The Staunton tow-truck driver who Staunton Police and, then, a local court judge let off on a reckless-driving charge after he menaced an anti-Trump protest downtown earlier this year, yeah, he just got himself a pair of suspended six-month sentences and a year of probation on weapons charges.
Shocker, I know.
Jeffrey Wayne Armentrout, apparently still active in the guise of the business names Armentrout Towing and Old Dixie Towing, per the Facebook page maintained in their names, was found guilty in Harrisonburg-Rockingham General District Court on Oct. 30 on one count of pointing/brandishing a firearm and one count of violating a state law prohibiting the purchase or transportation of a firearm by persons subject to protective orders.
A real winner, obviously, this guy, who has a rap sheet longer than a baby’s arm.
I feel for you if the Virginia State Police sends one of his tow trucks to an accident scene that you’re involved in.
Because, yeah, he’s still on that list, to get free business out of the VSP, which he leverages to charge obscene rates for towing vehicles involved in accidents on the interstates and local highways.
ICYMI
I came to know of this Mr. Armentrout in the aftermath of the April 5 anti-Trump protest in Downtown Staunton, when he revved the engine on his ancient, oversized white pickup truck adorned with neo-Nazi insignia to blow a stream of smoke over the crowd of approximately 500 people gathered at and outside the Augusta County Courthouse, then streaked through a stoplight in front of the courthouse at a high rate of speed, earning himself flashing lights and a traffic stop from a Staunton Police officer who had been situated nearby.
That officer, Lt. S.G. Bird, testified at an Aug. 13 trial in Staunton General District Court that he didn’t feel what he had seen from Armentrout’s driving that a reckless-driving charge was warranted, though that didn’t explain why the lieutenant would have felt justified in initiating the traffic stop in the first place, if he hadn’t seen anything that he felt was possibly illegal.
Body-cam footage from the stop obtained by me – the Staunton Commonwealth’s attorney office, like the police department, didn’t want to pursue the matter involving Armentrout, leaving it, literally, to me to both present the case to a magistrate to get a warrant against Armentrout, then prosecute the case – painted a different picture.
ICYMI
Per the body-cam footage, as Bird walked up to the driver’s side of Armentrout’s truck, 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.”
You might be thinking, like me, that a guy who just got convicted on charges for pointing or brandishing a weapon, and doing so while under the auspices of a protective order, might just have merited more than the kid-gloves treatment that Staunton Police and local prosecutors put to his case.
At least the folks up in Harrisonburg/Rockingham take their jobs seriously, unlike our folks down here.
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Chris Graham
