OIDV Project Of Michigan - Officer Involved Domestic Violence Project Of Michigan

Tuesday, January 1, 1985

01011985 - Firefighter Gerald Paul Thoma Jr. - Fruitport FD

Also See:

Firefighter Gerald Paul Thoma Jr. charged with domestic violence [June 02, 2007]

http://michiganoidv.blogspot.com/2007/06/firefighter-gerald-thoma-jr-fruitport.html

In 1985, Firefighter Gerald Thoma Jr. was charged with operating a motor vehicle while impaired.
http://michiganoidv.blogspot.com/1985/01/firefighter-gerald-paul-thoma-jr.html

2003: Firefighter Gerald Thoma Jr. was charged again for opertaing a motor vehicle while impaired. It was his second DUI offense. During this incident, Thoma rammed his truck into an acquaintance's house and vehicle in Muskegon Township while attending a party there. He eventually pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to 45 days in the Muskegon County Jail and 24 months of probation.
http://michiganoidv.blogspot.com/2003/06/fire-captain-gerald-paul-thoma-jr.html

2007: Firefighter Thoma pleaded pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence for punching his then-16-year-old son in the nose three times. Thoma was sentenced to probation, fines, court costs and anger-management class for that offense.
http://michiganoidv.blogspot.com/2007/06/firefighter-gerald-thoma-jr-fruitport.html

2012: While intoxicated, Firefighter Thoma attempted a stunt on while driving his motorcycle and without his helmet on. Thoma was seriously injured. Thoma was charged with a felony: operating while intoxicated, third offense, which was punishable up to 5 years in prison. In January 2013, Thoma pled nolo contendere to MCL 257.6256D [operating intoxicated / impaired /controlled substance, third offense. Thoma was sentenced to 3 years probation.
http://michiganoidv.blogspot.com/2012/07/firefighter-gerald-paul-thoma-jr.html

Video released of Fruitport Township fire captain attempting motorcycle stunt while allegedly drunk
Published: Thursday, September 20, 2012, 5:46 PM
Updated: Tuesday, October 16, 2012, 2:53 PM
By Lisha Arino

The Muskegon Chronicle
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2012/09/video_released_of_fruitport_to.html

FRUITPORT TOWNSHIP, MI – The Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office has released a video showing an incident in July that injured a Fruitport Township fire captain, who was allegedly intoxicated when it occurred.

The six-second video shows Gerald Paul Thoma Jr., who has been charged with a felony, moving past another motorcyclist in an empty Office Max parking lot in the 1700 block of East Sherman Boulevard in the city of Muskegon on July 20. The video shows him falling off his bike as sparks fly.

Thoma has been charged for operating while intoxicated third offense, after toxicology test results indicated that he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.10 percent. The legal blood-alcohol limit for driving a motor vehicle in Michigan is 0.08.

Thoma had not been arraigned in Muskegon County 60th District Court as of Thursday evening.

Police said others had been doing stunts in the parking lot that night when Thoma attempted one himself.

He was seriously injured when he hit a concrete block and has only recently been released from the hospital, according to

family and friends. He was not wearing a helmet at the time, according to a police report.

It is unclear if the incident will affect his job at the fire department.

Court records show that Thoma has previous drunk driving convictions in Muskegon County. He was charged with operating a motor vehicle while impaired in 1985 and 2003.

He also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence for punching his then-16-year-old son in the nose three times in 2007.

Fruitport Township Fire Department captain resigns on heels of criminal chargePublished: Thursday, September 27, 2012, 6:24 AM
Updated: Thursday, September 27, 2012, 8:49 AM
By Heather Lynn Peters
The Muskegon Chronicle
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2012/09/fruitport_township_fire_depart.html

FRUITPORT TOWNSHIP, MI – Gerald Paul Thoma Jr., the veteran Fruitport Township firefighter charged with third-offense drunk driving, has resigned from the fire department.

Thoma, 48, a longtime Fruitport Township Fire Department captain, turned in his resignation letter Friday to Fruitport Township Supervisor Brian Werschem.

On Monday the township board of trustees accepted the resignation, Werschem said. The board, not the public safety director, makes the hiring and firing decisions for the township.

Thoma was charged with the five-year felony recently in connection with a July 20 motorcycle accident in which Thoma was seriously injured.

It wasn’t clear Thursday whether Thoma had yet been arraigned on the charge, but a warrant was signed last week.

Toxicology test results indicate Thoma had a blood-alcohol level of 0.10 percent when the accident happened at 11 p.m. in the parking lot of Office Max in the 1700 block of East Sherman Boulevard in the city of Muskegon. The blood-alcohol limit for driving a motor vehicle in Michigan is 0.08.

Thoma struck a concrete parking block while attempting the stunt, police said. A video of the accident was released to the media by the Muskegon County Prosecutor’s Office.

Thoma suffered serious injuries and was hospitalized for several weeks following the crash. He was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, according to the Muskegon police report.

Others were doing stunts in the parking lot on July 20 when Thoma tried to do a stunt himself, police said.

Thoma was previously charged with operating a motor vehicle while impaired in 1985 and 2003, both in Muskegon County.

Video released of Fruitport Township fire captain attempting motorcycle stunt while allegedly drunk

Published: Thursday, September 20, 2012, 5:46 PM
Updated: Tuesday, October 16, 2012, 2:53 PM
By Lisha Arino
The Muskegon Chronicle
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2012/09/video_released_of_fruitport_to.html

MUSKEGON, Mich. (WOOD) - A Fruitport Township fire captain could spend five years behind bars if convicted of his third drunk driving charge.

A warrant for Gerald Thoma Jr. was issued, according to Muskegon County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Brett Gardner, but he has not yet been arraigned on a count of operating while intoxicated (third offense).

The charge stems from a July 20 incident that happened in the parking lot of the Office Max on E. Sherman Boulevard in Muskegon.

Thoma, 48, was allegedly trying to perform a stunt on his motorcycle when he was seriously injured.

He was not wearing a helmet and recovered in a hospital for more than a month.

His blood-alcohol content ( BAC) level was 0.10 at the time, according to a toxicology report -- .02 higher than the legal limit in Michigan.

Thoma's previous drunk driving charges were from 1985 and 2003 -- both in Muskegon County.

Fruitport Township fire captain charged with felony for drunken motorcycle crash
Published: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 4:52 PM
Updated: Thursday, September 20, 2012, 8:33 AM
By Heather Lynn Peters
The Muskegon Chronicle
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2012/09/fruitport_township_fire_captai.html

FRUITPORT TOWNSHIP, MI – A Fruitport Township fire captain has been charged with a felony for an alleged drunken driving incident that police say happened while he was trying to do a stunt on his motorcycle in July.

Muskegon County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Brett Gardner confirmed Wednesday that a warrant has been signed for Gerald Paul Thoma Jr., 48, of the Fruitport Township Fire Department for operating while intoxicated, third offense. That’s a felony punishable up to five years in prison if convicted, Gardner said.

As of late Wednesday afternoon, Thoma hadn't yet been arraigned in Muskegon County 60th District Court.

Toxicology test results indicate Thoma had a blood-alcohol level of 0.10 percent when the accident happened at 11 p.m. on July 20 in the parking lot of Office Max in the 1700 block of East Sherman Boulevard in the city of Muskegon. The legal blood-alcohol limit for driving a motor vehicle in Michigan is 0.08.

Thoma was seriously injured in the crash and only recently released from the hospital, according to friends and family. It wasn't clear what condition Thoma was in as of late Wednesday.

He was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, according to the Muskegon police report.

Others were doing stunts in the parking lot on July 20 when Thoma tried to do a stunt himself, police said. A woman had been on the back of Thoma’s motorcycle just prior to the crash, but wasn’t on the bike when he crashed, police said.

Thoma struck a concrete parking block in the parking lot while attempting the stunt, police said.

Fruitport Township Public Safety Director Ken Doctor said Wednesday that he was unaware of the charges filed against Thoma.

Doctor could not say whether the charge will affect Thoma's job at the fire department. It will be up to the township board to decide whether Thoma will keep his job, Doctor said, adding that he doesn’t do the “hiring or the firing” at the fire department.

“That decision will rest with the township board,” Doctor said.

Thoma has had previous drunken driving convictions in Muskegon County, court records show.

Thoma was previously charged with operating a motor vehicle while impaired in 1985 and 2003, both in Muskegon County.

The 2003 incident occurred when Thoma rammed his truck into an acquaintance's house and vehicle in Muskegon Township while attending a party there, according to police. He eventually pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to 45 days in the Muskegon County Jail and 24 months of probation.

In 2007 Thoma pleaded pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence for punching his then-16-year-old son in the nose three times. According to a police report, Thoma and his son got into an argument that escalated into an assault at their home. The son called 911.

A judge sentenced Thoma to probation, fines, court costs and anger-management class for that offense.

Tuesday, June 5, 1984

06051984 - Detroit PD Officer Eugene Williams - Suspended - Shot/Wounded Wife, Officer Pamila Hatter Williams [06041984]

Detroit PD Officer Eugene Williams: Above The Law

01011971 - Detroit PD Officer Eugene Williams - Involved In Fatal Hit-And-Run While Under The Influence

01021971 - Detroit PD Officer Eugene Williams - Terminated After Fatal Hit-And-Run While Under Influence

01011974 - Detroit PD Officer Eugene Williams - Reinstated To Department After Fatal Hit And Run While Intoxicated

06051979 - Detroit PD Officer Eugene Williams - Shot/Killed Glenn Grace During Neighbor Dispute

06041984 - Detroit PD Officer Eugene J Williams - Shot/Wounded Wife/Officer Pamela Hatter Williams During Domestic Dispute

06051984 - Detroit PD Officer Eugene Williams - Suspended - Shot/Wounded Wife, Officer Pamila Hatter Williams [06041984]

01011989 - Detroit PD Officer Eugene J Williams - Unjustified Assault Of High School Student Robert Valentine, Causing Injury

11262006 - Detroit PD Officer Eugene Williams - Unjustified Shooting/Killing Of Brandon Martell Moore

Detroit Officer who Killed Unarmed 16-year-old has Killed two Others
Black Press USA

Diane Bukowski
Special to the NNPA from the Michigan Citizen
December 20, 2006
http://www.blackpressusa.com/News/Article.asp?SID=3&Title=National+News&NewsID=11716

DETROIT — The Detroit police officer who shot and killed 16-year-old Brandon Moore at Detroit’s Bel-Air Mall Nov. 26 is Officer Eugene J. Williams.

A 35-year veteran of the force, Williams has killed two others during his tenure with the department, in 1971 and 1979.

Informed sources have independently identified Williams, whose badge number is 4174, although the police department has refused to do so while an investigation proceeds.

According to published articles and court records, Williams also shot and wounded his police officer wife in 1984 in a domestic dispute, and wrongfully knocked out four front teeth of an innocent 16-year-old Cody High School student in 1989.

“I want to address Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings,” said Moore’s father John Henry Moore, Sr. “Why is this man still on the force, after doing all this damage to people’s lives? If my son had shot him, he would be in jail or where he is now, deceased. Brandon was only starting his life, and he had a promising career, but this officer can still go home and take care of his family.”

Earlier reports indicated that the officer who shot the younger Moore was on administrative leave.

However, Williams answered the phone Dec. 12 at the Traffic Enforcement Unit on Mt. Elliott, where he is assigned. He would not confirm that he is the officer involved, but he did not deny it. He would not discuss whether he worked on or off-duty at the National Wholesale Liquidators store.

Moore was killed there after he and a group of friends were ejected from the store, got in a dispute with Williams, and then ran after the officer produced a gun.

“No, we don’t speak to people on the phone about things like this, according to department policy,” said Williams. He declined a personal interview.

Second Deputy Chief James Tate had not returned a call for comment about Williams before press time.

Bobby Pidgeon, a media spokesman for National Wholesale Liquidators, said the chain was waiting for the results of the police investigation in the case.

“We understand six young men attacked the off-duty officer,” said Pidgeon. He hung up when asked whether the officer was working for the chain at the time.

Desiree Stinson, a friend of the Moore family, said her children frequent the store and have seen Williams working there since Moore’s killing. A former 911 operator, she said that police department employees are not allowed to moonlight on security jobs because such jobs represent a conflict of interest.

The source who identified Williams said he did not have department permission to work at the store, which is required for any off-duty work.

“I don’t understand why he hasn’t been charged,” said Stinson.

“If it had been one of us, we would have been under the jail. But they figure it’s just another Black kid who’s probably a hoodlum. Now they’re finding out he was a good kid who had never been in trouble. Where is the outrage about a grown man shooting a kid in the back?”

According to a Detroit Free Press article published in 1984, Williams, who was hired in 1970, was fired from the Detroit police force in 1971 after being involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident while under the influence of alcohol.

After he appealed, the department reinstated him in 1974.

On June 5, 1979, Williams shot and killed 31-year-old Glenn C. Grace while off-duty, during a neighborhood dispute on the southwest side, according to a lawsuit filed by the Grace family. Grace was an auto mechanic with four children.

Both sides in the suit agreed that Grace and a friend, Lloyd Woolfolk, who was a Ford autoworker, had gone to the home of Carolyn Broadnax on Liebold, to confront her brother about an earlier ejection from a party.

Both sides also agreed that Grace was armed and under the influence of alcohol.

According to court documents, Williams provided one version of the killing. He said he was visiting Broadnax at the time and both were standing on her front porch when Grace shot at the house across the street. Grace then confronted the two on the porch, pulling out his gun and threatening to kill them.

Williams shot Grace in the head and shoulder, killing him.

In a different account of events, Woolfolk said the conversation he and Grace were having with Broadnax had taken a friendly turn, and that Grace never displayed or pulled his gun or threatened the two on the porch. He said Williams never identified himself as a police officer, instead crept behind Broadnax, and fired at Grace without warning.

Due to legal technicalities, a judge refused to admit a plaintiff’s witness list including Woolfolk, and the case appears to have been dismissed.

A city attorney defended Williams in the case.

On June 4, 1984, Williams shot his wife, Pamila Hatter Williams, in the side during a domestic dispute, according to the Detroit Free Press and court records involving their 1987 divorce. Her right leg was at least temporarily paralyzed as a result.

His wife was also a police officer who had been preparing to return to work along with 125 others called back from lay-off.

Williams was suspended with pay, but it is unclear whether he was ever charged in the incident. His wife said she used a pair of scissors to cut up William’s police uniform and never intended to harm him. Williams said she lunged at him with the scissors. His divorce records claimed it was a knife.

Williams sued his wife for divorce in 1987, and expelled her from their Rosedale Park home. Wayne County Register of Deeds records show that she quit claimed the home to him in 2004, and that there have been several tax liens on the property, including an IRS attachment of nearly $40,000. A contact number for Hatter Williams was unavailable.

In 1989, 16-year-old Robert Valentine was walking down the halls of Cody High School in Detroit, when Williams and his partner accosted him, according to a lawsuit filed by Antonia Walker. The officers mistakenly thought Valentine had been involved in the incident for which they had been summoned to the school. A school investigation later said he was not connected.

“Officer Eugene Williams took him, flung him head and face first against a wall, where plaintiff struck his face, mouth and head . . . breaking off four front teeth with the impact,” says the suit.

“Then he fell to the ground and was struck by the officers again without reason or provocation.”

The suit said Valentine was suspended but later readmitted after an investigation showed he had nothing to do with the original incident. The suit was dismissed after a settlement for an undisclosed amount.

For years, the Detroit Police Department has allegedly been developing a computerized system to monitor officers like Williams, who have had repeated incidents involving possible brutality.

The U.S. Justice Department monitor has also required that such a system be instituted. The most recent report available, however, indicates that the system is not operational.

HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Eugene J. Williams:
- Fired from force in 1971 after a fatal hit-and-run accident while under the influence of alcohol. Reinstated 1974.

-Shot and killed 31-year-old Glenn C. Grace while off-duty, during a neighborhood dispute, June 5, 1979.

- Shot wife, Pamila Hatter Williams, in the side during a domestic dispute, June 4, 1984.

- Flung Cody student Robert Valentine against a wall, where he struck his face, mouth and head . . . breaking off four front teeth, 1989

- Killed 16-year-old Brandon Moore at Detroit’s Bel-Air Mall Nov. 26, 2006.