Pierce County, Wash., Sheriff Ed Troyer, shown as a department spokesman in February 2020, told a 911 dispatcher a man “threatened to kill me.” The man was doing his job delivering newspapers, and the Seattle Times reports Troyer took back his allegation upon questioning by Tacoma police. A sheriff in Washington state is facing public pressure to step down after he called 911 to report he was threatened by a man lurking in his neighborhood — an allegation he later contradicted when talking to police and local media. Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer told a dispatch operator in a Jan. 27 call, first reported by the Seattle Times, that a man going house-to-house in his neighborhood in the early morning threatened to “kill” Troyer, prompting dozens of police cars from multiple agencies to respond. Tacoma Police officers discovered that the man, 24-year-old Sedrick Altheimer, was a Black newspaper delivery driver — and Troyer told them he was “never threatened,” according to an incident report obtained by the newspaper. Amid a national conversation about racial prejudice within the ranks of police departments, the ordeal has raised questions about the newly elected sheriff, who is White, within a community already reckoning with the death of Manuel Ellis, an unarmed Black man, about a year ago. Ellis died of “hypoxia due to physical restraint,” according to the medical examiner, after police pinned him amid a scuffle that a witness said was unprovoked. His final words echoed the last utterances of other Black men who died in police custody, including George Floyd and Eric Garner: “I can’t breathe.”
911 call: Pierce County sheriff claims Black driver threatened his life. Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer told a 911 operator that a Black delivery driver threatened him– an allegation he retracted when talking to responding officers. (South Sound 911). Troyer, elected in November after serving as the office’s spokesman, denied that he had racially profiled Altheimer, telling The Washington Post that he began following the driver before he knew he was Black. He insisted that Altheimer threatened him but that he decided not to pursue charges.
via washington post: Sheriff under fire after calling 911 on a ‘threat’ — a Black man delivering newspapers