Editor’s note: The Frontier has confirmed with Tulsa police that the man who reported his golf clubs stolen, seen in this video threatening to shoot the man on the ground, is retired Sapulpa Fire Marshal Don Acree. We could not reach Acree for comment.
Like any news agency, we get tips sent to us on a daily basis.
The one I got today caught my eye. In the still image from a video that was Tweeted to us, you see a man in a purple shirt facedown on the ground, with another man on top of him making a call. Next to them is an older man brandishing a handgun.
You send me a video like that it’s going to be an instant watch. Sorry, I can’t help myself.
The video was filmed Wednesday outside of Golf Galaxy, 9121 E. 71st St. The man in the purple shirt, who you can see in the video saying “I didn’t do anything,” is named Devon Scott Montgomery. The 24-year-old Montgomery was arrested Wednesday for grand larceny for allegedly stealing golf clubs from the man in the white shirt.
The video itself is fairly insane. It opens with the man in the white shirt claiming to be a cop and pointing a handgun at Montgomery, accusing him of stealing his golf clubs. Montgomery pleads in return that he didn’t do anything, and slowly backs away from the man with the gun.
Undeterred, the man follows Montgomery through the parking lot, saying at different points “I’m going to kill you,” and “I’m a police officer, get down on the ground.” He later points the gun at Montgomery’s crotch and says “I’ll shoot your dick off.”
A bystander tells the man who’s filming the encounter that he met Montgomery at the store to buy some golf clubs, and “this guy runs up and says ‘give me your golf clubs’ and pulls out a gun.”
Devon Scott Montgomery. Courtesy
The man with the gun says his clubs were “stolen from LaFortune Golf Course, we’ve got you on tape.”
Once Montgomery is immobilized and a man calls 911, another bystander pleads “don’t kill him, he’s unarmed.” The man with the gun says “next time I’m going to shoot him right in the back of the fucking head.”
“No,” the bystander says, “you can’t do that, he’s unarmed.”
At one point, Montgomery says “I’m suing you,” to which the man with the gun replies “Good, I’m a cop.”
Except, maybe he’s not? I called Leland Ashley, public information officer for the Tulsa Police Department, and he said that while Montgomery was arrested, the man with the gun was not retired TPD (as the video alleges) or retired Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office.
“An officer indicated he may be a retired fire marshall,” Ashley said. “He’s not a cop. He’s not affiliated with TPD at all.”
Ashley said the situation is a good reminder to not take matters into your own hands, but if you suspect a theft has occurred, to call police and wait for them.
“We always advise to let us get there first, there’s always a chance it could get out of hand,” Ashley said. “It could have gone really bad.”
Montgomery bonded out of the Tulsa Jail Wednesday afternoon and is awaiting possible criminal charges. As for the man with the gun, he may not be out of the woodwork, himself.
“What I’ll say is that in the future, if a victim were to file a complaint for pointing a firearm or something, we would investigate that,” Ashley said.
Police have not yet responded to an open records request for the 911 call or incident reports.
