THIS ARTICLE COURTESY THE KINGSPORT TIMES-NEWS
By RAIN SMITH
rsmith@timesnews.net
A Kingsport Police Department arrest report states the suspect, who was pepper sprayed in the face and had to be put in a choke hold to detain, appeared to “not feel any pain.”
“He was probably, as far as just resisting arrest, the worst I’ve ever seen,” said KPD Officer Seth Brumfield, one of five officers who struggled approximately 20 minutes to place the man in the back of a cruiser.
A Kingsport police report says the incident occurred shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Dobbins Complex, 301 Louis St., as police were responding to a disturbance.
On Friday, Brumfield added the suspect was within an agency at the center making repeated calls to 911. He reportedly wanted to speak with U.S. marshals and ignored instructions from dispatchers to call the non-emergency number.
Police arrived to find the suspect, Nicholas D. Trout, 23, of 738 Fleetwood Ave., Church Hill, standing outside with a cell phone to his ear. When approaching officers asked to speak with Trout, according to Brumfield, he brushed them off, saying he was on the phone. Police report the phone was later discovered to be stolen from a vehicle at the center.
The arrest report states Trout then took off running toward Douglass Street, ignoring repeated commands to stop. While fleeing he allegedly threw a black case containing a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson handgun and a small baggie of marijuana.
Police report that during the foot chase, which lasted a couple hundred yards, Tasers were deployed, to no avail. When Trout tripped and fell on Douglass Street, officers descended upon him.
Trout allegedly resisted arrest, kicking and screaming that police were trying to kill him. Police say he kept ignoring commands and reaching toward his waistband, as if he was trying to retrieve something, prompting strikes to his abdomen and face. Trout allegedly struck back, grabbing one officer in the face and grasping for another’s groin.
He was eventually pepper sprayed in the face but was reportedly unfazed.
“We continued to wrestle with the subject for several seconds,” reads the police report. “It appeared as if the subject did not feel pain.”
Brumfield was able to grasp Trout in a carotid restraint, or choke hold, until he passed out. He was immediately handcuffed, according to police, then woke up about five seconds later.
Cuffed and surrounded by police, Trout allegedly continued to resist arrest. Brumfield reports it took five officers approximately 20 minutes to successfully place him in the back of a cruiser, as he kept stretching his body out across the seat to prevent officers from closing the doors.
Once the squad car doors were closed, police said Trout began kicking a back window, knocking it out. The report says he was then restrained on a stretcher and transported to the jail by EMS.
Trout is charged with two counts of simple assault on an officer, two counts of resisting arrest, making non-emergency calls to 911, vandalism, theft from a motor vehicle, public intoxication, possession of Schedule VI drugs, and unlawful possession of a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school (the HeadStart Center at Dobbins). He was released from jail Thursday morning after posting bond and has a court date set for Sept. 8.
