WEBER COUNTY, Utah -- A Weber County Sheriff's Office Deputy was attacked by a man he stopped for questioning Wednesday morning.
The deputy had observed a man riding a skateboard in a lane of traffic near 4100 South Washington Boulevard just before 9 a.m.
The deputy pulled up in his patrol vehicle behind the skateboarder and instructed him to stop. The car's dash camera captured what happened next, see the video above for the footage.
The skateboarder attempts to ride away, and when the deputy tries to stop him an altercation ensues and both men go to the ground.
Off-duty firefighter Jake McMichael happened to be driving by.
"I saw a sheriff's officer, which was down on the ground on his back, and then another middle-aged white male that was on top of him choking him," he said. "So I hurried up and veered off the road in front of him, jumped out and went and tackled the guy."
Another driver, a doctor dressed in a white lab coat, also stopped to help.
More law enforcement officers arrived and took 23-year-old Everett Gerdes of Washington Terrace into custody.
"Once they got him in custody and were putting him in the patrol vehicle, he was bragging how he thought he got the best of the deputy," said Lane Findlay of the Weber County Sheriff's Office.
Gerdes now faces four criminal charges in connection with the incident. The most serious of which is a felony charge for assault on a police officer.
Findlay said had Gerdes complied with the deputy who first stopped him, he would have most likely gotten only a verbal warning about riding his skateboard in the roadway.
