Cape Girardeau brothers charged with hate crime

Two Cape Girardeau brothers were charged Friday with a hate crime for allegedly assaulting a black man at a convenience store on North Kingshighway late Thursday.

Officers responded to Kidd's, 103 N. Kingshighway, just before 11 p.m. Thursday where Lennie Dickerson, of Cape Girardeau, said two white men yelled racial slurs at him and assaulted him in the parking lot before fleeing the scene in a brown and tan truck.

Jerry D. Conrad, 23, and Timothy R. Conrad, 18, were arrested a short time later in the Schnucks parking lot.

Jerry and Timothy Conrad are both charged with third-degree assault, a felony, because the charge is a hate crime.

"What would have been a misdemeanor assault is a felony because this charge is racially related," said Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle.

Jerry Conrad

According to a probable-cause affidavit filed in the case by Cape Girardeau police officer Darin Hickey, Dickerson was first confronted by the Conrads when he was walking by Dollar General and they began to yell at him from their truck.

Dickerson told officers he was hit in the back of the head several times by the brothers.

Hickey wrote that he checked Dickerson for injuries and there was a "large knot" on the back of his head, consistent with being hit. Dickerson denied medical treatment at the scene.

After bringing the Conrad brothers into custody, officers found a butterfly knife in Timothy Conrad's pants pocket.

Timothy Conrad was also given a breath test at the police station, indicating a blood-alcohol content of 0.21.

He was also charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon and being a minor in possession of alcohol by consumption. In an interview after the incident, Jerry Conrad told Hickey that a black man holding a knife walked up to him at Rhymer's on the Plaza and that he punched the man in the face when he saw the knife. Dickerson started running, he told Hickey, and the brothers followed him in their truck to Kingshighway.

Jerry Conrad said that near Kidd's he saw his brother jump from the truck and start punching Dickerson in the parking lot.

Both brothers are in custody on a $10,000 bond.

ehevern@semissourian.com

388-3635

Pertinent address:

103 N. Kingshighway, Cape Girardeau, MO

19 S. Kingshighway, Cape Girardeau, MO

10 Plaza Way, Cape Girardeau, MO