Election Update
There have been reports of booze, women and random gunfire . . .
Date: June 17, 2004
To: The Sons of Confederate Veterans
From: Walter C. Hilderman, III
Candidate for SCV Commander-in-Chief
In recent email messages sent throughout the Confederation, various anonymous Wilson/Sweeney supporters have forwarded an edited version of a Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer newspaper article entitled, "Police Captain Charged with Driving Impaired." The article reports various details of the incident, most of them supplied by the highway patrol. SCV camp commander Jim McManus, who initiated the message campaign with an earlier email posting, added some "editorial" comments of his own, which read in part:
Walt
[Hilderman] says the SPLC will try
to dig up any dirt they can on any man we elect for CIC. In light of that,
and using his own logic, we MUST elect someone of sterling integrity. Don't
you agree?
Just to give a few examples, our new leader, whomever we elect, could not be
a man who had ever committed adultry, who ever been arrested for drunk
driving, who had ever endangered others by firing a firearm in a crowded
public place, etc, etc, etc.
The Wilson/Sweeney machine has started it’s pre-election smear campaign. Compatriot McManus is only the messenger-boy. In his remarks, he refers to my drunk driving arrest and refers to "adultry" (sic) and to my supposedly having "endangered others by firing a firearm in a crowded public place..."
Compatriots: Here are the facts of these three matters:
1. The drunken driving arrest occurred ten years ago, five years before my honorable retirement from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department. The highway patrolman who made the arrest lied on the witness stand. I was found not guilty. He was transferred. (Rumors at the time were that after his performance in my case, he had no credibility in local courts and had trouble obtaining convictions.)
2. Compatriot McManus’ reference to adultery refers to my divorce in the early 1990s. Suffice it to say that I am fifty-five years old and am certainly NOT proud of everything I ever did. My wife and I have been together for more than twelve years now. We are very happy and agree that finding each other was the best thing we ever did, except for having kids, of course.
3. As to my having "endangered others by firing a firearm in a crowded public place..." McManus’ reference to this incident needs what Paul Harvey calls "the rest of the story." The shooting occurred in 1976 when I was a 27 year-old vice and narcotics squad officer. Pursuant to a search warrant obtained by me and my riding partner, we and other vice squad officers raided an apartment that was thought to contain five or six members of an outlaw motorcycle gang. Fortunately, only one of the bikers and a woman who he was assaulting at the time, were in the private residence when we entered. The biker pointed a shotgun at us. I was the first of two officers who opened fire. Four of my shots struck our assailant in the chest. He died en route to the hospital. The incident was reported in the Charlotte newspaper, investigated and approved by the Charlotte police department, and ruled as a justifiable homicide by the local district attorney’s office.
Compatriots: Please notice that the "facts" as reported by the Wilson/Sweeney gang, and the truth which is a matter of public record and readily available, bear little resemblance to each other. This has been their tactic all along. Feel free to have these matters investigated further if anyone needs verification. If you choose to do so, get a better private detective than Wilson and Sweeney apparently got.
Walter C. Hilderman, III.
Save the SCV
DEO VINDICE