Elliot Williams is a CNN legal analyst and regular guest host on SiriusXM and WAMU, NPR’s Washington, DC, station.

 

A sought-after commentator on electoral justice, civil rights, race relations, and other political, legal and cultural issues, Williams is also the author of the new book, Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York's Explosive '80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial That Divided the Nation (2026).

 

Preet Bharara, former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, “Read this book to understand human nature,” and Anderson Cooper called it, “An amazing story, well told.”

 

The Brooklyn-born son of Jamaican immigrants, Williams served formerly as a federal prosecutor and later as a senior official at the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.

 

Cosponsored by the Journalism Program of the University at Albany Department of Communication, and the Justice & Multiculturalism in the 21st Century Project of the School of Criminal Justice.