Pierce County Sheriff Charged After Confrontation With Black Newspaper Carrier

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) – The Washington state attorney general has filed two misdemeanor criminal charges against a county sheriff stemming from his confrontation with a Black newspaper carrier in January.

Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer faces one count of false reporting and one count of making a false statement to a civil servant for claiming to an emergency dispatcher that the carrier, Sedrick Altheimer, had threatened to kill him.

The charges were filed Tuesday in Pierce County District Court by Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

Troyer is a 35-year veteran of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, and served for years as the agency’s public face and media spokesperson before being elected sheriff in November 2020