AUSTIN, Texas, May 15 (Reuters) – A Texas inmate convicted
of killing a Houston police officer is scheduled to be put to
death by lethal injection on Wednesday evening.
In May 1999, Jeffrey Williams, now 37, was driving a stolen
Lexus when policeman Troy Blando stopped him in a motel parking
lot and tried to arrest him.
Williams shot Blando in the chest and fled, according to the
Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Blando got back into his
car and radioed for help, but he died from the gunshot wound.
Williams was arrested near the scene wearing one handcuff,
according to an account of the case from the Texas attorney
general’s office.
He told police that he did not know that Blando, who was in
plain clothes, was a police officer, and that he thought Blando
was trying to rob him, according to the attorney general’s
account.
Williams, who said he has mental disabilities, has appealed
to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying that he had ineffective trial
lawyers.
The lethal injection is scheduled to take place after 6 p.m.
local time at a prison in Huntsville, Texas.
If the execution is carried out, Williams would be the sixth
inmate executed in Texas this year and the 12th in the United
States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
(Reporting By Corrie MacLaggan; Editing by Greg McCune and
Steve Orlofsky)
