a parole violation, but sprung again in January 2019.
He had a court date scheduled Monday in that ongoing case, but his grandmother said that he had kept his nose clean since getting back on the street.
“He stayed in the house and sometimes he would go with me to the laundromat or to the store or whatever,” said Williams. “He didn’t have no problems with no police lately.”
Asked if she had a message for her grandson, Williams said, “I would tell him to get his life straight and don’t [do] things like that, because I love him and God loves him.”
Even as Williams’ record stayed clean, he grappled with lingering depression over the death of his only child, Williams said.
“He was just upset,” she said. “Sometimes he was very quiet. He’d go sit there and watch TV and he was kind of quiet in his room.
“I talked to him and asked him if he was alright and he said, ‘Yeah, grandma.’ “
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