Police beat: A country shouter, a traffic-blocker and an unforgiven trespasser

Editor’s note: Compiled from reports to Tacoma police and the Pierce County sheriff’s departments.

Sept. 13: The country concertgoer didn’t want to wait in line, so he relieved himself near the first-base side of Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium.

The man was 41, from Gig Harbor. Plenty of people saw his rude move. One witness alerted a security guard, who kicked the man out of the concert, three hours before the headliners, Big & Rich, were to hit the stage.

A few minutes later, the man came back, minus his jacket. The security guard sensed a feeble ploy and told the man he wasn’t coming back in.

The man blew up and started yelling. The security guard pressed a button on his radio and called for assistance. An off-duty Tacoma police officer working security heard an edge in the guard’s voice, followed by another crackling request: hurry.

When the officer arrived, the guard and the man were standing toe to toe. The man shouted and cursed, and a crowd gathered. As the officer watched, the man hit the guard in the chest — several times, the police report states.

The officer approached and ordered the man to put his hands behind his back. The man refused. He asked why he was being detained. The officer said it was to prevent the man from hitting anyone else.

Now cuffed, the man shouted toward his wife and children, who were crying, the report states. The man told one child to film the arrest with her phone. Several times, according to the report, he shouted a slogan: “White lives matter!”

The security guard said he was willing to testify. Another witness said the same. The officer told the man he was under arrest for urinating in public and misdemeanor assault.

During booking at the Pierce County Jail, the man called Tacoma police “a joke,” the report states.

Sept. 13: The dispatch call warned the sheriff’s deputy that a big man with an umbrella was bouncing in and out of traffic near a bus stop.

The deputy rolled to the 20300 block of Mountain Highway East. He found the man in a parking lot. The description matched: 6 feet 2, 320 pounds, the deputy guessed.

The man was 41, from Tacoma. The deputy asked him what was going on. The man said he wasn’t talking.

Why had he been blocking traffic and sitting in the middle of the road? The man said he was stressed and the deputy had no right to speak to him. He waved his umbrella. The man said he’d been to prison several times. He said he was about to go smoke some marijuana.

The deputy asked for the man’s name. The man refused and started walking away.

The deputy said the man wasn’t free to go. The man said he was. The back and forth went on for another five minutes. The deputy called for backup. The man started walking away.

The deputy pulled a stun gun, aimed it at the man’s back and fired. The man went down in a heap. He started to pull out the darts. The deputy loaded another cartridge. The man stopped and put his hands behind his back.

The deputy arrested the man, told him he was banned from the transit stop and booked him into jail on suspicion of trespassing and creating a public disturbance.

Sept. 15: The trespasses were not forgiven.

The Tacoma police officer responded to a report from the manager of a discount store, who said she’d been punched. The officer drove to the 1400 block of East 72nd Street and sorted out the details.

The manager said she had noticed a woman standing on the sidewalk in front of the store. The woman had been banned from the store before, after a suspected shoplifting incident.

The manager had approached the woman and said, “Hey, you’re ‘86’d’ from here.”

The woman responded with a curse. The manager said the woman couldn’t talk to her that way.

The woman punched her in the face and walked off, the manager said. A witness backed up the story.

Officers tracked down the woman, who had returned to the area when officers arrived. She was 35, and crying. She had a child with her — a boy.

The woman said she stood on the sidewalk outside the store but didn’t go in. The manager came out and told her she was 86’d.

“I know,” the woman said she replied. “That’s why I’m not inside.”

The woman said the manager wasn’t satisfied, yelled at her, said, “You need to leave,” and shoved her.

At that point, the woman admitted, she got mad and threw a punch at the manager. The manager followed the woman in her car and shouted at her. The woman said she knew about the alleged shoplifting incident, but insisted she hadn’t taken anything, and the manager had berated her ever since.

The woman said she didn’t mean to punch the manager, but she felt threatened.

The manager had a visible bruise around her left eye. The officer weighed the circumstances, wrote the woman a citation for misdemeanor assault and told her she was banned from the store for a year.

This story was originally published September 19, 2015 at 6:42 AM with the headline "Police beat: A country shouter, a traffic-blocker and an unforgiven trespasser."