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E-mail StoryPig farmer, 82, testifies on own behalf about alleged attack on deputy
| Monday, Apr 21 2008 6:42 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday, Apr 22 2008 11:18 AM
An 82-year-old Bakersfield resident accused of hitting a sheriff’s deputy with a paint roller testified at his own trial Monday to the occasional amusement of judge and jury.
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Louis Montgomery waits to be called into Kern County Superior Court in this June 2007 file photo.
The deputy injured in the scuffle also testified, as did two doctors who documented fractures to defendant Louis Montgomery’s rib and elbow.
According to Montgomery’s testimony, Kern County Sheriff’s Deputy Steven Williams approached as Montgomery, paint roller in hand, straddled his 6-foot-tall cinder block wall. He and family members had already begun to turn it into a wall of many colors, and that ticked off neighbors, who called the law.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Montgomery recalled the deputy saying.
“He was jumpin’ around like a damn jackrabbit,” Montgomery said of Williams.
At this point, few in the courtroom, including jurors, were able to maintain a straight face. Even the judge seemed delighted (and occasionally irritated) by the defendant’s good ol’ farm boy demeanor.
HE DENIED HITTING THE DEPUTY
Montgomery refuted prior testimony that he deliberately struck the deputy in the head two or more times. Rather it was his precarious balance on the wall that caused the long-handled roller to come down on Williams’ head.
At one point, Judge William Palmer allowed Montgomery to hold a paint roller as he straddled the bar, the short wooden wall that divides the court from the spectators.
The retired truck driver perched on the bar and explained his side of things.
“I told him we was painting our wall on our property with our paint,” Montgomery said. “He (Williams) said, ‘Shut your damn mouth or I’ll shut it for you.’”
Earlier in the day, Williams testified that he was surprised at how fast Montgomery hit him at the altercation.
While acknowledging that Montgomery, who was 81 at the time, was “an old man,” the tall and muscular Williams said he didn’t hold back much as he jabbed the long-handled paint roller three times into Montgomery chest and pulled him off a 6-foot high fence to the ground.
“I gave him a good pop,” Williams said. “We didn’t try to put him down carefully.”
The deputy said Montgomery resisted the entire time even though Williams pepper-sprayed him and pulled the man to the ground with the help of another officer.
Williams told the court Montgomery hit him three or four times with the paint roller both before and after he sprayed Montgomery.
Montgomery said Williams walked into his own fog of pepper spray.
After Montgomery was on the ground, he yelled, “Get my shotgun, I’m going to kill the son of a (expletive),” according to Williams.
Williams said he pulled gun and held Montgomery and his family at gunpoint. A family member yelled “do not get the gun,” the deputy testified.
ANGRY DEPUTY
The deputy acknowledged he was angry as he sat in a doctor’s office later in the day getting stitches in his head.
A large blown-up photograph of Williams was shown to the 8-man, 4-woman jury that depicted blood streaming down the deputy’s face, and paint on his head and uniform.
Photographs of Montgomery’s arms which were blood red and scraped were also shown to the jury. Williams denied scraping a watch off Montgomery’s arms, suggesting instead that Montgomery caused his own injuries by resisting.
The incident happened on March 4, 2007 when Williams responded to a neighborhood dispute on Dean Avenue in Green Acres. Montgomery had allowed 4-H students to raise pigs on his property and some of his neighbors had complained of flies and odors.
Montgomery’s testimony is expected to end Tuesday.
He faces felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer and resisting arrest.