So Who Do You Believe?
IPD officer and FOP President Vince Huber says he doesn’t remember the night 15 years ago when he and another officer were called to the home of Eric and Paula Dickerson in response to a domestic dispute. A police report, brought to the public’s attention by incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Julia Carson this week, showed her opponent Dickerson being arrested on misdemeanor domestic violence charges in August 1991.
In a phone conversation Wednesday night, Huber told me that the only way he would remember something from that long ago would be if there was something that occurred during the incident that stood out, such as a stand off, severe injury or very bizarre behavior by the abuser or victim.
Although he doesn’t remember the allegation, Huber says he sticks by the report, saying officers would not write down anything they were not told by the parties involved. In the report Dickerson is accused of threatening his wife, hitting her and attacking his daughter.
In an exclusive interview with WXNT, Dickerson’s wife, Paula, denied that he ever hit her or their daughter. The case was dismissed. And in the case file which was recently discovered, neither the wife nor daughter testified.
So what does this all mean in the grand scheme of things? It all boils down simply to who do you believe. Although the charges are serious, there was no conviction. The police report one thing. The Dickersons say it didn’t happen. And there was no trial to create a record and have a final determination. Carson who said Dickerson “beat his wife to a pulp” now says she didn’t mean to bring domestic violence into the race. We obviously don’t want to convict individuals of crimes by just going by a police report. We need a trial and a finder of fact.
I find it rather ironic that the same people who complain about the criminal justice system and how unfair it is to young Black men who have been convicted of a crime are so quick to throw an older Black man under the bus for a crime he was never convicted.
So with all that, I have to ask? Who do you believe?
