A jury has been selected and attorneys on Wednesday delivered their opening statements in the trial of Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer.
Troyer is charged with two misdemeanors for false reporting and making false statements, stemming from his off-duty encounter with a Black newspaper carrier, Sedrick Altheimer, in January 2021. Prosecutors say Troyer followed Altheimer and accused him of being a thief, before calling a 911 dispatcher and saying, according to the recording, “I'm about two blocks from my house and I caught someone in my driveway who's threatened to kill me and I blocked him in and he's here right now.”
The call triggered an emergency response but according to the complaint, Troyer then reversed himself, and told Tacoma police that Altheimer never threatened him. Barbara Serrano with the Washington State Attorney General’s office said in her opening statement, “In effect Sheriff Troyer backpedaled from his statements to the 911 dispatcher about Mr. Altheimer threatening to kill him – statements that prompted more than 40 officers to rush to him, and caused Mr. Altheimer to be questioned as a possible suspect.”
Serrano said the state will endeavor to show that Troyer knowingly lied about facing a threat. “This case is quite simple. Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer got into a confrontation with a newspaper carrier and then lied to a 911 dispatcher reporting that the newspaper carrier threatened to kill him.”
Defense attorney Anne Bremner said she will emphasize...
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