MUNCIE, Ind. - "If I would have stayed in Indiana, I would have been murdered," Tiffanie Williams told VBN.
Tiffanie said her experience with the Eaton Police Department (EPD), which costed her at least half a million dollars and led her to seek political asylum in Mexico, began when her stepdaughter, Jayda, asked her for cigarette money.
"And I was like, 'I’m not supporting your mom's habit,'" Tiffanie said. "My money was paying for Jayda’s apartment. I looked at her as one of my children, not my stepchild. So I was like, 'We’re not helping you support your mom’s habit.'"
Tiffanie said Jayda’s mother, Brittany, cursed at her. She called the exchange "childish and juvenile."
After returning to Indiana, Tiffanie's husband, Lanzell, got a phone call from Jayda that the sheriff had stopped by their apartment.
Incident
On July 17, 2020, EPD officers arrived at Jayda's apartment. Body camera footage shows Brittany and Jayda telling police that Tiffanie had violated a protective order.
VBN has not found an active protective order from Brittany or Jayda, aside from this record, issued the same day, indicating that a document was left at Tiffanie's door at 3:10 p.m. The document itself was not mentioned.
"Third attempt. No answer. Left on door," the record reads.
Tiffanie said she wasn't served a protective order at all.
"If [EPD] would've just called and done their correct job, it was very proven," Tiffanie stated. "I was never served a protective order. I had no active protective order, and they were in my home for cursing out a non-protected person."
Another record, issued on August 31, shows a protective order petitioned by Brittany was denied.
"Petitioner has not stated a legal basis for a harassment claim under Indiana statute," the record read.
Body camera footage shows that, after opening the door for a second, Tiffanie shut it.
Tiffanie said she was expecting her daughter, Savannah, who had forgotten her key.
"I was startled," Tiffanie said. "I opened the door, and I'm expecting Savannah. It wasn't. It was men."
Tiffanie said the EPD officers were not in uniform.
"Some had cargos and a t-shirt," Tiffanie said. "None of them was in uniform across the board for the standards and what was expected."
Tiffanie said she was locking the door when body camera footage shows Jonathan pushing against it.
"It was [EPD officers Jonathan] Snodgrass, [Andrew] Storie, [Michael] Conner, and [Chase] Kneeper," Tiffanie recalled.
Assault
According to a medical record from a hospital in Anderson, Tiffanie was assaulted. The record also showed she suffered a scaphoid fracture and multiple contusions (bruises).
VBN obtained photos showing her arms, legs, and breasts bruised.
Tiffanie is battling brain cancer for a second time, and doesn't have a portion of her skull on the right side of her head.
"One of their hits, kicks, or whatever could have killed me that day," Tiffanie said.
Held to the ground, Tiffanie called for her husband, Lanzell.
Lanzell confronted the officers with a firearm.
"He comes out of our bedroom holding a .45," Tiffanie said. "And is like, 'Get your hands off my effin' wife, you don't got rights to be in here.' I'm instantly yelling, 'You're violating my rights.'"
While Tiffanie was held to the ground by officers, Andrew's body camera footage by VBN shows him approaching Lanzell after he said he'd kick them in the face and told them to get out of the house.
"Step back," Andrew said while walking towards Lanzell.
"I'm on the phone with Delaware [County]," Lanzell said. "You're in my house! This is my [expletive] house!"
Andrew continued to tell Lanzell to step back.
"You're walking towards me," Lanzell said. "[Michael]'s putting his hands on my wife!"
"She's going to jail!," Andrew yelled. "Stand back, or you're going to jail!"
While Tiffanie was held to the ground, body camera footage from Jonathan shows Michael grabbing her neck and right arm.
Body camera footage from Andrew shows Michael's foot positioned directly in between her legs.
"He's got his foot on my vagina!," Tiffanie said. "He just kicked me in my vagina."
"My camera's on," Andrew said. "My camera's facing it!"
"[Michael] just kicked me in my vagina," Tiffanie said.
"Get up," Andrew responded.
Tiffanie said Michael kicked her in the genital area seven times.
"To me, that's sexual assault," Tiffanie said. "I don't care how you go about it, it's not appropriate."
Paul Helmke, an IU law professor who reviewed body camera footage of Tiffanie's arrest, told IndyStar in 2022 that EPD violated her fourth amendment rights.
"We're talking about a dispute with neighbors," Paul told IndyStar. "That's the sort of thing that you go to civil court on or you try to get an arrest warrant for assault."
IndyStar reportedly spoke with EPD Chief Jay Turner, who "rolled his eyes" and "declined to comment on the record."
Hospital
Tiffanie had a seizure and was transported to Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie.
"Ball Hospital officers are also Eaton officers because they're reservists," Tiffanie shared. "So, they actually are the only ones who control and operate the police department at IU Health, at Ball Hospital."
Tiffanie also said that the officer on duty at Ball, Skyler Brand, called another officer, Chase Snepper, who lived next door to Jayda.
"Do you not believe the Eaton officer would have exited his home and been like, what's going on? Because he was home? And he was the next-door neighbor?" Tiffanie asked. "Absolutely. That tells you then that that's not how it happened because he was an officer of two different municipalities. He would have came out and addressed the issue, or called 911 himself. That didn't happen because what they allege in the police report is not truth and factual."
While in the ER, Tiffanie said Skyler was "dancing outside [her] room, making, racist comments to [her]."
"I heard him state he was gonna cut the hard r...like, he used the n-word, hard r, [expletive] out of my hair because I had weave and box braids in my hair at the time," Tiffanie shared.
"No matter how you go, it's racist," Tiffanie said. "And I was like, 'Oh, you're a [expletive] racist?' He starts dancing out of my room, like he's doing the hokey-pokey, and he's like, 'Yeah, I'm racist! What are you gonna do about it?'"
Tiffanie was then moved for a computed tomography (CT) scan, where she said Skyler called her the n-word again, that she "was a lover of them, that [she] didn't deserve anything, [she] was worthless."
"And so, I come out of CT, and I am irate," Tiffanie said. "Very, very [expletive]."
"From the time I went in on [Michael] Conner's cam to when his camera reactivates, you can tell that, like, something happened to me in the CT room," Tiffanie said.
Tiffanie said she believes three officers and five or six medical professionals were in the CT room, but she has not been given access to hospital surveillance video.
"What happened to me in CT truly happened, but they deleted and edited the body cam footage," Tiffanie said.
Body camera footage shows while a doctor came down the hall, Tiffanie had another seizure. As a doctor came down the hall, he told Tiffanie that he wanted to tie her to the bed.
"And I lose my [expletive]," Tiffanie said. "You are not restraining me in this hospital to this bed with these men here."
"I'm not safe in here with these guys," Tiffanie said on body camera. "I told you that. That was my concern."
"I don't want you to get injured," the nurse said.
Tiffanie said the nurse grabbed her head where she has no skull.
"You literally could've killed me by touching me there," Tiffanie said.
"But you didn't die," the nurse responded.
"But I didn't die?" Tiffanie responded. "But I didn't die, that's your response? 'But [expletive], you didn't die,' right? That's your response to me, I didn't die? I could've instantly."
"This is going nowhere," the nurse said.
Tiffanie said she was later trespassed from Ball, and is unable to access her IU Health medical records. She claimed that Carrie Snodgrass, wife of Jonathan, accessed and edited her medical records two years after the incident.
"Why is she in my medical records on the day of my attack, editing my file, and what did she delete? We can see that she edited it, but what did she delete, and how was it edited?" Tiffanie asked.
"[It's been] almost three years that I've been waiting on [IU Health] to provide me with [my medical records] and what was edited, because if you can see the keystrokes report, you can't tell me they can't see what was deleted and what edit was done. Because on Facebook, if you edit something, it says 'Edited' and you can go back and see the old edits. But our medical system, the Cerner [Health] system, supposedly isn't capable of that? I know better than that, but they have restricted my access."
Legal Actions
Eaton filed a civil lawsuit against Tiffanie for speaking out on social media.
Although Tiffanie had a doctor's note filed with the court, an Objection to Defense's Motion to Continue shows that Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Steve Sneed objected to her receiving an MRI scheduled for April 21, 2021.
Steve's objection was filed the day before the MRI was scheduled, at 9:41 a.m.
In the document, Steve states his objection was due to Tiffanie "harass[ing] witnesses," "taint[ing] the jury pool," and "disseminating discovery materials on social media sites."
Tiffanie told VBN that this cease and desist order, dated October 5, 2020, is a gag order. She said the order is no longer active.
"I've just now, within the last few months, started therapy," Tiffanie said. "I was prohibited from even going to therapy. How do you take my right away to heal and then say, 'Well, she's a loose cannon?' I'm not allowed to discuss anything. The only thing I can do is talk to a camera and hope that somebody cares."
Impact
Tiffanie said she's speaking up against EPD to spread awareness.
"Most people don't have the ability to pay hundreds of thousands in fees," Tiffanie said. "I still owe one attorney over twenty grand for doing my civil defense cases. That's why they take the plea bargains, even though the police are lying."
"My own public defender that I ended up having to go with at the end because I had went and exhausted all means of financial support, he wanted me to plead for a littering charge and told me I was stupid for not accepting it. I knew that if I pled to a littering charge, I could never sue these men in court because I [would've] admitted to a crime in a plea bargain way. There's no accountability. I refused to do that."
Tiffanie is also speaking up for students at Ball State, as Michael was transferred to the University Police Department (UPD) August of last year.
"How much abuse of his power has [Michael] used and will he use in the future on students?" Tiffanie asked. "You got freshmen [who are] 18 years old, some of them as young as 16 on campus, living in dorms. Those students don't know their laws yet. They don't know their rights."
Tiffanie alleges that UPD has been stalking her son, who doesn't even attend the university.
"My son lives within Ball State's jurisdiction," Tiffanie said. "After the protest was posted, Ball State Police was sitting outside my son's apartment, parked behind his vehicle, and then another officer followed him to [a nearby] McDonald's."
"He's scared of what's gonna happen to him because they're already following him," Tiffanie continued. "Police don't go and sit at his apartment. There's maybe twelve [apartment] units. It's not that kind of place."
In a petition that has gathered over 700 signatures, Tiffanie said her grandfather spent over 30 years with Ball State.
"He dedicated his life to research, and education, even leaving behind a financial contribution that still supports the university today," Tiffanie said. "Because of his legacy, it's heartbreaking to see Ball State allow someone like Officer Michael Conner to remain on campus. The courts have made it clear: Michael Conner and the officers lied."
Tiffanie is calling for law enforcement to have a system of checks and balances.
"It doesn't exist in any state in our country," Tiffanie said.
Response
On Friday, August 22, protesters gathered at the Ball State peace plaza at 1:30 p.m. before marching half a mile to the UPD building around 3:30 p.m.
A petition calling for the removal of Michael from UPD has reached over 700 signatures.
A GoFundMe in support of Tiffanie has raised over $200.
VBN has emailed Lisa Tellus, Public Relations Manager for IU Health, and Courtney Schmoll, Regional Public Relations Manager for Ball Memorial Hospital, for comment.
VBN's attempt to request comment from Ball State University was unsuccessful due to an issue with the university's media contact form.
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