Sheriff to be attempted over confrontation with church teenagers leaving ‘thankful turkey’

An Idaho sheriff will be tried by a jury on felony expenses arising from an armed confrontation with members of a church youth group outside the house his residence.

Bingham County Sheriff Craig Rowland was charged with aggravated assault and aggravated battery. At a preliminary hearing Wednesday, a choose uncovered there was possible lead to to justify a jury demo, the East Idaho Information described.

The alleged assault took spot on the night of Nov. 9, moments soon after teenage women experienced still left a “thankful turkey” note taped to the doorway of Rowland’s home in the town of Blackfoot, aspect of a church activity advertising and marketing “random functions of kindness.”

He allegedly chased the ladies, then grabbed their grownup chief by the hair and pointed a gun at her head, all while yelling profanities.

Rowland has been permitted to remain on the work, though he was ordered in December to surrender his guns.

At Wednesday’s listening to, in which prosecutors and protection lawyers had been the two allowed to existing proof and make arguments, Rowland’s attorney implied the sheriff was justified in believing he was currently being threatened, the East Idaho Information claimed.

Legal professional Justin Olesen mentioned the ladies behaved in a “sneaky” way in surreptitiously affixing the paper turkey to the inside of of Rowland’s storm door right before they rang the doorbell and ran back again to the car.

Previously courtroom documents quoted Rowland as saying he ran into the dark road in his prolonged underwear, armed with a semiautomatic handgun, and ordered the driver to prevent.

“I access in and pull the driver out by the hair,” he claimed. “I say, ‘Who the f*** are you?’” He explained he pointed the gun at some of the 7 ladies in the car or truck and then at the woman’s head.

Quite a few of the ladies instructed investigators that though pointing the weapon at their driver’s head, the sheriff mentioned multiple instances, “I will f***ing shoot you.” He eventually allowed them to generate absent.

The affidavit of possible bring about explained Rowland told Blackfoot Police Main Scott Gay that he experienced “really screwed up.”

But he also appeared to try out to justify his actions by proclaiming he experienced in the earlier been harassed at home by citizens of the nearby Fort Corridor Shoshone-Bannock reservation. He disparaged the reservation’s inhabitants, calling them “not great individuals.”

Rowland, 62, has since 2012 been the sheriff of Bingham County, in between Idaho Falls and Pocatello in southeast Idaho. He and his wife are members of the girls’ church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-working day Saints. The “thankful turkey” was intended for his spouse.

If discovered guilty of each prices, Rowland could deal with up to 20 many years in jail. An arraignment date has not nevertheless been established.