Biography
Bobby Lee Williams was a young Black man shot and seriously wounded by Plainfield police officer John V. Gleason Jr. during the July 16, 1967 rebellion. A grand jury secretly indicted Williams on December 18, 1967 for assault with intent to kill and assault and battery on the officer. When the indictment was unsealed eleven months later, Williams pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. A jury convicted him of the lesser offense of assault with a dangerous weapon on May 6, 1970. The reviewed court record does not establish a jail or prison term.
A report dated October 27 in The Black Panther identifies Union County prosecutor Leo Kaplowitz and states that the incitement count against Bobby Lee Williams had been dropped, leaving malicious-assault and assault-and-battery allegations. Defense lawyers William Kunstler and George Mutnick challenged the statutes and pretrial publicity. This intermediate dismissal is not an acquittal of the remaining charges or a physical release date. The article’s possible nineteen-year exposure is not a sentence imposed or actually served.
The issue reports that William Kunstler was defending Bobby Lee Williams without a fee and that a September 15 trial had been announced in Union County Superior Court in Elizabeth, New Jersey. It identifies allegations including assault on Officer John V. Gleason Jr. during the July 1967 Plainfield disturbances, reports that Williams had already been hospitalized from a police shooting when Gleason was attacked, and describes the defense committee’s campaign. The reported twenty-six-year exposure is not an imposed sentence, and the announced trial date is not a completed trial or custody endpoint.
