Man arrested for allegedly calling 911 on himself in an attempt to spark a 'George Floyd' type incident, police say

A man faces potential charges after reportedly calling 911 on himself in an apparent attempt to "goad" police into a racial incident.

“This event tied up police resources for an extended period of time and unnecessarily placed our officers, our community, and the subject making the false call at risk,” Arlington, Washington, Police Chief Jonathan Ventura said of the incident on a radio interview with host Jason Rantz. “This call highlights the training and professionalism of our officers despite the apparent attempt to goad law enforcement into some type of negative response or altercation.”

"These type of calls only serve to create division at a time when we need unity," Ventura told the Washington Examiner.

The incident started when someone identifying themselves as “Stacy Williams” called 911 in Arlington in February to report a black teenager in a tan hoodie, telling dispatch the teenager was holding a handgun with a red bandana tied around it. The caller said the teenager looked “too young to even have a pistol. He only looks 16, 17 years old.”

“Well, I’m at the bus stop, and there’s a colored young man, and I can see a pistol right there,” the 911 caller said. “I saw him fidgeting a pistol at the bus stop kind of scared me.”

When police arrived at the scene, they identified Tamon Leverette as the suspect due to the detailed description from the 911 caller but did not find any weapons after a brief search.

“Tamon pulled up his left pant leg, showing me a Department of Corrections (DOC) GPS tracking ankle band,” an officer wrote in the incident report. “He informed me that he was not doing anything wrong, just waiting for the bus to come so he could go to his DOC check in with his assigned DOC Officer.”

The police officer told Leverette that he “wanted to understand why someone would call in with concerns that he was handling a firearm at the bus stop as described.” Leverette told the officers he wasn’t sure, but he did not have a weapon and thanked them for their professionalism.

But the next day, Leverette told his supervising DOC officer that he was a victim of racial profiling the day before.

His DOC officer reported that Leverette told him “he was stopped and frisked by ‘Everett Police’ for no reason the previ... (Read more)

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