Upset residents of Bradley County neighborhood want rifle-wielding man arrested

Eric Watson
Eric Watson

Some Bradley County, Tenn., residents who say sheriff's deputies refused to arrest a man who threatened them with a rifle last week are going to court this morning to ask a judge to order the man's arrest.

Josh Ptak said he was driving on Broomfield Road at Young Road on May 17 with his 1 1/2-year-old daughter and his friend, Roger Webb.

Next to him, Barbra Lowe had her 10-year-old grandson and 15-year-old Corey Dixon, her granddaughter's boyfriend, in her own car.

Both vehicles were stopped at the four-way stop when Ptak and Webb heard a man shouting, "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

They looked right, across a lawn to a house and saw a shirtless man in black shorts holding a rifle to the head of another person sitting in a small pickup truck in the driveway.

Ptak saw the armed man reverse the rifle and thrust the butt at the driver's head, yelling at the driver to get off his property. Dixon said there were two or three people in the truck.

"The driver had his hands up and he was shaking," Dixon said.

But the vehicle was hemmed in by another car and couldn't move, Ptak said.

Suddenly the man lifted the rifle and began pointing it at the stopped cars, cursing and threatening to shoot anyone who didn't drive off right then.

Dixon said "there were at least six, maybe 10" vehicles stacked up on all sides of the four-way stop.

"Everybody had stopped in the road and was trying to call 911 because he was trying to kill them," the teen said.

Ptak said cars were in front of and behind him and he couldn't move. All he could see was the rifle barrel pointing toward his baby girl.

"He pointed the gun at us and said he was going to kill us," Ptak said.

Lowe said her "blood pressure was up. I didn't know if I was going to live or die."

By then, a number of people had called 911, and Ptak said he could hear sirens getting closer. He said the man ran in the house and came back out without the rifle, and the threatened motorist in the driveway sped away.

Then flocks of Bradley County deputies screeched to a stop and poured across the property. At least four cruisers lined the street.

The motorists said some of the deputies converged on the shirtless man and people Ptak said were neighbors who came over after the rifle and the car were gone.

Most of the motorists had left, too, but a few remained. Ptak and Lowe were among them, with Webb, Dixon and the children. They stood outside their vehicles watching the scene. Dixon captured video on his cellphone.

When a deputy approached the small group, they demanded the rifle-waving man be arrested. They were dumbfounded, they said, when the deputy told them the man was in the right because he was on his own property.

The one deputy who spoke to them wasn't even going to take the motorists' statements, Ptak and Lowe said, but they insisted.

Ptak, Lowe and Dixon all said the deputy pointedly told them that if any of the details of their statements turned out not to be true, they could be arrested and prosecuted.

"I kept on asking him, 'Why isn't that guy in handcuffs?'" Lowe added. "'Why don't you get the gun? He was out in the street aiming at everyone. What more are we supposed to do?'"

"He made us feel like we was a nuisance because we wanted to make a report," Ptak said.

Dixon said the deputy wouldn't take a statement from him, saying he wasn't old enough.

Steamed, Lowe texted Sheriff Eric Watson the next morning, saying, " our lives were in danger but you're [sic] deputies did nothing to this man they let him go. no justice was done. " She noted Dixon had recorded video of the scene.

Watson texted back, inviting them to bring the video by the office and swear out warrants, which they did Wednesday. They said no one could tell them how long it might be before the rifleman would be taken into custody.

"I want Sheriff Watson to tell me how it's acceptable that [the property owner] did not get arrested for pulling a gun and threatening to kill us," Ptak said.

Later that day, the sheriff's office spokesman responded to Dixon's Facebook post criticizing the deputy's actions.

James E. Bradford Sr. wrote on Facebook that several people called 911 about the armed man. When deputies arrived, the man told them he brought out the gun after the people in the truck refused to leave his property.

"Several witness statements were gathered by deputies that validated the property owner's interaction with the trespasser," Bradford wrote. "Deputies at the scene determined there were no negligent acts on the part of the property owner."

His post made no reference to the group who said the man aimed the rifle at them and threatened them.

However, the computer-aided dispatch report shows the first call came in around 6:30 p.m. reporting "a male here pointing a rifle at 3 individuals."

Moments later, the report notes "male is bald walking in road after car pointing gun."

Then, "male is causing traffic to back up."

The call ended at 7:16 p.m., the document shows, with the disposition listed as "no report."

Bradford also said a Bradley County constable, who has arrest powers, was at the scene but didn't make any arrests.

That constable, Dewayne Hicks, said he lives nearby and got to the scene some time after the contingent of deputies. There were seven Bradley County Sheriff's Office deputies there, Hicks said. It was their scene, not his, and their decision whether to make an arrest.

"Those deputies just acted like they were at the playground," Hicks said. "I've got 20 years of law enforcement, and I've never seen anything like this."

Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416.

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