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Cedric Ricardo Williams

Age : 29

Gender : Male

Race : Black

Date : 09/10/2021

Location : 1100 block of Owens Road

City : Oxon Hill

County : Prince George's

State : Maryland

Agency : Prince George's County Police Department

Officer(s) :Corporal John Diggs

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during disturbance call

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 09/10/2021, Prince George's County Police Department Cpl. John Diggs shot and killed 29-year-old Cedric Williams during a confrontation outside an apartment complex in the 1100 block of Owens Road in Oxon Hill. Williams had no fixed address, but residents told reporters that his mother lived at the complex and that Williams stayed with her.
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The encounter began at approximately 12:45 p.m. when Williams arrived at the complex to pick up food that had been delivered to the front desk. Apartment personnel told Diggs that Williams had been banned from the property. Police said the ban involved previous behavioral problems and threats at the complex.
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Diggs was not dispatched to the complex in response to a 911 call. He lived there and performed private security duties as a "courtesy officer," receiving free or reduced rent in exchange for police-related services at the property. Diggs was wearing his Prince George's County police uniform when the apartment employee approached him about Williams.
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Diggs told Williams to leave. According to police, Williams did not comply, a verbal confrontation developed, and the two men began physically struggling. The struggle moved outside the building and into the roadway.
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Police alleged that during the struggle Williams removed what appeared to be a Colt .45 handgun from his backpack, pointed it toward Diggs and appeared to attempt to fire it. Police said the weapon did not fire and Williams threw it into a wooded area. Investigators later determined that the handgun was a realistic replica rather than an operable firearm.
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Diggs then deployed his Taser twice. Police said both deployments were ineffective. Williams subsequently retrieved what appeared to be an AR-15-style rifle from the wooded area. Police alleged that Williams pointed the rifle toward Diggs and failed to comply with commands to drop it.
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Diggs fired his service handgun multiple times, striking Williams. Williams died at the scene. Witness Viola West told the Washington Post that she heard approximately six gunshots followed by another two. Police did not state in the initial accounts exactly how many rounds Diggs fired or how many times Williams was struck.
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Investigators examined the rifle and determined that it, like the handgun, was a realistic replica. Police subsequently released photographs comparing both replica weapons with genuine firearms. Neither weapon recovered from Williams was an operable firearm.
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Diggs suffered injuries to his face and hands during the physical struggle. He was treated at a hospital and released.
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Police Chief Malik Aziz said immediately after the shooting that witnesses had described Williams as having behavioral problems that may have involved his mental health. Residents said Williams helped care for his mother, who lived at the apartment complex.
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Prince George's County Police Department's Internal Affairs Division led the investigation of Diggs' shooting. Diggs was placed on administrative leave. The department stated that the Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office reviews police shootings.
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The publicly searchable records located for this update do not establish a subsequent criminal charge against Diggs arising from Williams' death.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The officer who killed Cedric Williams was Cpl. John Diggs of the Prince George's County Police Department. Diggs was assigned to the Bureau of Patrol and had joined PGPD in 2009. At the time of the shooting, he lived at the Owens Road apartment complex and also worked there as a courtesy officer in exchange for free or reduced rent.
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A deep search of Diggs' name did not produce a verified prior fatal shooting, criminal prosecution, sustained serious-misconduct case or civil-rights judgment attributable to this John Diggs before Williams' killing. No unrelated allegations have been added.
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The institutional record of the Prince George's County Police Department around the time of Williams' death was considerably more substantial. In 2020, a federal civil-rights lawsuit brought by Black and Latino officers accused PGPD of systemic racial discrimination and retaliation and challenged the department's use-of-force review practices. An expert retained by the plaintiffs reported that department command review appeared to routinely "rubber stamp" officers' uses of force; county data examined in the litigation showed that Black civilians accounted for 86% of reported force incidents despite constituting approximately 64% of the county population. The allegations and expert findings arose from separate litigation and do not establish misconduct by Diggs in Williams' shooting.
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PGPD Chief Hank Stawinski resigned in June 2020 amid the litigation and nationwide scrutiny following George Floyd's killing. Prince George's County subsequently created a police reform work group examining use of force, hiring, training, discipline and departmental accountability.
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The department was also facing contemporaneous transparency disputes. After Maryland changed state law in 2021 to expand public access to police disciplinary records, PGPD resisted requests for misconduct files and litigation followed over disclosure. That dispute concerned departmental transparency rather than Diggs personally.
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Williams was killed before Maryland's statewide Independent Investigations Division began operating under the police-accountability reforms enacted in 2021. Consequently, this shooting was investigated under the earlier structure: PGPD Internal Affairs investigated a PGPD officer's fatal shooting, with the Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office responsible for prosecutorial review.

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SOURCE LINKS :

https://smnewsnet.com/archives/495753/pgpd-investigating-fatal-officer-involved-shooting-with-armed-suspect-in-oxon-hill/
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/prince-georges-county-police-identify-officer-who-killed-oxon-hill-man-allegedly-pointing-replica-guns-during-a-dispute/
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/officer-killed-man-who-pointed-replica-guns-at-him-prince-georges-police-say/2798755/
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/police-prince-georges-county-officer-involved-in-fatal-shooting
https://pgpolice.blogspot.com/2021/09/pgpd-investigating-fatal-officer.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/prince-georges-officer-shooting-oxon-hill/2021/09/10/d3a09d0e-125d-11ec-9cb6-bf9351a25799_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/prince-georges-police-fatal-shooting/2021/09/13/7eeea184-14bf-11ec-9589-31ac3173c2e5_story.html
https://wtop.com/prince-georges-county/2021/09/officer-shoots-man-after-struggle-in-prince-georges-county/
https://wtop.com/prince-georges-county/2021/09/prince-georges-co-police-id-officer-who-fatally-shot-man-during-struggle/
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/prince-georges-county-police-on-the-scene-after-officer-fired-weapon