A jury in Washington found a sheriff in the state not guilty after he was tried on charges of making a false report that a Black newspaper carrier had threatened his life.
According to CNN, Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer faced accusations of fabricating information and presenting a false or misleading report to a public official following the incident in Tacoma in January 2021.
The Washington attorney general’s office, which brought the charges after Gov. Jay Inslee referred the case, said a jury found Troyer not guilty on Wednesday.
“If the AG had made Sheriff Troyer part of the investigation instead of the target, we wouldn’t be here,” said Anne Bremner, Troyer’s attorney, according to CNN.
Bremner stated that her client appreciates the jury’s judgment.
“Sheriff Troyer is very grateful to the jury for their hard work and for their just verdict,” Bremner maintained, CNN reported.
During his testimony at the trial this month, carrier Sedrick Altheimer described Troyer following him in the early hours of Jan. 27, 2021, while the carrier went about his regular newspaper delivery route, theGrio previously reported.
Troyer made a nearly five-minute call to a 911 dispatcher via an internal line just after 2 a.m. in which he claimed to have “caught someone in my driveway who just threatened to kill me, and I’ve blocked him in,” according to theGrio.
Altheimer acknowledged in his testimony that he was unsure whether Troyer knew he was Black when the sheriff began following him in his unmarked white SUV, despite claiming to be the victim of racial profiling. He also acknowledged that Troyer didn’t say anything racially offensive.
“I get held at gunpoint. I get questioned and pulled out of my vehicle,” Altheimer recalled, theGrio reported. “Frisked. Asked questions. Treated like a suspect.”
Altheimer testified that Troyer never identified himself as a police officer but inquired whether he was a thief, going so far as to accuse him of being a “porch pirate,” theGrio reported.
According to charging documents, despite Troyer’s claim to dispatchers, officers on the scene said he admitted to them that Altheimer did not threaten him, according to CNN.
Police reportedly released the newspaper carrier to complete his route about half an hour after arriving.
“Part of upholding the rule of law is respecting the decision of a jury,” Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement after Troyer was cleared, CNN reported. “I appreciate the jury’s service and thank my team for their hard work.”
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