Clay, N.Y. — A public hearing about the eviction of a 91-year-old woman to make way for Micron ended with police removing and detaining a disruptive man after accidentally pepper-spraying him.
Onondaga County sheriff’s deputies released pepper spray — in what they later said was an accident — during the struggle to detain the man.
The man identified himself as a disabled veteran named “Timothy” during the hearing at the town hall in Clay. A spokesperson with the sheriff’s office said the man won’t face charges.
Before the confrontation, the man said the county should respect its deal with 91-year-old Azalia King and let her stay in her home. He spoke last at the meeting after more than 30 people condemned the eviction actions being pursued by the county Industrial Development Agency against King.
Before deputies escorted the man outside, he asked everyone in the room who supported King to stand or raise their hands in support of her. Most of the roughly 150 people in the room did.
“There is a time for anger. It needs to be harnessed,” he said just before grabbing a table in the Clay Town Hall meeting room and shaking it up and off the ground, knocking items off it.
After that, two deputies who had been standing in the back of the room moved toward the front where the man was speaking.
“All you people are ‘fugged’ up,” he said pointing at the staff and moderators of the meeting, three attorneys from Barclay Damon, the outside law firm representing the OCIDA board for the hearing.
As the moderator started to tell him he was out of time, the deputies moved closer and tried to take the microphone from his hands.
One of the deputy’s pepper spray canisters went off as deputies tried to restrain the man.
The deputy later said it went off by accident.
The deputies struggled to detain him for several minutes in the hearing room and hallway, before escorting him out of the building to a sheriff’s vehicle. He often fell to the floor and told the deputies they were hurting his arm.
He was later seen by medics.
The sheriff’s office spokesperson said the office will not conduct any internal reviews of the incident.
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