Around 2 a.m. Sunday, October 22, a car traveling north along Garrard Road near the Wiggins Road intersection stuck and killed 59-year-old Arthur Brewer Sr. The fatality occurred several hours after official Gentry High School homecoming activities had ceased. According to Brewer’s wife, Dippel, her husband was walking back home after visiting some of his relatives who had come into town from California for homecoming events. “I got a call around 2 a.m. from my nephew saying something bad happened,” Brewer recalled. “They wouldn’t let my nephew identify the body but my son went down to the area and said, ‘Mom that’s my dad. He’s dead.’”
Quourtni Cooperwood was identified as the driver of the vehicle that struck Arthur Brewer and according to Indianola Police Chief Ronald Sampson, she was “very cooperative, stayed at the scene of the accident, called the police, and waited for the police to arrive.”
Brewer’s family, naturally experiencing a range of emotions, is not pleased with how they believe the scene was processed by the authorities. According to Brewer’s oldest son, Dekashio Dorsey, the diver of the vehicle did not receive a field sobriety test or breathalyzer and family members of hers were allowed to remove her vehicle from the incident.
Also, no arrests were made in connection with the incident. “I have training in law enforcement and I’ve been to the Highway Patrol Academy,” Dorsey said. “When I talked to Officer (Darnell) Fisher, he said that the vehicle was traveling at an unknown speed,” Dorsey said. “With all of the parties and celebrations going on during homecoming, officers should have taken blood samples from the driver of the car.”
“We also have an issue regarding the car not being taken into impound either at the police station or at the city impound yard,” Dorsey elaborated. “And we would also like to know that even though the coroner was on the scene, why did my dad get pronounced dead first over the police radio and then by the nurse who was on the scene.”
Sampson said his officer that first arrived on the scene saw no visible signs of intoxication and that he, “used his judgement and here we are.”
Although in the days following the fatality information was slow to come in, Sampson provided some context for this delay. Sampson said that he had Officer Irish Johnson attempt to reconstruct the scene and gather a clear idea about what transpired, but a large crowd began to assemble and “one of the nephews left the scene and returned with a weapon demanding information. It was extremely chaotic.”
The Enterprise-Tocsin initially interviewed Sampson on Friday, Oct. 27, and again on Monday, Oct. 30. During the initial interview, Sampson said that he had an appointment with Cooperwood to get a statement from her about her account of the incident. As of 3:30 p.m. on Monday, Sampson said that Cooperwood still had not shown up to the police department.
In the meantime, the Brewer family has issued a $2,000 reward to anyone with credible evidence about their loved one’s death, as there were several witnesses on the scene around the time this occurred. “We just want the young lady to tell the truth about what happened so that we can have the truth and for the police to give us the information about procedures that we are looking for,” Dorsey said. “If we don’t get those answers, we will pursue criminal charges and we have already contacted the Attorney General’s office.”
“We still need to know why this young lady hasn’t been arrested,” Dorsey added.
The bereaved wife said that people in the community knew her husband by his nickname, Lucky, and that he was best known around town for being a handyman and someone who was always walking. “He was a son, a brother, a husband and a father,” Dippel Brewer said. “He was a good man who never bothered anybody. He was in his right mind and it’s not right that he is being dismissed like he’s nobody. Somebody took his life.”
