After threat of vehicular violence and being called racial slur, man outs neighbor on social media

Northeast Portland resident Gerald Scrutchions says a white man used a racial epithet and threatened him with vehicular violence while he biked home from work in Irvington on Tuesday. Scrutchions, who is Black, claims the man drove his car into the crosswalk he was using and then purposely swerved towards him.

And he’s not going to stand for it.

After the confrontation on the street, Scrutchions recognized the car parked at a house around the block from his so he knocked on the man’s door to have a conversation with him. After a brief back-and-forth, Scrutchions claims the man called him “nigger”.

He then posted a video on Instagram to share what happened and warn his neighbors by sharing the man’s name and address.

Here’s more from the video:

“On the way home, this elderly man… he failed to stop at the crosswalk I was using.. He swerved his car at me once. I raised my hand on my bike — as any cyclist would do, like ‘What the heck?!’. Then I got over to the corner and he literally swerved his car at me… I confronted him and asked him to not use his car as a weapon. He told me he wanted to have nothing to do with me. Told me to get out of the neighborhood. I said I live here. I live in this neighborhood. We went back and forth and as I was walking off he called me a nigger. I’m posting this online because… What’s going on is these are the types of people I don’t want in my neighborhood. Fuck that dude!… He’s a danger to you, your kids, to me and my kids.”

Scrutchions is well known in the community and is a yoga instructor and Portland Public School teacher at Harriet Tubman Middle School.

According to sources who’ve contacted me about this incident, neighbors and friends say the man who threatened Scrutchions with his car and verbally assaulted him is “fairly unstable and regularly threatens to use his vehicle as a weapon.” Court records show that the man has seven traffic-related infractions since 1988 including two for violating the speed limit, one for Careless Driving and two for excessive use of his horn.

Reached for comment today, Scrutchions said he’s reported the man to the Portland Police Bureau (who said they can’t do anything because no crime has been committed) and the Oregon Department of Justice Racial Bias Division.

“I’ve been cycling around Portland and other urban areas for about two decades,” Scrutchions shared. “Of course peeps of all different backgrounds get upset in their cars. It is their reluctance to share the road. However, this one was different considering what happened moments later when I confronted him.”

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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