TIDEWATER – A 69-year-old Tidewater man is in the Lincoln County jail after his arrest Wednesday on seven charges including a bias crime after a fight stemming from a long-running property line dispute with a neighbor.
Ronald E. Labrousse is being held on $500,000 bail on accusations of committing a bias crime, coercion, fourth-degree assault, strangulation, menacing, tempering with evidence, and violating a court-ordered protective order. A preliminary hearing is scheduled Thursday, Aug. 17.
According to a probable cause affidavit by sheriff’s Deputy Doug Honse, Brandon E. Lindberg contacted him about 10:40 a.m. Wednesday in Waldport following an altercation along the fence line of his and Labrousse’s property on Oregon Highway 34 west of Blackberry campground.
Honse said Lindberg’s face and head were covered with scrapes, abrasions, small amounts of fresh blood, that he had a burst blood vessel in his left eye, and dirt and debris all over his head.
Labrousse was cited July 8 for harassment and trespassing on Lindberg’s property, Honse said, and there is a stalking order against Labrousse forbidding any contact with Lindberg or any members of his family.
Lindberg told Honse that he transition from female to male in 2018 and that he is part Vietnamese.
Lindberg said he was watering his front yard Wednesday when he saw Labrousse throwing debris over his fence. A fight ensued, Lindberg told the deputy, with Labrousse putting him in a chokehold and punching him repeatedly. Lindberg said Labrousse had him on the ground, tried to smother him, that he lost consciousness and that his neighbor threatened to kill him, according to the probable cause affidavit.
Lindberg recorded much of the fight on his cell phone, Honse said. The deputy looked at the recording, and heard Labrousse tell Lindberg that he had friends in Reedsport and North Bend “who are ready to make you people disappear.” He later made other threats about forcing Lindberg to move.
After taking Lindberg’s statements, confirming the protective order, Honse said he went to Labrousse’s home and arrested him.
The hate campaign mounted against transgender people for the benefit of a bunch of political opportunists is having its effects in cases like this. I have never seen such an obnoxious and reprehensible hate campaign in this country in my seven decades on earth.