Video of an APD officer brutally assaulting a black man walking home from work shines a harsh light on the reality of our city. But it was enabled by a city that has repeatedly failed to take the depths of racism in its own backyard seriously. It is not the first time, and it will not be the last.

Above: An APD officer shoves Asheville resident Johnnie Jermaine Rush to the ground before violently attacking him last Aug. 24. Rush was walking home from work when an officer proceeded to chase, beat, choke and electrocute him after he complained the APD were harassing him for crossing the street. Still from body cam video released by the Asheville Citizen-Times. Courtesy of the Citizen-Times and used with permission.

[Editor’s note: Since the publication of this piece just over a week ago, Asheville City Council voted to release more information about the incident, locals rightly expressed their outrage, and charges were finally filed against former officer Chris Hickman. The national media’s also started to take notice.

Whether you’re an Ashevillian looking to understand this horrific incident or someone from elsewhere just becoming aware of it, here’s the context that’s missing from much of the national coverage. Our city’s segregation and police brutality didn’t emerge overnight, and understanding the roots of these evils are essential to fighting them. 

-D.F. 3/9/18]

In the video, it’s a late August night last year and Asheville Police Department senior officer Chris Hickman is complaining loudly. About someone jaywalking.

“Jaywalking. He just did it again. And again,” he says to trainee officer Verino Ruggiero, who he’s sharing a police car with. “He’s going to be so annoyed with you.”

The video, from Hickman’s body cam and later obtained and released by the Asheville Citizen-Times, shows Hickman and Ruggiero pull up to a man walking home. There is a black man in a white shirt, Asheville resident Johnnie Jermaine Rush. Ruggiero gets out of the drivers’ side door and detains Rush for crossing the street and supposedly walking through the parking lot of a closed business.

Another police car goes by. Hickman gets out of the passenger side door.

Jaywalking is rarely pursued as a charge by the Asheville Police Department, nor is someone walking through a parking lot. Otherwise countless people who live, work or visit downtown Asheville would have extensive records. The place where the officers detained Rush, a corner near McCormick Field, is a particularly busy one, and as was pointed in detail out later, thousands of people cross the same place and way leaving Asheville Tourists games without ending up arrested.

Also, Rush wasn’t — by all the evidence in the video — even jaywalking. The offense doesn’t just mean “crossing the street without a crosswalk.” Under North Carolina law, people are free to move without a crosswalk as long as they yield to traffic; someone actually has to block a vehicle to jaywalk. The officers charged with enforcing the law were clearly not aware of it.

Or they didn’t care.

Rush is frustrated, motioning across the street in disbelief, telling the officers that he’s exhausted and was heading home from work. He’d later tell the Citizen-Times he’d just finished a 13-hour shift at the Tunnel Road Cracker Barrel.

“You just committed four crimes in a row, just because you don’t agree it’s a crime doesn’t mean it’s not a crime,” Ruggiero insists.

“You don’t have anything better to do besides mess with me?” Rush asks. “You act like I wasn’t paying attention” while crossing the street.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re paying attention, I was politely asking you to use the crosswalk,” Ruggiero says. “I know what you’re doing. You think I’m a punk. Guess what, I don’t think…”

“So what am I doing?” Rush says.

“You didn’t use a crosswalk four times in a row,” the trainee officer says and Rush says that he was already crossing the area before the officers came along.

“It didn’t matter when you went through, he politely asked you to stop,” Hickman says.

“All I’m trying to do is go home,” Rush says. Ruggiero tells him he can either arrest him or write him a ticket.

“It doesn’t matter man, do whatever you have to do besides keep harassing me,” Rush replies.

“I’m not harassing you,” the trainee replies.

“Yes, you are,” Rush says (there are now, including the officer in the nearby police car, now three officers now on scene for a single black man crossing an empty street).

“That’s all in your mind, man,” Hickman says. Rush and Ruggiero talk back and forth, inaudibly some more, as Hickman insists “just write him a ticket, he wants to act like a punk.”

“Y’all don’t have shit better to do besides harass somebody for fucking walking?” Rush asks

Ruggiero was turning back towards his police car, but at those words from Rush Hickman steps forward and demands “put your hands behind your back.” He points at him, shouts at him not to move and demands he drop the bag he’s holding.

“Sir, look…” Rush says repeatedly as Hickman shouts at him to put his hands behind his back. He reaches for Rush, who moves away and starts running as Hickman shouts “motherfucker.”

“On foot, black male, white tank top, thinks it’s funny, know what’s funny is you’re going to get fucked up hardcore,” Hickman shouts into his radio as he chases Rush through the nearby parking lot, pulling out a stun gun.

Hickman and Ruggiero catch Rush and shove him face down to the ground, Hickman shouting “put your hands behind your back” repeatedly while hitting him as he shouts that he can’t breathe. The other officer yells at him to do the same.

As Rush’s hands are behind his back, he keeps telling the officers he can’t breathe (they’re on top of him, pushing him hard into the pavement at this point). Hickman starts striking Rush in the head, then the officer reaches over, grabs the stun gun he’d dropped while tackling Rush to the ground and starts electrocuting him as the man screams in agony. At this point Officer Luis Delgado arrives on the scene and holds Rush’s ankles.

He keeps shocking him as Ruggiero comes over, keeps insisting that Rush put his hands behind his back as he shouts “I can’t…” He shouts for help as Hickman hits him again. Another officer puts Rush in handcuffs and they move him towards a parked car.

The background’s full of sirens and Hickman calls for EMS (“for suspect, not officer”) for “his face, tasing…just get EMS.”

“All of this over you getting a ticket,” Hickman says loudly. “Now it’s serious bro.” Into the radio, he adds that he needs a supervisor.

Rush is speaking inaudibly at this point, and Hickman hears him say the word “please” and shouts “Please, it’s ‘please’ now. It was a fucking ticket and you wanted to act like this. What’s wrong with you? What the fuck is wrong with you? I don’t know what your problem is, I don’t know if you’ve got a gun, if you’ve got a knife, I don’t have X-ray-fucking-vision.”

“Stop yelling at me,” Rush says. “We’re going to put you in a car, tough boy,” Hickman says. “Do anything and you’re going to get hurt further.”

“You didn’t have to punch me in my face for no reason,” Rush says.

“You didn’t have to make me,” Hickman yells back. The officers take him to a police car. “You didn’t have to do all that,” Rush says.

“Don’t look at me with your spitty blood face,” Hickman sneers.

Shortly after other officers are shining lights on Rush’s face as Hickman tells them where his injuries are. As this point there are at least six APD personnel on the scene. One asks Hickman if he’s ok, he replies “I’ve got blood all over me, from his face. Fucking asshole.”

Hickman goes over to the supervisor now on scene, Sgt. Lisa Taube, and claims that they’d seen Rush yelling at them and walking in front of cars before he’d come out of a store and again crossed the street without using a crosswalk (which, remember, is not even jaywalking)

The street was empty, other than the APD cars that showed up after they arrived, during the entire time since Hickman stepped out of his car.

“He started punking out Ruggiero, Ruggiero says I’m going to write you a ticket, he started throwing a fit on the sidewalk, I told him to get his hands behind his back and it was on from there. Ran, laughing, saying ‘fuck you, I can’t wait until you catch me.’ So we caught him. Then he wanted to fight. Tried to drag the taser out of my hand and I went on his fucking head. I beat the shit out of his head I’m not going to lie about that. Tried to grab the taser and pull it from us.”

I don’t think this part’s received enough attention. Hickman is lying to Taube. Rush expressed frustration and fear, he didn’t laugh while he was running or say what Hickman claimed he said. His “throwing a fit” was asking, repeatedly, why APD officers didn’t have anything better to do than harass a man walking home from work. He never reached for Hickman’s stun gun. Instead of a fight the officers were already on top of him, bearing down hard enough that he could barely breathe, when Hickman struck and electrocuted him repeatedly.

The night was Aug. 24. Rush was charged with assault on a government employee, trespassing, traffic offenses and resisting an officer. The charges were dropped Sept. 18.

Hickman remained on the force for months, until he resigned in January.

Enabling acts

The city’s laid out a timeline of what happened afterwards, and Chief Tammy Hooper’s issued a statement, asserting that “the acts demonstrated in this video are unacceptable and contrary to the Department’s vision and the progress we have made in the last several years in improving community trust” and claiming that the policy of the department was to “take swift and immediate action.” The city sent out a timeline March 1, but then revised it the next day. They claim that a complaint was received on Aug. 25 about Hickman’s conduct, and they “began conducting an administrative investigation.” About three weeks later they showed it to the District Attorney’s office, and the charges were shortly dropped.

In December they submitted it again to the D.A., wondering if they’d launch a criminal investigation into Hickman. In January, the D.A.’s office did and the APD requested the SBI investigate. Hooper’s claimed to the Citizen-Times that she doesn’t know why the SBI turned the investigation down. But in a comment to the Associated Press, a spokesperson for the agency claims it was because Hooper waited five months to call them in, long after they could launch an investigation and against the usual practice of a department calling in the SBI immediately after an incident.

Further reporting by Citizen-Times journalist Joel Burgess (who broke this story) also indicates that the SBI’s refusal was due to that highly unusual delay, and that there were three other videos of use of force incidents involving Hickman that were brought to the attention of the D.A.’s office.

After the SBI refused, the APD started investigating itself.

On Jan. 5 Hickman resigned.

For context, last Fall was marked by a tumultuous Council election where police misconduct was a major controversy. This news, still buried in the halls of the APD, remained firmly out of the public eye during those campaigns.

During the entire time from Aug. 24 to this week neither City manager Gary Jackson or Asheville City Council, the officials Hooper and the APD are ostensibly responsible to, were informed. Nor was the incident mentioned when Hooper reported the annual Use of Force report, claiming a major reduction thanks to her policies, to the city’s police committee. City officials are outraged.

Mayor Esther Manheimer used that exact word in her own statement, condemning the abuse and claiming “we will have accountability and, above all, transparency.” There’s a special Council meeting Monday, March 5 where they’ll meet in closed session to consider personnel matters and to “hear reports concerning investigation of alleged criminal misconduct.”

Despite Hooper failing to notify them for months, Manheimer still ended the statement claiming “I support APD Chief Hooper in her efforts to emphasize de-escalation. The acts of these officers do not represent the professional and fair treatment a vast majority of our officers show in the course of their duties day in and day out.”

Some Council members have gone a good deal further, with Council member Keith Young condemning a “culture of authoritarianism” at the APD. Council member Sheneika Smith asserted that “this lack of transparency is completely unacceptable and asked “how has our long neglect of equity in this community led to the point where a black man walking home after working 12 hours can be profiled and assaulted for an alleged ‘jaywalking’ citation?”

Outrage is certainly the right response, but the harsh fact is that this didn’t emerge out of nowhere. The only reason we know about this is because someone within the APD has a shred of conscience and leaked the video to the press, and Hooper’s already turning her attention to making damn sure that never happens again. During her tenure, the department’s been known for defending officers against repeated accusations of racist violence. The Hickman case was so blatant and so horrible that some consequences were (finally) meted out, but it’s already clear that the response was far from “swift and immediate.”

The video also shows evil committed by more than just Hickman, from Ruggiero’s antagonistic ego (“you think I’m a punk”) to the fact the trainee and another officer assisted Hickman while he brutalized a local worker who was just trying to get home. In addition to the fact Rush doesn’t visibly even jaywalk, there’s never any doubt expressed by any of the officers that he deserves to be stopped and penalized for walking down the street. No one acts to decrease the tension or suggests letting the matter go, even in the confines of the police car. No one contradicted Hickman while he blatantly lied to his supervisor. It resembles petty bullies waiting for the most belligerent of their number to throw a punch at a victim. Which is exactly what happened.

The department’s vaunted de-escalation policy, which city officials have repeatedly touted as leading to miraculous improvements, might as well not have existed.

This brutality is wrong. It is evil. It should not be surprising.

Asheville has been, and remains, a harshly segregated city, and the APD a department with abysmal diversity and appalling racial disparities in traffic stops and searches.

In March 2016 Council passed a restrictive policy on body camera footage, leaving any decision about public release up to the police chief. Council members praise the policy and then-Council member Gordon Smith believes the body cameras will have “a civilizing effect.” A state law, that the D.A’s office is now accusing the anonymous leaker of this video of violating, clamped down even further.

But already Asheville had shown that it was fine keeping body camera footage as far away from the public as possible. The violence done to Rush, and the public outcry that’s resulted, is an excellent reminder of why.

That summer, after an APD sergeant shot and killed a black man, Jerry Williams, under disputed circumstances, long-simmering tensions (there was another police killing of a black Ashevillian under unclear circumstances two years earlier) erupted into protests. Hooper responded by cracking down on the demonstrations, heaping retaliatory charges and even at one point berating a protest leader who’d been arrested and handcuffed. One of the APD’s deputy chiefs even blatantly lied to the public and a city committee about the circumstances of the clampdown. Aside from a few Council members chiding some of the more egregious retaliations, our elected officials did nothing.

Later that year a police officer Shalin Oza slammed a black teenager to the ground during an arrest. A few months later, locals captured video of him threatening to take a group of black teenagers to jail while holding an AR-15 (one of the teens, it later emerged, had a bb gun). He’d taken offense at them pointing out that he was, in fact, holding a military-style rifle around a group of children. In the latter case, Hooper defended his actions by pointing out there was violence in public housing over a mile away. Oza kept his job.

Last year, locals packed Council and board meetings to fight back against a plan to expand downtown policing. They asserted that given the massive problems in the department’s culture increased APD patrols would just result in more marginalized communities getting harassed and attacked on minor or fabricated offenses (like, well, jaywalking). Hooper twisted stats and blatantly ignored the public budget process. The locals protesting the measure were treated by too many in the political establishment as wild-eyed radicals when it’s crystal clear that, after watching the video of Rush’s beating, they were pointing out the brutally obvious.

Police Benevolent Association representative Brandon McGaha (a Hendersonville detective who would later shoot and kill a black man during a drug investigation later that year) blamed the public for any problems in encounters with police, while Fraternal Order of Police head Rondell Lance (now running for Buncombe County Sheriff) wondered why other city departments weren’t getting the same ire, and pegged it all on a mysterious “anti-police” sentiment (hazarding a guess: because parks and rec doesn’t beat, choke and electrocute people).

The police expansion passed 5-2 and city officials never even mildly criticized Hooper for twisting stats or completely ignoring the city’s own policies.

Black drivers also remain far, far more likely to be stopped and searched despite having contraband less often than white drivers. Last year these disparities were brought directly to the attention of Council by the NAACP and Southern Coalition for Social Justice. The groups suggested common-sense reforms like requiring officers to get written permission before someone consented to a search and not stopping people for minor problems like a busted tail-light or an expired registration. The majority of Council declared the issue an urgent problem, then quietly refused to carry out the reforms. Hooper asserted they weren’t necessary.

Last summer APD Officer Zach Raymond tackled Terry Marzell, an intellectually disabled black man, to the ground during a bomb hoax, injuring him. When locals expressed their outrage, Hooper claimed that Raymond shouting “hey boss” at a person before slamming them into the pavement somehow fit in with the department’s newly-minted de-escalation policies. Raymond kept his job.

Every single public decision over the past years has sent the message that we have a city government that does not take racism or injustice seriously, that isn’t willing to enforce transparency or inflict consequences and that the APD’s leadership would always have the benefit of the doubt. It sent the message that any line could be crossed, any oversight ignored, every flimsy excuse believed and all critics dismissed with mantras of “trust us.”

What the hell did they think would happen?

What do they think will happen again?

The way out isn’t an easy one. For a start it means cutting the crap and firing multiple people at every level of city government. It means listening seriously to communities city leaders have spent decades trying to silence and shut out. It means admitting that the “radicals” were right, the rot in the APD is extensive and that barely-enforced policies and half-measures won’t ever fix it.

Don’t hold your breath. Sometime soon — a few weeks, a few months — we’ll be back here, until the day Asheville’s leaders finally decide they give a damn.

—

The Asheville Blade is entirely funded by our readers. If you like what we do, donate directly to us on Patreon or make a one-time gift to support our work. Questions? Comments? Email us.

Copyright © 2024 The Asheville Blade. All Rights Reserved.