Gee Scott, Spike O’Neill disagree on Sheriff Troyer verdict

Gee Scott and Spike O’Neill disagreed sharply on a Pierce County jury finding Sheriff Ed Troyer not guilty in his misdemeanor trial.

“Just because Troyer was found not guilty still doesn’t change my opinion about him being an embarrassment to Pierce County. I stand on that,” Gee Scott said on the Gee and Ursula Show on KIRO Newsradio.

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Spike O’Neill, filling in for Ursula, had a different take.

“I have had a personal relationship with Troyer for over 25 years. So I looked at this case from the moment it happened on January 27, 2021,” Spike said. “With a personal bias, I think very highly of Sheriff Troyer.”

Spike said he had the opportunity to work with Troyer on many charitable events.

“In my interactions with Sheriff Troyer, it’s been wonderful. I’ve had great interactions with him on all of my dozens of opportunities.”

In regards to the ‘not guilty’ verdicts, Gee said, “I respect the men and women of the jury. I respect the decision of the court. I thought it would be a hung jury because I thought that the jury would come back and have a hard time trying to distinguish between who’s telling the truth between Troyer and Chad Lawless (the responding officer in this case).”

Spike said, “During this entire ordeal, I had to try to focus on what was verifiably true and presented in court. When it comes to whether or not Troyer was threatened, I can only take in Troyer’s word against Sedrick Altheimer’s (the newspaper carrier). No one will know except those two men.”

Gee said he understands why Troyer was found ‘not guilty.’ “One, they could not prove he lied to a government entity. In this case, it was Lawless. There was no video. There was no camera of  Troy’s remarks, so you couldn’t prove anything there.”

According to the Attorney General’s office, Troyer had followed Altheimer during part of his newspaper route. The delivery driver eventually approached Troyer to ask if he was being followed “because I’m Black?” according to a probable cause declaration filed by the Attorney General’s office last year.

Spike said, “I would like to bring up the point that Mr. Altheimer has a multimillion-dollar suit against the city of Tacoma based on race, based on the fact that he’s claiming Sheriff Troyer acted the way he did and did what he did because he is a black American. So this racial overtone to this whole story is part of a narrative.”

“I’m sure as an African-American man working in the middle of the night, he’s been asked ‘Why are you here?’ far too many times. I get that. But again, we’ll never know how that interaction really took place,” Gee said.

“I want to say it’s no secret my opinion of Troyer, but I never have, ever called him a racist,” Gee continued. “I never will call him a racist because I don’t know him well enough to throw that jacket on him.”

Listen to Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin weekday mornings from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.