Ex-Pierce County Sheriff’s sergeant is accused of felony assault. Now he wants $18M
More than three years after it began, the criminal case drags on against a former Pierce County sheriff’s deputy accused of stabbing a man in the hands outside a marijuana dispensary in Tacoma.
With a trial coming no sooner than July, a review of federal and state court records dating back to last summer provides a deeper glimpse into the case that derailed the career of ex-Sgt. Robert Glen Carpenter.
Records show that Carpenter, 52, is seeking $18 million in damages from the county and city of Tacoma over “a skewed investigation,” and he claims to have long struggled with alcohol dependency and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Carpenter’s criminal defense obtained an evaluation that shows he had “diminished capacity” at the time of the alleged assault in October 2018, according to court records, and now Carpenter must be evaluated by a state-approved psychologist under a May 4 court order.
Carpenter was charged with first-degree assault on Dec. 12, 2018, and fired later that month. He is accused of stabbing and slashing at a front-seat passenger — who allegedly first took Carpenter’s gun in self-defense — after the two men and a third had been drinking earlier in the night at Top of Tacoma, a restaurant and bar at 3529 McKinley Ave.
Carpenter is accused of attacking the man, through an open window, from outside the running vehicle before getting fully inside. The purported off-duty assault on Oct. 5, 2018, resulted in the victim receiving 15 stitches for cuts to both hands, according to court records.
The case was largely in flux for nearly two years amid a debate over whether county prosecutors had a conflict of interest in pursuing a criminal case against Carpenter, whose two decade-plus tenure in the Sheriff’s Department included a lengthy stint as the department’s top defensive-tactics instructor.
He also was an expert witness in a case tried in 2009 by members of the county’s Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Court records show he was deposed and answered questions related to his training and experience as a defensive-tactics and firearms instructor.
Carpenter also was represented by county prosecutors in 2014 when he was sued for excessive use of force. The case was dismissed two years later.
In October 2019, a Superior Court judge granted Carpenter’s motion to disqualify the entire Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office from trying his assault case, accepting his argument that his confidential communications with the office over the years would give the state a leg up in his prosecution.
That decision was overturned by a state appellate court in April 2021, which found that any prosecutors connected to cases involving Carpenter were effectively screened from his prosecution and that prosecutors, including the county’s elected prosecuting attorney, Mary Robnett, did not have any conflict, according to the court’s unpublished opinion.
The reversal set the course for his criminal case to move forward. Four months later, Carpenter, who has been out of custody after posting bail, filed claims against the county and the city and subsequently filed two separate lawsuits against those entities.
Deputy claims he was victim
Carpenter, who was reported in a 2018 charging document to have told Tacoma police, “I got robbed,” expanded on his version of events of Oct. 5, 2018, in his civil complaints, which were moved to federal court in January.
“After gaining control of my weapon, he pointed the gun to my head and told me he was going to shoot me,” Carpenter wrote, painting the purported victim as the aggressor, according to a proposed amended complaint filed against the county. The complaint offers more details than Carpenter’s original filing, but it does not appear to have yet been approved by the court.
Attorney Bryan Hershman, who is representing Carpenter in the criminal case, told The News Tribune this week that enhanced security video from the dispensary, Natures Recreational Center at 3833 Pacific Ave., was “fairly definitive” in showing that Carpenter acted in self-defense.
“We have what I think to be irrefutable evidence that Sgt. Carpenter was the victim of a strong-armed robbery and that not only is he innocent of the charge, not only was he wrongfully terminated, but the wrong person was charged,” he said.
The Tacoma Police Department declined to comment on Carpenter’s lawsuit against the agency, citing its practice of not publicly speaking about pending litigation.
Authorities refute ‘naked assertions’
In his proposed amended complaint against the county, Carpenter lodged several claims, including that his senior officer status and alcohol addiction played substantial roles in his firing. He said his troubles began around 2007 and stemmed from personal difficulties and the violent deaths of nearly two dozen friends and trainees in law enforcement during his career.
In that same year, Carpenter was arrested twice on the same day for suspicion of drunken driving in Chelan County and later agreed to treatment for alcohol abuse in exchange for a deferred prosecution, according to News Tribune archives.
The sheriff’s department and prosecutor’s office declined to comment on Carpenter’s lawsuit, which includes accusations that the department frequently targeted officers due to disabilities, age and race, and that Carpenter was a victim of personal hostility by the department.
In a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on Feb. 25, lawyers for the county said neither Carpenter’s original nor amended complaints go beyond the point of making “naked assertions.”
“The allegations in both complaints are simply conclusory statements,” they wrote, adding that neither gave any evidence to support why the investigation into the alleged assault or his firing were incorrect.
This story was originally published May 22, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
