by JASON WHITELY and TANYA
EISERER
DALLAS — Edgar Sanchez
admits he was afraid.
In fact, he still is.
"I got scared. I said,
'This is a person that got mad; they want to do harm to me; they want to kill
me.'"
Sanchez, 30, almost
collided with off-duty Dallas police Officer Demont Hickman in the 3900 block
of East Jefferson Street in Grand Prairie last July.
The resulting road rage
included aggressive actions by Hickman.
"He followed me in his
car,” Sanchez said. “I lowered my window. I said, 'I’m sorry,' and the person
pointed a gun at me and he followed me."
Hickman was in his personal
pickup truck wearing a white T-shirt and dark tactical pants. His badge was on
his waist. Sanchez said he didn't know Hickman was a cop until he already was
on the ground.
Months after asking, Dallas
police officials finally released the Internal Affairs report detailing the
July incident. Among other things, it said, "Officer Hickman did not point
his weapon at anybody."
But an independent witness
told investigators he saw Hickman's gun pointed at Sanchez's head.
"You had it on his
head and he wasn't doing anything," the witness said on video he recorded
of the incident.
"It seems like
training would have dictated to the officer what he should do," said
Hector Flores of the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Flores said Officer Hickman
overreacted. Grand Prairie did not file charges against the Dallas policeman
because Sanchez didn't want to. Grand Prairie Police Department spokesman Lyle
Gensler said officers filed "an information report" in the case since
Sanchez didn't want to proceed with criminal prosecution at that time.
"On misdemeanor
offenses, like this one appears to be, the victim has two years from the date
of the incident to change their minds," he said. "If they call us
back within the two years, we can certainly re-open the case and prepare to
file it with the district attorney."
A potential charge that
could be filed is deadly conduct, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a
year in jail, he said.
Still, Dallas conducted its
own internal affairs investigation and suspended Hickman for 10 days for
getting involved in a disturbance using unnecessary force and profane language.
Flores said that's not
enough.
"The punishment faced
or the actions that were taken against this officer were a slap on the
wrist," he said.
Dallas police Assistant
Chief Tom Lawrence, who oversees the city's seven patrol stations, said the
internal investigation found that Hickman's response was "inappropriate as
well as the use of force that occurred at the scene."
Lawrence said he took into
account "the seriousness of the incident into account, the fact that no
criminal charges were filed and Officer Hickman's past disciplinary
history" and believed that a 10-day suspension was "the appropriate
level of discipline to address the behavior and ensure no future
incidents."
Hickman can appeal the
suspension.
In 2010, Dallas Senior Cpl.
Janice Crowther flashed her gun in a road rage incident in Allen. She faced a
reprimand by DPD, but no criminal charges.
Last month in Houston,
police charged a Harris County prosecutor with aggravated assault with a deadly
weapon for doing the same thing to a Tomball man.
WFAA reporter Sebastian
Robertson contributed to this story
