One officer is heard saying on the bodycam, “I’m gonna be 100% honest, the reason there’s so many cops here is because he’s the sheriff.”Īnother officer said it was “obvious he was a newspaper carrier because of all the newspapers stacked in the backseat of his car,” the document revealed. “Yeah, I threatened his life because I walked up and asked why he was following me,” Altheimer responded. He responded in the negative for each allegation.įour minutes later, a Tacoma officer named Officer Ventura revealed what Altheimer had been accused of, “He just called saying that someone had threatened his life.” He was asked if he threatened to kill the sheriff if he pushed against the sheriff’s car and/or blocked him in. Still, the officers on the scene made him get out of his car, frisked him, and asked him questions. I am working! I’m a Black man in a White neighborhood and I am working!” He said, “Is that what you’re here for? I’m suspicious right?”Īdding, “How many cops, for a f-ing newspaper carrier? You guys are some badasses.’ In a bodycam video, a clearly agitated Altheimer can be heard yelling to the officers, he was not doing anything wrong and that Troyer had been harassing him. Officer Lawless was one of the officers to arrive on the scene and assessed that no more patrol cars needed to be sent, “We don’t need the whole world coming.” I had my hands in plain sight and I still almost got shot.” He said his heart was “just pounding.” He said, “You never know what’s gonna happen with these guys. However, Altheimer was nowhere close to Troyer at the time.įourteen officers arrived at where Altheimer was and converged on him. ”įrom his car, Troyer created a story saying Altheimer was “pushing against my car” and wasn’t letting him leave. He told the dispatcher he was being polite to the suspected homeless man but the suspect “just says I’m a racist. Troyer later identified the “suspect” as being possibly homeless and stated he “blocked me in” with his vehicle. The legal filing states, “Moments after receiving information that had come from Troyer, over 40 law enforcement officers from multiple agencies rushed toward location.” And he’s here right now.”Ī recording to the dispatcher captures Troyer saying for the second time, “And he knows who I am, and he threatened to kill me.” Within approximately 4 minutes and 50 seconds, Troyer repeated that Altheimer was threatening to kill him four times. When on the line with a dispatcher, Troyer began, “I’m at 27th and Deidra, in Tacoma, North End, about two blocks from my house and I caught someone in my driveway who just threatened to kill me and I blocked him in. Officers typically use this back channel phone line to make routine requests or seek information.” The probable cause report claims “The ‘officer line’ bypasses the 911 telephone lines and rings directly to the 911 dispatch desk. With the two men’s vehicles about 50 feet apart, Troyer made his report on an “officer line,” activating the chain of events that Altheimer says haunts him until this day. The complaint says Altheimer responded, “Congratulations.”Īfter that exchange, the sheriff called the delivery worker a “porch pirate,” someone who steals packages from outside of others’ homes.Īfter this encounter, which lasted only five minutes, Troyer continued following Altheimer until the Black man turned around in a cul-de-sac and stopped with his car facing Troyer’s in the middle of a street. However, the sheriff allegedly said his wife was Black. “I asked him three questions that night: Are you a cop? Are you following me? And is it because I’m Black?”Īccording to the man, Troyer never identified himself as a police officer. Reports marked the time at a little before 2 a.m.
HARASSED ON THE JOB DRIVER
He said he stopped his car and approached the driver in an SUV. While recalling the night, he remembered seeing headlights in his rearview mirror and noticing a white SUV following him on Vista View Drive. “Every time you drive in that neighborhood you look at that one spot and you’re like, man, I almost lost my life.” “It’s just not the same,” Altheimer says as he gives the reason why he doesn’t get out of the car in the area close to Troyer’s home, and sometimes takes a detour.
The 26-year-old, who had been working his job for eight years, says he believes his rights were violated. “I mean, it’s just a system of racism.”Īccording to Altheimer’s interview and a probable cause affidavit retrieved by Atlanta Black Star, Troyer was following the paper deliveryman around his predominantly white Tacoma neighborhood early in the morning while he made his daily paper run and threatened him.
27, 2021, the sheriff called for regional backup, stating four different times to the dispatcher that he was in grave danger as a man was following him and threatening to harm him.Īltheimer’s attorney, Vonda Sargent, says this is an example of racial and biased based profiling.
0 kommentar(er)
