Jury to decide: Did sheriff ‘weaponize’ TPD to settle score? Or call threat ‘as he saw it’?
The reputation of Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer clashed with the testimony of two Tacoma police officers and the newspaper carrier he followed through his neighborhood nearly two years ago as opposing attorneys delivered their closing arguments in Troyer’s criminal trial Tuesday.
To prosecutors from the state Attorney General’s Office, Troyer relayed an extraordinary lie to a 911 dispatcher that a suspicious motorist threatened to kill him, and the first of 40-plus officers who rushed to the scene quickly determined the sheriff’s statement did not match reality. As a result, Troyer wasted resources and terrorized a man who had been doing his job.
“He was never threatened,” assistant attorney general Melanie Tratnik said during her closing argument. “He was disrespected.”
Tratnik alleged the newspaper carrier for Troyer’s northwest Tacoma neighborhood, Sedrick Altheimer, 26, didn’t give the sheriff the deference he expected during their confrontation on Jan. 27, 2021 — where he accused the sheriff of following him at nearly 2 a.m. because he’s Black — and Troyer “weaponized the police force to settle a petty score.”
In the view of Troyer’s defense team, the sheriff is an upstanding community leader who became the subject of an unprovoked frenzy while ferreting out potential criminal activity to protect his neighbors.
Troyer “saw suspicious activity, and he was basically trying to see what was happening,” celebrity defense attorney Anne Bremner said during her closing argument. Altheimer was “mad, and he’s yelling, and he says, ‘I’m going to take you out.’”
The sheriff didn’t intend for so many officers to rush to his aid, but he never backtracked from statements about the death threat to Tacoma police, Bremner said.
Bremner spoke at length throughout the trial about Troyer’s decades in law enforcement, involvement in charity work and his history as a foster father and adoptive parent.
She choked up during her parting words to the jury: “He’s not guilty. He’s a good man.”
Attorneys on both sides claimed the incident could have been avoided.
Troyer had the option to go home after his first run-in with Altheimer, during which he reported he was threatened, Tratnik said.
Bremner asserted Altheimer should have identified himself as a newspaper carrier to Troyer and said dispatchers should have only sent the one or two patrol cars the sheriff requested.
“This appears to be everybody’s fault except Sheriff Troyer’s,” Tratnik said during a rebuttal to Bremner’s closing argument.
Tratnik said Altheimer and the Tacoma police officers who responded to the call have been consistent in their recollection of the incident, while Troyer contradicted himself on the night in question and again when he took the witness stand.
“This isn’t about a good guy and a bad guy,” Tratnik said during her rebuttal. “But did he violate the elements of this crime?”
Six jurors will begin deliberations Wednesday morning to determine whether Troyer is guilty of two gross misdemeanors: false reporting and making a false or misleading statement to a public servant. As of Tuesday, the primary jurors were six men, including at least two people of color. Three of the four alternate jurors on the case are women.
Each charge carries penalties of up to a year in jail and up to a $5,000 fine. Only a felony conviction would automatically remove Troyer from office.
Tratnik sums up prosecution’s case
Tratnik said the case against the sheriff boils down to whether Altheimer threatened to kill him.
She asked jurors to use their common sense when considering whether it made sense for Altheimer to do that when he’d been stopped on his paper route before and would have to return to the sheriff’s neighborhood to continue doing his job of the last several years.
“What makes even less sense is the animated testimony you saw from the defendant,” said Tratnik, noting Troyer’s descriptions of Altheimer waving around his arms and hitting his fists on the hood of the sheriff’s SUV.
Tratnik said the reason why it doesn’t make sense is clear: “That never happened.”
She said Troyer’s story has evolved from the time he phoned 911 dispatchers to his first day in court.
During Troyer’s recorded call, he said four times that someone threatened or tried to kill him.
“This isn’t some kind of misspeak,” said Tratnik, calling Troyer’s words, “unambiguous.”
Troyer testified that he was outside his car during part of the call while Altheimer was also outside yelling and taking photos, but no other voices can be heard on the recording and the photos Altheimer captured were taken through his car’s windshield, Tratnik said.
“You don’t hear any of that because that’s not what happened,” she said.
The sheriff’s attorneys first mentioned the phrase, “I’ll take you out,” as the threat Troyer allegedly heard early in trial proceedings.
On the stand, Troyer testified he didn’t know exactly what the phrase meant but took it as a death threat based on Altheimer’s demeanor.
Altheimer denied using the phrase or threatening Troyer during his testimony last week.
At the scene, Troyer told responding officers that Altheimer looked like he wanted to fight but didn’t mention a threat, Tratnik said. He also told officers he’d been in bed prior to following Altheimer but testified this month he’d just gotten home from work.
“It’s difficult to keep your facts straight when you’re not telling the truth,” Tratnik said.
When one officer, Zachary Hobbs, briefly spoke to the sheriff, Troyer explained how he’d followed someone he saw as suspicious and they cussed at him, Tratnik said. Troyer then told the lead officer on the call, Chad Lawless, twice that he hadn’t been threatened by the man during an interview.
“There is no way officer Lawless got this conversation wrong,” said Tratnik.
She also said Troyer’s request of Lawless to let Altheimer go once he learned he was a newspaper carrier didn’t make sense if the man had really threatened his life. He also declined to have a sheriff’s deputy posted outside his home.
Tratnik alleged Troyer acted that way because he “kind of stepped in it and wanted it to quietly go away.”
She said it’s irrelevant that Lawless didn’t have his body-worn camera to record the call. Until recently, prosecutors have secured convictions without that sort of video evidence.
“Arguing that that matters is a red herring,” Tratnik said.
Tratnik then said Troyer’s defense attorneys have emphasized and exaggerated Altheimer’s anger and frustration captured on another officer’s body-worn camera footage.
“Are the emotions that you see Mr. Altheimer expressing on that video, are they unreasonable?” Tratnik asked. “Are they surprising? And are those emotions even frightening to see?”
Tratnik said Troyer minimized the safety of responding officers, the emergency response needs of the community and the life of Altheimer when he phoned to dispatch about the alleged threat. If the sheriff’s goal really was to de-escalate Altheimer and not teach him a “lesson” through a police response, then Tratnik said Troyer should have been more forthright with dispatchers about the situation at the scene.
“He put himself above everyone else,” Tratnik said. “His claim that a newspaper carrier had threatened to kill him is a lie.”
Bremner plays up Troyer’s good deeds, impact on family
Bremner told the jury that the aftermath of Troyer’s confrontation with Altheimer has been a “horrible ordeal for him.”
She emphasized his lengthy law enforcement record and reputation in the community.
“The media has made him out to be a racist; the Attorney General’s Office has made him out to be a liar,” Bremner said.
Bremner said the only attack on his credibility by prosecutors was related to an internal review of a threat he made via Facebook message to contact someone’s employer. The person on the other end, a family member of someone who’d died in Sheriff’s Department custody, had messaged Troyer to say the involved deputies should be in jail.
“This is a wrongful prosecution,” said Bremner, who called the case a massive injustice.
She said body-worn camera video from Hobbs, the officer who briefly spoke with Troyer, captures him telling another officer at the scene that Troyer was threatened.
“So why are we here? That’s the centerpiece of their case,” Bremner said.
Hobbs has testified that Troyer did not say he was threatened, and prosecutors opined that Hobbs was likely referring to information he got from dispatchers en route to the scene.
Bremner said it’s unclear why Altheimer became so enraged with the sheriff in his version of events but underscored her view that the incident was largely a misunderstanding.
“He can call in for any reason, and they’re (officers) gonna come out there,” said Bremner before snapping her fingers. “They’re gonna be there like that.”
“Is that a crime?” Bremner asked.
She said a prior confrontation between Altheimer and former County Council candidate Josh Harris was evidence that the newspaper carrier had been aggressive toward people who questioned his activity on his route before.
“Why would Sheriff Troyer make this up?” Bremner asked. “Why would Sheriff Troyer lie and say that he was threatened?”
She said the jury should believe Troyer over Lawless, Hobbs and Altheimer because Hobbs’ body-worn camera video contradicts their statements.
“That’s what you can rely on,” Bremner said about the video footage.
She asserted Lawless misremembered his interview with Troyer. The sheriff said he wasn’t worried about the threat, not that he wasn’t threatened.
Bremner alleged Altheimer has a financial interest in Troyer’s conviction due to his lawsuit against the sheriff and the county.
She said Troyer was firm in his testimony and attributed his lack of specific details to the length since the incident.
“He’s a good man. He’s a great man who deserves, not this, for sure,” Bremner said. “He’ll get past this. But this prosecution is wrongful in so many ways.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2022 at 6:23 PM.
