Justice at Last for Slain Tourist Ethan Williams — but New York Is Still in His Debt

Thursday was 93-degree New York at its most relentless.

Hung-over Knicks fans collided on the morning subway with tourists in soccer jerseys coming in for the World Cup.  

For the 50 or so people in a cool Brooklyn courtroom, the delirium outside was nonexistent.

They remained anchored to the horrors of 2020, and the city’s 47% spike that year in murders.  

The proceeding was straightforward: Judge Deepa Ambekar sentenced 30-year-old William Freeman to 18 years in prison on a manslaughter plea, for fatally shooting Ethan Williams, age 20, in the early morning of Oct. 24, 2020, as Williams sat on a Bushwick stoop with friends. 

Freeman hadn’t targeted Ethan: He shot — eight times! — toward the group on the stoop, because he thought a rival gang member was there. 

It took more than two years of NYPD work — and a traffic stop over a minor violation — to make an arrest.  

The courtroom spectators neatly divided themselves: on the left benches, the killer’s family and friends, many wearing blue-and-orange Knicks t-shirts.  

On the right, in crisp workplace attire, were 25 out-of-towners who had flown in to support Ethan’s parents, brother and girlfriend as they spoke in court.  

They came at their own expense, because Ethan himself was a tourist.  

Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post

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Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here. Nicole is the author of Movement: New York’s Long War to Take Back Its Streets from the Car, available now.