Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [38]
I’m the Dog to you, but to my kids, I’m just Dad. They grew up in a house where I was pretty much always right, but this time Dad was wrong—very wrong. The family fallout was immediate. If Beth and I hadn’t had our young children, the impact of this blow might have been a little easier to take. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just me who took the hit. My entire family was attacked that day.
My nine-year-old daughter, Bonnie Jo, and my seven-year-old son, Gary Boy, came home from school on the day the story broke and said they heard the news from some of the kids in their class. Of course, we hadn’t thought to tell them about it before they left that morning because I thought the whole thing would blow over.
“Dad, you can’t use that word, you’re not a rapper,” Bonnie Jo said.
I just about died. I didn’t want any of my babies ashamed of me, but especially the little ones. I couldn’t stomach the thought of them hearing that their dad was a racist, or worse.
Duane Lee and Leland came over the morning this was all going down too. They sat in my living room and broke down. They were in tears over the news. Duane Lee told me about an exchange he’d had with Tucker two nights before the news broke. He confronted Tucker with his anger that Tucker was refusing to go to court with Beth to be a witness on a case she was involved in.
“You have to be in court to help the family, Tucker,” Duane Lee told him, doing his best to compel Tucker to do the right thing.
“No way. I’m not going to court.” Tucker’s response was so angry. Of course, I now understand he had his fingers in his ears just waiting for the bomb to explode at any moment. But at the time, none of us could understand why he was being so short-tempered with everyone.
On a hunch, Duane Lee asked Tucker, “You haven’t done anything to hurt Dad, have you?”
“Ugh! I can’t believe you would ask me something like that. What kind of dick do you think I am?” Tucker was so defensive that Duane Lee backed right down. But now, two days later, as Duane Lee shared this story with us, Tucker’s erratic behavior began to make sense.
Duane Lee and Leland insisted that I cut all ties with Tucker. His actions had a trickle-down effect on everyone associated with the show, including those boys, who felt as betrayed by Tucker as I did.
They pointed out that their own brother had failed to take his brothers and sisters into consideration. It was pretty obvious that he didn’t care about them. He didn’t care about Big Travis, the father of Barbara Katie’s son, and someone who was his roommate and a close friend, nor did he consider the impact on little Travis, who looked up to Tucker like a big brother. He didn’t consider the fallout this would have on our bail bonds business or the television show that had clothed and fed not only all of us, but many others who had depended upon our show for their livelihood over the past several years. Producers, cameramen, editors, and hundreds of others worked at the network, where a hit show helps pay the salaries—and all with families of their own. None of those people entered his mind when he sold the tape of our conversation. He couldn’t even fathom what he had done. His only thought was to hurt Beth and me.
By mid-afternoon, prominent leaders in the black community were already calling for my television show to be pulled from the network. Roy Innis, who has served as the chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, also known as CORE, a United States civil rights organization that played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement, was leading the charge, saying I shouldn’t have my show and that I needed to answer for my behavior. He was asking A&E to take swift action in response to my statements. And he wasn’t alone. Several civil rights leaders were pretty much saying the same thing.