A History of Hickman (Updated)

On August 24th, 2007, a call was made to the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's office, Sharon Grady and her husband were having a domestic dispute and the woman had attacked her husband. The call was assigned number CD070821275. When Deputies Darwin and Bible arrived, they found the man bleeding from his ear. The man said that the woman had bitten his ear. Under Texas law, when deputies respond to a domestic disturbance where there is evidence of assault, one of the participants will be arrested on assault charges. In this instance, the bleeding ear was clear indication that an assault had taken place, and since he obviously could not have bitten it himself, she was arrested on assault charges. Mrs. Grady then apparently attempted to attack one of the officers as she was being arrested which elevated the charges to assault on a police officer. Photos were taken as evidence, as were statements.

This is where the wheels start to come off the bus.

Apparently the Mrs Grady was friends with Constable Ron Hickman's ex-wife. While they were still at the scene, one of the deputies, I believe it was Bible but I am uncertain which deputy it was, received a call on his phone from Capt. Tim Cannon. Capt. Cannon allegedly told the deputy to drop the matter and to destroy any evidence he had obtained. The deputy rightly refused what he believed to be an illegal order. Allegedly Capt. Cannon told the deputy that this was what Hickman wanted. Supposedly the deputy told Capt. Cannon something along the lines of "If that is what Hickman wants, he had better tell me himself." Allegedly shortly thereafter Constable Hickman did indeed call the deputy on his cellphone and reiterate that he wanted the matter dropped and that all evidence was to be handed over to Capt. Cannon. The deputy's side of this conversation was allegedly recorded on the dashcam audio track of the deputy's cruiser. Shortly after arriving back at the Cypresswood station, Hickman's ex-wife arrived and personally took Mrs. Grady from the holding cell and drove her home. Capt. Cannon also arrived and took possession of all the evidence collected, which he allegedly then destroyed.

An anonymous letter to the DA's office triggered an investigation which led to Capt. Cannon being indicted on charges of obstruction of justice and evidence tampering. Constable Hickman has not been indicted yet in his role. Hickman fired Capt. Cannon, but then he promptly rehired him in a civilian role at his current pay and seniority. His duties however seem suspect.

My sources tell me that Cannon has not been seen in his office, but he is drawing a full 40 hours of pay, there is to my knowledge no record of him being suspended with pay. My sources further tell me that he has been seen putting up campaign signs for Hickman during work hours.

Constable Hickman's Campaign expenditure disclosures have an interesting pair of entries. Two entries, one of $1000, and another of $5000, paid to Clint Greenwood. The dates of these payments are suspect, the $1000 payment was on 9/13/07, three days after the investigation was begun. The second payment was made the day before Cannon was to appear in court. Clint Greenwood is a criminal defense attorney that specializes in defending cops, he is also a reserve deputy under Hickman. Rumor has it that these entries are payments made by Hickman's campaign to Greenwood to retain his services to defend Cannon. The timing of the payments seems to confirm that theory. This is a campaign funds violation, campaign funds cannot be used for criminal defense attorney's fees. In an interesting twist, Greenwood is campaign manager for Jim Leitner.

In an effort to ascertain the truth of the matter I have requested copies of that call record as well as cell phone records (including any paid for by campaign funds.) for Hickman, Cannon, Bible, and Darwin. I have requested all photographic, video, and audio of the call. Constable Hickman's office claims to have no records for the cell phones, and has referred all other requests to the County Attorney's office, claiming that it is evidence in an ongoing investigation.

I want to know why Hickman has not been indicted as well, especially since I am told there is recorded audio evidence that he made a phone call to the deputy telling him to comply with Cannon's illegal order. The trial has been postponed until after the Primaries, clearly in an effort to make sure Hickman's involvement does not come to light before the election. It seems clear to me that someone in the Special Crimes division of the Harris County DA's office, of which Kelly Seigler is the head of that department, is doing everything possible to make sure Hickman skates on his involvement. For some reason Cannon is falling on his sword for Hickman. Why I do not know, but I suspect when the trial gets underway and those prison doors start clanging in his ears, he will gladly give up Hickman to save his bacon, but by then, the voters will have been duped into re-electing him.

Don't make that mistake.

UPDATE: I have found two errors on my part that I should correct, plus one ommission. First off, it was Owmby, not Seigler that handled this case. Secondly it apparently occurred on August 25th, not Aug. 24th.
The ommission was that not only was the unsigned letter sent to the DA's office, it was also copied to several media outlets . It would appear that whoever sent the letter was concerned that simply notifiying the DA would probably wind up with the case buried and the sender sought out and punished. By sending it to multiple media outlets as well, he ensured that it could not be swept under the rug.