Grand jury will consider excessive force case next week
Written by Cris Barrish
A Dover police officer has been on paid suspension for four
months while police and prosecutors investigate his use of force in arresting a
man the officer’s lawyer claims is a combative “career felon.”
Cpl. Thomas W. Webster IV, 40, an eight-year veteran of the
force, is receiving his $64,000 annual salary while authorities probe his Aug.
24 arrest of Lateef Dickerson, 29, on assault and other charges.
Attorney General Beau Biden’s office is planning to seek a
grand jury indictment next week charging Webster with assault, sources familiar
with the case said. Webster’s lawyer expects him to be indicted.
“We can confirm that the officer is under investigation, but
can’t comment any further,” Dover police spokesman Cpl. Mark Hoffman said.
“Things should be moving on this issue in the next week or so.”
Details of what Webster is being investigated for have not
been made public, but investigators have a video of the confrontation, Hoffman
and Chief James E. Hosfelt said Wednesday, adding that they will not release
the video now. “That’s all evidence at this point,” Hoffman said.
Richard Smith, president of the state NAACP, said Hosfelt
briefed him on the case and possible charges against Webster on Saturday.
“He said the video was so bad that he had to take a stand to
lock this police officer up,” Smith said. “He said we wouldn’t want to see the
video because it would upset the whole community. He said it was pitiful but
wouldn’t go into details.”
Smith said relations between police and the black community
have been tense in recent years, and said that if Webster is charged
criminally, that might send a message to residents that the city won’t tolerate
police brutality.
“We hope to see him charged and that justice will prevail.
Just to see him go to court would unite people,” Smith said. “The black
community and the city of Dover need to come together.”
The investigation began on Oct. 13 after a complaint was
filed with Dover police, Hoffman said. The NAACP’s Smith said Dickerson filed
the complaint and that during the investigation the video was given to police.
Webster was suspended with pay on Nov. 4, but the suspension
was not announced in keeping with the department’s personnel policy, Hoffman
said.
Reached Wednesday morning at his home near Felton, Webster
would not comment. But his attorney, James E. Liguori, issued a statement that
said his client’s use of force was proper and necessary.
“Tom Webster’s quick thinking and instincts helped keep a
very bad guy off our streets,” wrote Liguori, who added that Webster spent nine
years as a Delaware corrections officer before joining the Dover force.
Dickerson has four felony convictions and has been arrested
several dozen times, Liguori wrote.
The altercation occurred at the Hess service station on U.S.
13 in Dover, where officers were dispatched after a 911 call that Dickerson and
others “were armed and in a fight,” Liguori’s statement said. No one had
weapons, Liguori said, but Webster had to use force against Dickerson.
The defense attorney did not say that Dickerson was violent
before Webster used force, only that the suspect did not comply with police
orders.
“All Lateef Dickerson had to do was comply” with Webster and
another officer “and it wouldn’t have been necessary for him to be forcefully
restrained,” Liguori wrote.
Webster “looks forward to trial in this matter. His actions
were justified. This was not an indiscriminate exercise of the use of
unnecessary force. Tom Webster’s day in court will not be soon enough. He
protected all of us that day, even Mr. Dickerson, when he chose to use less
than lethal force to get this career felon under arrest and off of our
streets.”
Dickerson was charged with assault, theft, resisting arrest
and other offenses in the Hess incident, Hoffman said Wednesday morning, adding
that the criminal case remains open.
Dickerson is currently serving 60 days at the Central
Violation of Probation Center in Smyrna, corrections spokesman John Painter
said.
News Journal files show that Dickerson, was charged with
assault on a police officer, resisting arrest and drug offenses in September
2012 after a traffic stop in Middletown, and with armed robbery and weapons
charges in 2006 and 2008.