BARROW COUNTY, Ga. — We're learning more about the arrest leading up to a dramatic video of Barrow County deputies wrestling with a man who ultimately died.
Thirty-year-old Charlie Williams died while being tased and subdued by Barrow County Sheriff's Office deputies. The video, taken by one of the deputies outside of the jail begins with them warning Williams they would Taze him. Then, seven men work to restrain him until they realize he's no longer breathing.
But a friend of Williams said that's not the whole story and told 11Alive about the last time she saw him alive.
"And I was comfortable I knew he was going to jail that night and either detox or whatever," Tesla Dutton said.
Dutton said that hours before his death he was acting erratically and paranoid. She said Charlie had become delusional and thought her neighbor's children were being attacked. But, in reality, the children were just playing and running along.
"When he heard it in his mind that the children were being abused, [he said] they were up there hurting them kids, 'I need to go protect them kids, I gotta go protect them kids'," Dutton said.
Dutton said her friend grabbed a sledgehammer and ran to the neighbor's home and confronted the children's mom.
"She had just got her kid in the back seat," Dutton said. "Charlie just jerked her up and was trying to get the baby out of the seat."
The mom called the police and, then, moments later, Charlie ran back to Dutton's house threatening her entire family with the sledgehammer.
"I got him to look at me and I was like, 'Charlie, listen'," Dutton said.
Eight months pregnant and scared, she got him to drop the hammer.
"And when he looked at me in my eyes, I said, 'My babies are in here. You're trying to protect them babies but we got babies right here and my baby is hiding under the bed because she's scared of you'," she said. "And he said she scared of me and I said, 'Yes, because of that sledgehammer."
As police arrived to arrest him, Dutton prayed with Charlie. It would be the last time she would see him alive.
"And I had just prayed with him and he was calm then and he walked up there by himself and he put his hands behind his back by himself," she said. "And he walked right up there to police. I heard him say yes sir, no sir. And he put his hands behind his back and he got in the car with no problem."
