An Oregon man was arrested Sunday after using racial slurs and threatening a Black FedEx driver with a replica gun just outside of Portland, Oregon, according to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
Rodney Kirk Bryant, a 68-year-old Aloha, Oregon, man, was charged with bias crime in the first degree, unlawful use of a weapon, and menacing.
Bryant remained jailed on $10,000 bail late Monday afternoon, Washington County booking records indicated. He faces five years in prison if convicted of either the weapons or racial bias charges, both C-class felonies under Oregon state statutes.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the incident unfolded just before 1 p.m. near Bryant’s home. The FedEx driver was delivering packages at the intersection of SW Cascadia Court and SW 188th Avenue when Bryant came out of his residence and stood in the street blocking the FedEx truck.
According to investigators, Bryant hurled racial slurs at the driver who was identified as Akiel Horn, a 22-year-old Black man who recently moved to Portland from California.
“I’m still in shock,” Horn told Fox 12 Oregon on Sunday.
When Horn pulled away, Bryant got in his car and gave chase, according to deputies. He pulled alongside the FedEx truck with his door open and continued to yell racial slurs. Horn could see a gun in the suspect’s car and Bryan told him he was “not afraid to use it,” the Sheriff’s Office report indicated.
After Horn drove away and called 911, deputies arrested Bryant and recovered what proved to be a pellet gun without an orange tip. Deputies described the object as “indistinguishable from a real gun.”
Horn lists himself as a minister on Facebook. He could not immediately be reached for comment by Atlanta Black Star on Monday.
“This is the idiot who pulled a gun on me, just a disgrace,” Horn wrote on his page Sunday, above a link to the Fox 12 news story.
Horn told the TV station he had no idea the gun Bryant wielded was a BB gun and said he feared death.
“Honestly, I’m a minister, so the first thing that popped in my mind was, ‘Oh, I’m going to die,’” Horn said. “But … he gave me enough room to get out, thank God, and I got out.”
Washington County Circuit Court records show Bryant was arrested in December 2014 and charged with DUI, reckless driving, criminal mischief and failure to perform duties of a driver-property damage. He was convicted of the DUI and failure to perform duties charges one month later and was sentenced to two years of probation. He was also sentenced to five days in jail and had his driver’s license suspended for a year, court records show.
Bryant was also convicted of DUI in 2009.
