The Price of Walking Home: Chris Hickman Charged

Ex-Asheville PD Officer Chris Hickman

The disturbing body cam footage of ex-Asheville PD officer Chris Hickman brutally punching, choking and tasing 33 year-old Johnnie Rush on the night of August 25, 2017 is a sobering reminder of the extent to which internalized racial bias continues to fuel the unnecessary use of excessive physical force by some members of the American law enforcement community.

Hickman's sarcastic and cynical taunting, and his sadistic beating of a citizen is egregious enough - after being choked into unconsciousness, Rush is lucky to be alive.

Small wonder this sickening example of police brutality took almost seven month's to be released.

But what makes this incident even more disturbing is the fact that Rush was simply walking home after a long shift washing dishes at a local Cracker Barrel restaurant.

He wasn't fleeing a bank robbery, running with a loaded gun in his hand, or trying to evade the police - the man was walking home from work.

Municipal ordinances that selectively target "Manner of Walking" have been the subject of this blog on more than one occasion - starting in the wake of the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown by ex-Ferguson PD officer Darren Wilson in August, 2014.

An in-depth investigation of the Ferguson Police Department's policing practices by the Department of Justice in 2015 found that a staggering 95% of people stopped by Ferguson PD officers for one of several "Manner of Walking" ordinances were African-American.

To put that statistic into perspective, according to 2010 Census data 67.4% of Ferguson residents were African-American, 29.3% were white.

The practice of some police officers essentially criminalizing individuals for walking down the street, or even allowing officers to randomly decide that the manner in which an individual walks merits suspicion, or justifies a legal excuse to stop and frisk someone, certainly isn't limited to Missouri.

For example back on October 19, 2016, I blogged about a white, plain-clothes Minnesota police officer Tim Olson being videotaped by a passing driver as he accosted and arrested an African-American man named Larnie Thomas who was walking along the side of the road in broad daylight.

Asheville (NC) Police Chief Tammy Hooper 

But the incident with Christopher Hickman is unusual in that it's a police stop based on how and where someone was walking - one that resulted in such a violent beating being caught on police videotape.

Local residents who packed the Asheville Citizens Police Advisory Committee meeting last Wednesday night, were understandably angered, confused and looking for answers about Hickman's conduct.

Like many over the past few days, I've been trying to figure out why Asheville, North Carolina police chief Tammy Hooper took five months to launch a criminal investigation - and given the potential legal liability based on Hickman's behavior, why the Asheville City Council was kept in the dark for months too.

In a thoughtful and detailed op-ed on the incident published in the Asheville Citizen Times last Friday, City Council member Vijay Kapoor noted that Chief Hooper immediately took Hickman's badge and gun after Johnnie Rush filed a use of force complaint the day after the incident and she watched the videotape.

As Kapoor notes, she also placed Hickman on administrative duty - this was all within about 24 hours of the incident taking place.

But if you take some time to read Kapoor's comments, the investigation seems to have morphed into an intentionally slow-footed combination of bureaucratic foot-dragging by the Asheville Police Department, the City Attorney's Office and the City Manager's Office.

If Chief Hooper felt that Hickman's behavior in the videotape was bad enough that it warranted taking his badge and gun and pulling him off the street - why didn't she push harder for an independent investigation?

Johnnie Rush after Hickman's beating 

Or report the incident to the City Council?

The result seems to be sort of a ping-pong match between an APD internal investigation and the District Attorney wavering on whether or not to file charges against Hickman - and nothing happened.

That is until the videotape was finally leaked to the Asheville Citizen Times in February six months after the incident and the story blew up.

With national media attention suddenly focused on Asheville's handling of the incident amid growing outrage over the videotaped beating of Johnnie Rush, charges were filed against Hickman last Thursday - including assault by strangulation and assault inflicting serious injury.

Additionally, as the Charlotte Observer reported on Monday, the Buncombe County DA's office quickly announced it is dropping charges against 17 different people arrested by Hickman.

The FBI is reportedly investigating the incident, but with Attorney General Jeff Sessions (a proven racist who scaled back DOJ investigations of racially-biased police departments) heading up the Department of Justice, it's highly doubtful anything substantive will come of that.

But the important thing is the truth came out, even if it did take six months for the video to finally be seen by the public and the Asheville City Council - and more importantly Christopher Hickman was taken off the street and forced to resign from the APD in January.

Time will tell what becomes of the assault charges filed against him.

Would any of this had happened had the body-cam footage not been leaked to the press?

Probably not.

Johnnie Rush would likely have been charged with trespassing, jaywalking and resisting arrest etc., his complaint likely would have been swept under the rug, and in the end it would have been the word of a black man in North Carolina against two white Asheville PD officers.

And no one would ever know the price he paid for walking home.