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White privilege at work….White officer guilty of assaulting black pedestrian can get charge expunged
White officer guilty of assaulting black pedestrian can get charge expunged
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – An ex-officer has pleaded guilty to felony assault by choking a black pedestrian – but that and other charges will be dismissed in a year if he participates in what has been described as a groundbreaking restorative justice program.
The unusual plea deal for ex-Asheville police officer Christopher William Hickman, 32, was announced Aug. 9 in Buncombe County Superior Court. Hickman struck the deal with the district attorney’s office with the permission of the victim, Johnnie Jermaine Rush.
Along with assault by strangulation, Hickman pleaded to two misdemeanors: communicating threats and assault while inflicting serious injury. He committed those crimes in 2017 against Rush, who was stopped for suspected jaywalking and trespassing by walking through the parking lot of a business closed for the night. Hickman is white and Rush is African American.
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Under normal sentencing, Hickman could have faced a maximum of four years in prison.
But under the deal, the guilty pleas were made pursuant to conditional discharge. That means if Hickman fulfills conditions set by Superior Court Judge Bill Coward, including 12 months of supervised probation, those charges will be dismissed after the probation. He could then qualify for those charges to be expunged.
A key condition is participation in a restorative justice program and community service dictated by the program led by Campbell University law professor Jon Powell.
That process has already started and included a Sept. 7 face-to-face meeting with Hickman and Rush, in which Rush asked the former officer about his actions that night and Hickman explained what he was thinking and apologized.
In court, Williams talked about the meeting. According to the district attorney, Hickman said, “I pretty much left you with no choice and I left myself with no choice on how I’m supposed to react and that’s not what I want to do for either one of us, but that’s on me that’s what I did and that’s stuff I should have done better and I’m sorry about that and I’m sorry that that situation happened and I’m sorry that the mistakes that I made made it get to that point.”
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Rush, who agreed to the process, was present at the hearing. After the hearing he was asked if he forgave Hickman. Rush shook his head no and offered no other comment.
Powell, who said the restorative justice arrangement appeared to be the first in the nation involving a convicted police officer, said forgiveness doesn’t have to happen for the process to succeed. Allowing victims to question perpetrators and recognizing the harm done to them are the most important aspects, the professor said.
The violent Aug. 24, 2017, encounter drew national attention after it was seen by thousands via Hickman’s leaked body camera footage obtained and published by the Citizen Times. The video showed Rush being beaten, shocked and held by the throat. Rush can be heard crying out that he can’t breath.
The intensity and racial overtones of the incident rocked the city and preceded the exit of the city manager and three top APD officials. City leaders issued mandates for police reforms.
While the incident happened in August 2017, Hickman was not arrested until March 8, 2018, a week after the publication of the leaked body cam video.
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Rush was represented by well-known civil rights attorney James “Fergie” Ferguson, an Asheville native who led early desegregation efforts and in Charlotte opened North Carolina’s first integrated law firm.
In an August 2018 Ferguson negotiated a civil settlement for Rush with the city in which Rush is being $650,000 in installments.
In court Friday, Ferguson praised the Williams for wanting to use the restorative justice process, saying it was a risk for a prosecutor but was move toward what looked like real justice.
“I saw in this some opportunities to move our justice system in ways I had not seen it move before,” said Ferguson.
Rush himself was arrested almost a year later in early 2019 on unrelated charges, including felony cocaine possession. That caused a delay in Hickman’s case.
Williams was leery of prosecuting Rush at the same time the district attorney would need his help as a witness in the highly politicized case against Hickman. Rush’s difficulty securing an attorney to defend him against the felony drug charge and four misdemeanor charges, including assault on a female, stalled the process.
But this summer Henderson County District Attorney Greg Newman agreed to handle the case against Rush, allowing it proceed.
The public at large and the vast majority of city officials said they didn’t know about the incident until the Feb. 28, 2018, publication of leaked body cam footage by the Citizen Times.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: North Carolina officer Christopher Hickman guilty of felony assault
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