East Ridge Detective Charged with Assaulting his Wife

An East Ridge Police Department Detective was booked into the Hamilton County Jail on Friday, accused of assaulting his wife.

Joseph Hawks, 33, of a Campfire Trail address on Signal Mountain, is charged with Aggravated Assault. His bond was set at $20,000 and he is due to appear in Hamilton County Sessions Court on November 19.

According to an affidavit, Hawks was joking around with his wife in their home when he took offense to her passing gas. According to the document, Hawks slammed his wife’s head into a mirror in the bathroom.

ERPD Chief Clint Uselton said that the department has placed Hawks on unpaid leave. Chief Uselton said Hawks is a veteran of the department, having been hired in 2016.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.