Asheville police beating video prompts questions, recriminations

RALEIGH — A white North Carolina officer shown on video subduing and punching a black man had a history of treating people rudely, according to a city memo that also seeks to address concerns about why the case unfolded slowly outside public view.

The August excessive-force case, revealed last week when a newspaper published body-cam video, has roiled leaders in Asheville, a mountain tourist destination with a liberal-leaning, mostly white population. Late Monday, the City Council voted to release a memo detailing how the case was handled.

The video published by The Citizen-Times newspaper shows officer Christopher Hickman subdue and punch 33-year-old Johnnie Jermaine Rush. Rush, whom officers had accused of jaywalking, was also shocked with a stun gun as he screamed in pain. The altercation unfolded around midnight Aug. 25 near the city’s minor-league baseball stadium and a cluster of breweries that help fuel a booming tourism industry.

City Manager Gary Jackson wrote in the memo Monday that Hickman’s use of “excessive and dangerous force” is “a source of great anger and concern within the community.” Hickman resigned in January.

Jackson also acknowledged concerns about the pace and transparency of the investigation. He wrote that, absent a detailed account of what happened, “this matter will continue to negatively impact the community’s perception of its police department.” The city’s population of nearly 90,000 is 82 percent white and 12 percent black.

According to the memo, an extensive review of body camera footage from all of Hickman’s encounters with the public — some 58 hours — revealed four other times in which he “displayed discourteous and rude conduct to members of the public.” It’s not clear if those four incidents were known to Hickman’s superiors, as the memo notes they didn’t result in complaints. The memo doesn’t elaborate on what happened in those cases.

The publishing of the Asheville newspaper’s story sparked recriminations over the handling of the case and the video leak. Under North Carolina law, a judge generally must sign off on any public release of police body camera video.

District Attorney Todd Williams issued a statement last week that the video leak could compromise prosecutions and “may require its own independent investigation.” Asheville police Chief Tammy Hooper, who issued an apology to Rush, has also called for an investigation of the leak.

Yet on Monday, Asheville City Attorney Robin Currin filed a petition asking a judge to allow the public release of all video surrounding Rush’s arrest, noting “it is critical that the public be provided with a complete picture.”

The memo released Monday by the City Council gives the most complete account yet of the case.

Hours after he was arrested, Rush filed an excessive force complaint. The memo says the police chief reviewed footage that day, ordered that Hickman turn in his badge and gun and placed him on administrative duty. A supervisor who responded to the scene of the arrest was also disciplined over the handling of information about the case.

Charges against Rush, including impeding traffic and resisting arrest, were dropped in September. No working phone listing could be found for Rush, who’s heard on video saying he was leaving work when officers accused him of failing to use a crosswalk.

After the administrative investigation finished in December, the department concluded Hickman used excessive force. The memo states Hickman was due to be terminated Jan. 5, but he resigned instead at the start of that meeting.

A phone number for Hickman had a full inbox and wouldn’t take messages.

Separate from the department’s administrative review, the district attorney recommended that the State Bureau of Investigation probe the case to determine if criminal charges are warranted, so the police chief made a request in January.

An SBI agent responded that the state agency was declining to probe the case, partly because of the department’s months-long internal review. On Friday, SBI spokeswoman Patty McQuillan noted that “witness interviews would not be fresh and other avenues to collect evidence in the case would not be available due to the lapse in time.”

Instead, in late January, an Asheville detective was assigned to investigate whether criminal charges are warranted. According to the memo, The detective’s findings should be given to prosecutors within the next week.

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Follow Drew on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JonathanLDrew .

 

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