CLAYTON, Mo. — Lt. Arrethie Williams is the public face of the St. Louis County Police Department’s Community Outreach Division.
She’s also led the Domestic Violence Unit.
And she’s among a select few Black women to wear a white shirt reserved only for commanders in the department.
But Mike English and several of his friends, who include other first responders, say they know a very different side of her.
English, a former University City police officer, said Williams has abused her badge for years by assaulting him, stalking and harassing him — sometimes while in uniform and while on duty.
“This has taken away my peace, my joy and my love for law enforcement,” he said. “She sets a poor example of what police officers are and how to police the communities that we serve.”
The I-Team also talked to several women who say Williams has also stalked and harassed them after they became friends with or started dating English. One of the women, a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Officer, believes the county police are not doing enough to hold Williams accountable.
That city officer declined to comment publicly, citing an ongoing investigation.
But the St. Louis County Police Department has released conflicting information on whether an internal investigation into Williams’ conduct is still ongoing and has sent Williams to several public events to represent the department while it's been underway.
The I-Team also obtained surveillance footage from English’s home from 2019 that caught some of the confrontations between Williams and English, a Maryland Heights police report detailing a night in March when one of English’s friends was followed by a dark SUV and a Ferguson police report regarding a recent break-in at English's home.
KSDK does not typically report on criminal allegations against someone until they are charged, except when it involves a public official such as Williams.
The I-Team called Williams' attorney multiple times in recent weeks.
The attorney responded the day before the story was scheduled to air, offering to share Lt. Williams' side of the story only in the presence of a reporter and KSDK’s news director at a later date.
Williams filed a restraining order against English in St. Charles County in June, accusing him of abuse and stalking, four days after the department received a complaint about her conduct toward English.
English has since filed one against her.
Both are awaiting hearings to determine whether the orders of protection will take effect, but they must not contact one another in the meantime.
English provides video to support abuse claims
English said he started dating Williams sometime in 2014 or 2015 and continued seeing her on and off for five years.
When he broke things off, he said texts and phone calls started.
Sometimes they were from anonymous numbers.
Sometimes they were from numbers he had in his phone that belonged to his friends and family members.
“I would block her number, so then she would call me from my dad’s number,” he said. “I'm thinking my dad is calling so I picked up the phone to say, ‘Hey, how are you doing?'
“Then she would say, ‘No, this not your dad’ and things like that.”
English also believes his cellphone and the cellphones of his female friends would get tapped.
“She would literally text me what we were talking about right then and there,” he said.
English said she began coming to his home in north St. Louis County at all hours of the night, sometimes in uniform and while on duty in a marked St. Louis County police car, banging on his doors until he answered; hitting, kicking and screaming at him in front of his toddler-aged daughter.
In one surveillance video taken from the camera on English’s front door around midnight on July 16, 2019, Williams can be seen in uniform looking in his door and knocking.
In another video, five days later at 8:33 p.m., Willliams is in plain clothes when she begins striking English at least twice with her fist after he answers her knocks. He tries to push her away, she falls on the grass as he’s trying to put her arm behind her. She then grabs a sign from his bushes and tries to hit him with it when she gets up.
In another video, taken at 2:55 a.m. Sept. 4, 2019, English answers his door and walks past Williams on his way to his car saying "Get your hands off me," as she strikes him and pulls at him. She can be seen following him to his car.
In another video, she can be seen about 25 minutes later standing on the porch continuing to knock on his door and look in his windows.
English said he didn’t call the police to report the alleged assaults because he’s “embarrassed.”
“Two police officers involved in some domestic, she’s 5’3” 140, give or take, and I'm 6’4” 300 pounds,” he said. “When I was on a call like that, the guy's going to jail 10 out of 10 times.”
He continued: “Me being in law enforcement, being minorities it is already tough enough, and she's a minority and she's a woman,” said English, who is Black. “So I never wanted to embarrass her, her family.”
But English said Williams has taken things too far, and the department isn’t holding her accountable.
So, he said he’s going public.
“I thought that she would just find somebody else to talk to and forget about me and just go move on with her life,” he said. “I just thought it would just go away over time.
“This is the exact opposite.”
He said he has moved three times in two years.
"I just want it to stop," he said.
Stalking by text message
Nae Cooper says she considers English her mentor.
But she said Williams has harassed her via text messages from anonymous numbers and watched her from the parking lot where Cooper works.
In March, Cooper said a dark SUV started following her.
Text messages started popping into English’s phone from unknown numbers.
“I am here at your house watching Nae pack”
“This is going to be her death day soon she pull off from your house we gone kill her.”
Cooper and English called the police.
Maryland Heights officers met them at the Mobil gas station just before midnight at Dorsett and McKelvey and confronted the driver, who was described as an older Black woman who said she was doing deliveries for DoorDash, according to a police report obtained by the I-Team.
While talking to English at the gas station, the text messages continued, according to the report which read:
“They not stopping anything nae already plan on leaving we gone kill ger”
Maryland Heights officers followed up with English a few days later to get copies of the text messages.
While an officer was talking to English at his home, more texts from an unknown number came in, according to the report.
“Stop calling the police like you not out here doing something you don’t have no business doing”
“I didn’t call (expletive)” English responded.
“You going to be the reason Nae get killed you treat her so wrong called her stupid (expletive)”
“(Expletive) I’m actually out here looking for you” English responded.
“I’m looking at y’all”
On April 5, Maryland Heights Police Chief Bill Carson sent an email to his detective on the case, according to the report.
“Chief Carson advised that, per St. Louis County Police Chief Mary Barton, the St. Louis County Police Department will henceforth be conducting the investigation of this incident,” he wrote.
The report also characterized the incident as stalking second-degree, but a representative from St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell’s office said it has not received any reports regarding the incident.
Williams was one of the guests at a community outreach event at the end of July alongside Bell’s staff.
In a statement, Bell wrote: "The investigation in question was internal to the police department and as such we were not aware of it. Our Community Outreach staff networks routinely with peer Community Outreach staff at other agencies, and this lieutenant would have been the proper liaison when networking with this department."
The incident pushed English to enlist the help of anti-police brutality activist The Rev. Phillip Duvall. He helped English file an internal affairs complaint with the St. Louis County Police Department.
“We have a situation where there is an officer with the badge and gun that clearly can take away somebody's life and liberty based upon what the Constitution affords,” Duvall said. “Secondly, the ability that she has to be in a unit that's unsupervised, that's representing the public image of the police department while doing community engagement, it’s the height of hypocrisy.”
Duvall sent a letter about the situation to former St. Louis County Police Chief Mary Barton in June.
“As pillars of the community, we wanted to bring to your attention a situation that threatens the reputation of your police department and could derail your efforts to build trust in the community you serve,” Duvall wrote.
It continued: “This matter deserves your attention and a thorough investigation.”
Duvall also accompanied English and several other alleged stalking victims to talk to the county’s Internal Affairs investigators.
“This has gone on way too long,” he said. “At the very crux of this, it’s dangerous now.
“It's entered in, in my opinion, beyond misconduct. We're talking about life-threatening allegations. This person has a gun and a badge and continues to do this behavior. That's unconscionable and unacceptable.”
He fears someone could get hurt.
“Everybody is entitled to due process,” Duvall said. “But what about the due process of these victims?
“What about the due process of citizens that just want to live their life? This goes beyond stalking. This is abuse and misconduct.”
Williams "sent death threats"
Anonymous text messages continue to plague English and Cooper along with several other women the I-Team spoke to who did not want to be identified out of fear of Williams.
On Aug. 10, court documents for English arrived at his girlfriend’s house even though English has never lived there.
His girlfriend, a St. Louis police officer, was pregnant at the time and has also reported receiving anonymous text messages and witnessing Williams’ abuse.
“She's sent her death threats, ‘We know where you live, We're waiting for you,’” English said.
Texts from unknown numbers obtained by the I-Team read:
"Your ass beating is coming"
"On your unborn baby, you going get your ass beat...Oh it won't be me beating your ass."
The city police officer responded: "Like I've always said...ur comical. U can't fight"
The unknown texter responded: "I know so much it's ridiculous. it won't be me they know where you live they been riding threw there since I told them about you."
Those threats pushed English to file for an order of protection against Williams in St. Louis County on Aug. 11.
Hours after a judge granted English’s ex-parte petition, his home in Ferguson was broken into.
Hours after that, he got a text message from a random number that read, “Yeah, I did and going do it again.”
The following week, the police department spent about $1,800 to send Williams to a week-long conference about the Police Athletic League in New Orleans even though the department says her conduct is still under investigation.
And there is conflicting information about the status of the investigation.
Duvall sent an email on Aug. 24 to Acting Chief Kenneth Gregory, who replaced Barton in August, imploring him to hold Williams accountable.
“To date, A. Williams was notified of a protective order to stop all contact yet has continued to violate that order through text threats including a 1-week-old newborn and her mother, through various means, in an effort to deter them from moving forward with their complaints against her,” Duvall wrote.
Gregory responded: “We have interviewed and researched all information that has been presented to us and have completed our investigation and the complainant will be notified of our findings. As you know, the department is not allowed to discuss personnel matters outside of this agency.”
English said he hasn’t heard anything from the department about the outcome of his complaint.
St. Louis County Police Department spokeswoman Sgt. Tracy Panus sent a statement to the I-Team, which read: “The incident has been investigated and is currently under review.”
“The investigation is still under review. It gets reviewed by the Assistant Chief and the Chief, as well as the Board of Police Commissioners before it is considered final and complete. At any point in this review process, the investigation can be kicked back to the Bureau of Professional Standards for additional investigation. This can be a lengthy process but it’s essential in having a thorough investigation.”
English said he has little faith in the county police department’s internal affairs division.
After English gave his statement to one of the investigators, he said he got texts from unknown numbers stating: “You sound stupid,” “He's (expletive) lying to you,” “I'm sitting here with him right now and I told him everything.” “Nothing's going to happen.”