Tacoma police lieutenant disciplined for not wearing body camera on Sheriff Troyer’s call
A Tacoma police lieutenant has been disciplined for not wearing a body camera or forcing other officers to wear theirs when they responded to Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer’s confrontation with a Black newspaper carrier in January.
As shift commander, Lt. Robert Stark was in charge that night.
“As a leader, you are expected to demonstrate adherence to Department policies and procedures,” reads the reprimand, which was dated May 3 and signed by Interim Police Chief Mike Ake and Assistant Chief Ed Wade.
An internal investigation found he “arrived at the scene of a call for service and you failed to active your Body Worn Camera, nor did you ensure officers’ on scene were activated,” according to the written reprimand, which will be placed in Stark’s personnel file.
The internal investigation cleared four other officers who responded to the Jan. 27 call, even though they didn’t wear or turn on their body cameras while on scene, records say. Those officers were still within a grace period of the first month or 16 work shifts that prevented discipline for officers who broke the new policy.
Stark and the other officers were part of a large-scale response after Troyer told a 911 dispatcher that he needed a patrol car in his Tacoma neighborhood because a man threatened to kill him.
Troyer said he was following a suspicious vehicle driving in and out of driveways so he could jot down the license plate. The vehicle belonged to Sedrick Altheimer, a 24-year-old Black man delivering newspapers on his regular route.
Altheimer has denied threatening the sheriff and filed a $5 million tort claim against Pierce County over the incident, saying he suffered emotional distress from the “racial profiling, false arrest and unnecessary use of excessive force of this man whose only crime was ‘being a black man in a white neighborhood,’” according to the claim.
Troyer has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and said he did not racially profile Altheimer.
The Washington State Attorney General’s Office is investigating whether Troyer committed any crimes, like criminal false reporting. The Pierce County Council has also hired an independent investigator to gather facts.
This story was originally published August 10, 2021 at 2:53 PM.
