Gee: Why didn’t police arrest carrier if he threatened to kill Troyer?

Gee Scott wants to know why, when detectives showed up at Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer’s house, they didn’t arrest the newspaper carrier if he threatened to kill a law enforcement officer.

On the stand Thursday, Troyer testified that newspaper carrier Sedrick Altheimer said he was going “to take me out, and he didn’t mean take me out to dinner.”

Troyer has been accused of making a false accusation against Altheimer, saying he threatened to kill him.

Gee Scott: Sheriff Ed Troyer is ‘an embarrassment’ to all officers

Ursula Reutin of The Gee and Ursula Show on KIRO Newsradio said, “On Wednesday, Tacoma detective Chad Lawless said he had asked Troyer twice whether Altheimer had threatened him. And both times, he says the sheriff said he had not.”

Ursula went on to say Troyer criticized Lawless for not having details in his police report. “He also said the officer never told him that he was writing that report about the incident and never followed up,” she said.

“I don’t believe that he’s going to end up being found guilty in this situation,” Gee said. “I think the defense has been doing a really good job in this. And I say that because the defense has been doing a really good job when the jury is not there. The defense, in my opinion, has a way of getting to the judge and letting some concessions happen for them, letting this person be able to testify and all those things.”

Ursula said she’s “not willing to predict what a jury is going to do. I just think that so much of this, if all of this, could have been avoided.”

She went on to say, “Troyer said Altheimer never told him that he was a newspaper carrier. Conversely, I would argue that Troyer was the one who had an issue with the newspaper carrier. He thought he looked suspicious and followed him which led to the confrontation. Why didn’t Ed Troyer identify himself and say, ‘I’m the Pierce County Sheriff’? He was in an unmarked car, was not in uniform, and did not show his badge.”

Troyer testified he called the back-channel 911 used by law enforcement officers.

Ursula said, “If you threaten to kill law enforcement, that’s a big deal. So why are you surprised that there is a police report?”

The other question Ursula had was about the police report. “This report was just bare bones. Troyer said he was surprised that it even came up and only came up because someone clearly leaked it to the Seattle Times reporter.”

“There should have been more in his police report,” said Gee. “And oh, by the way, were there any cameras on it? Were there any cameras on when they were talking to Ed Troyer?”

Show producer Andrew “Chef” Lanier said, “[it was] a minute and a half into the call after he’d said multiple times to the dispatcher that Altheimer threatened to kill them. So I think he realized midway through the call, [he knew] what was going to happen. Maybe I should try and minimize this a little bit. I’m on the phone with the dispatcher, just one or two units. Because when police are dispatched with that level of priority, an officer whose life is in danger is the same level of priority as if Mount Rainier erupted.”

“If law enforcement or anyone calls any line and says, hey, this person just threatened to kill me, I don’t care who it is, please send a response because someone’s in danger,” Gee said.

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.