There was enough evidence to charge Jeffrey Wayne Armentrout with criminal reckless driving at an April 5 political protest in Staunton, but not enough evidence to get a conviction.
Judge Robin J. Mayer dismissed the charge against Armentrout, a local towing company owner, at the end of a 45-minute trial in Staunton General District Court on Wednesday.
I have absolutely no problem with the proceeding today, because the judge was bend-over-backwards fair, to both sides; the issue, as I’d previously reported, is that the Staunton Commonwealth Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute the case, leaving it to me – a journalist, not an attorney – to lead the prosecution.
The Staunton Police Department had also declined to investigate the reckless-driving incident, leaving that to me – a journalist, not a criminal investigator – as well.
It was thus left up to me, for some reason, to try to wring some accountability for Armentrout out of this case, which started when I filed a criminal complaint against Armentrout on April 15, and a local magistrate made the decision to approve the criminal reckless-driving charge on that date, setting into motion the events at today’s trial.
The move by the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office to not participate in the case cast the legal proceeding as akin to a civil case between two individuals, as if the matter was a personal beef.
The first time I’d ever spoken with Jeffrey Wayne Armentrout in my life was today when I was cross-examining him, which is not a sentence that I ever thought I’d write for print – that I was cross-examining somebody in a criminal case.
The way the trial played out was pretty much as expected.
I presented as evidence a brief video demonstrating that Armentrout drove his truck through the intersection at a speed that caused his tires to squeal, which, per established Virginia case law, can be considered a factor leading to a finding of criminal reckless driving.
Concurrent to the video evidence, I presented photo evidence of his truck’s proximity to a large crowd of rallygoers in front of the Augusta County Courthouse.
Basic stuff there.
Staunton Police Lt. S.G. Bird testified that he initiated a traffic stop of Armentrout to try to defuse tensions at the scene, mentioning an earlier incident involving another white truck in which the driver was seen with a gun.
I’ve written about that incident, and how Staunton Police took a report at the scene from witnesses, but failed to follow up.
April 5: not a good day for the local cops.
ICYMI
Bird then testified that he didn’t feel what he had seen from Armentrout’s driving – after conceding that he heard the truck’s tires spin – that a reckless-driving charge was warranted.
His goal, he testified, was to defuse tensions, but tensions, in fact, weren’t defused – I entered into evidence footage from the body-cam video of the traffic stop, in which a fuming Armentrout alleged, unprompted, as Bird walked to his truck to request his license and registration, that a man had “smacked the side” of his truck, and told Bird: “You gotta be fucked up if I’m going to let somebody come up and smack my truck. How ‘bout if I smash his …”
Later in the video, Armentrout told Bird that if somebody smacked his truck again, “I’m gonna get out and punch them right square in the motherfucking mouth.”
After I rested my case on behalf of the Commonwealth, Armentrout’s defense attorney, David G. Parker, a former assistant Commonwealth’s attorney in Hanover County who has a private practice in Downtown Staunton, made a motion to have the case dismissed, contending that my case on behalf the Commonwealth had failed to establish that Armentrout’s driving met the threshold of reckless driving.
Minor victory here: Judge Mayer denied the request to dismiss at this stage, ruling that I had done enough to establish at least the possibility.
Armentrout, the lone witness called by the defense, testified on his behalf that he had found out about protest after getting a phone call about it, and that he drove to the scene because he was “nosy” and wanted to see what was going on.
He said he was on the phone with his girlfriend as a man was hitting his truck as he was idling at the stoplight in front of the courthouse rally site, and as the light turned green.
Armentrout testified that he was driving “10 to 15 miles per hour” as he drove through the intersection, and prompted by questioning from Parker said that he at no time lost control of his vehicle as he drove through the intersection.
From the archives
- Staunton: Magistrate issues warrant in ‘rolling coal’ incident at April 5 protest
- Staunton: Somehow, I’m now the prosecutor in the April 5 reckless driving case
- Update: Judge issues continuance in Staunton protest reckless driving case
I don’t have a problem with the final verdict. I fully expected to take the L, as I wrote in an earlier article, because the Staunton Police Department didn’t investigate the case, and because the Staunton Commonwealth Attorney’s Office didn’t want to prosecute it.
Even a few hours of investigative work on the part of the taxpayer-funded PD and the taxpayer-funded CA’s office could have turned up more witnesses willing to testify as to what they saw, perhaps more video evidence than the seven-second snippet from an odd angle showing Armentrout squealing his tires.
Me personally, I would think that the City of Staunton would want to involve itself in a case like this, to demonstrate that the city prioritizes the safety of local residents exercising their First Amendment free-speech rights.
There is, of course, always a balance when it comes to everything involving government.
Armentrout had every right to drive by the scene to satisfy his admitted curiosity, just as the hundreds of protestors had every right to be at the rally to express their political sentiments.
If, as Armentrout claims, somebody was “smacking” his truck – no evidence was presented to that effect at today’s trial – that, if he were to have reported it to police at the scene, should be treated as a possible property crime.
Does somebody “smacking” a truck justify hitting the gas and squealing tires through an intersection mere feet away from a large crowd?
Today’s verdict suggests, yes.
I’m not meaning to put this on the judge; I just didn’t have enough evidence to get what should have been a guilty verdict, which isn’t surprising – I’m neither a cop nor a prosecutor!
The police department failed to do its job, the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office failed to do its job, and as a result, it’s now established that, in the City of Staunton, you can squeal a large truck within a few feet of a crowd of people whose political views you don’t like and have that qualify as your free speech.
In that context, today was a victory for Armentrout, or for the next guy – god forbid the next guy actually plow his truck or hot rod into the group of people with the bad luck to be on a nearby sidewalk that he thinks he doesn’t like.
I lost, in my only career appearance as a prosecutor, but the big loser here is the City of Staunton, which has spent millions of dollars over the past 30 years to try to attract tourists to the city to take in a night or two of Shakespeare and sample our fine dining, and the demographics tell us that those tourists share the viewpoints of the people who were put in harm’s way on April 5.
If you’re an out-of-towner reading this, and your Google research into “things to do in Staunton” somehow got you here, I don’t know, if you’re left-of-center, unabashedly progressive, unashamedly socialist, or even just a never-Trump otherwise lifelong Republican, I’d recommend, at the least, being careful walking on our sidewalks.
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Chris Graham
