A Seattle man is facing potential charges after he allegedly falsely reported to 911, claiming a young black male was brandishing a gun near a bus stop, authorities said.
“I saw him fidgeting with a pistol at the bus stop, so it’s kind of scared me,” he continued, noting the person only looks 16 to 17 years old and too young for holding a firearm.
Arlington Police in the Seattle metropolitan area responded to the call on Feb. 22 and it turned out Leverette actually called 911 himself, identifying himself as someone else named “Stacy Williams.”
Officials at the scene located Leverette and have confirmed they haven’t found he carried a weapon following a brief search.
“Tamon pulled up his left pant leg, showing me a Department of Corrections (DOC) GPS tracking ankle band,” the officer wrote in an incident report, according to MyNorthwest.
“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 report continues.
The next day, Leverette claimed he became the victim of racial profiling, telling his DOC officer the police stopped him for no reason because he’s “black.”
After Leverette’s claims, the DOC officer reached out to the individual named “Stacy Williams” to follow up on the incident, unraveling the scam.
“I noted that the voice mail was set up by a mail with a voice that seemed very similar to that of Tamon,” the officer wrote in the report obtained by MyNorthwest.
“I asked Dispatch if this phone number had been previously used for any calls to 911 Dispatch. The Dispatcher notified me shortly after that the phone number had called 911 on five separate occasions in December of 2020 for ‘Civil’ calls at an address of 520 Commercial Ave, Darrington, WA. Dispatch advised me that the only name used to call into 911 on those incidents was ‘Tamon L.’”
Leverette was arrested after detectives confirmed that the phone number belonged to him. He could face two counts of false reporting, though no charges have been announced yet.
The suspect’s motive in the false 911 report is still unclear, though detectives investigating the incident have discovered that Leverette allegedly “mentioned that he could see himself in a similar situation as ‘George Floyd.’”
“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,” he said. “These type[s] of calls only serve to create division at a time when we need unity.”
