ALEXANDER COUNTY, N.C. — An Alexander County father accused an off-duty sheriff's deputy of road rage after he said the deputy followed his 18-year-old stepson home, pulled out his gun and confronted the teenager, all of which was recorded on the family's home surveillance system.
On July 4, Tanner Jones said he was picking up his girlfriend at her house.
"I was backing out of her driveway," Jones said. "I kind of stalled the car a little bit."
Right before he stalled, Jones said a red pick-up truck was coming around the curve, and the driver, Jones believed, purposely stopped short of him.
"I thought I was going to get hit," Jones said. "I was scared."
Jones was angry, but he and the other driver went their separate ways until they met again at the intersection of Highway 64 and Boston Road. Jones said he was driving west on Highway 64 while the pick-up driver was at the stop sign on Boston Road facing south.
As Jones approached the intersection, he said the pick-up driver glared at him.
Jones admitted he then made a dumb decision.
"When I passed him, I flicked him off because, I guess, out of anger," Jones said.
He said the driver began following him to his family's house.
"I didn't know who he was," Jones said. "I wasn't sure if he was going to try to hurt me."
The family's home surveillance system was recording as Jones pulled into his driveway with the pick-up truck behind him.
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Jones said the man got out of his truck, holding his sheriff's deputy badge in his left hand and his gun in his right hand.
In the video, the man wasn't wearing a uniform and his truck was unmarked with no flashing lights.
"He kept asking me, 'Are we good? Are we cool? Are we good?'" Jones said.
Then, Jones' 12-year-old sister and her friend are seen wandering to the car.
In the video, Jones' sister approached the driver's side of his vehicle, saw the man, and walked around to the passenger side of the vehicle.
"I didn't know what they were thinking while they were coming out here and seeing him with a gun and yelling at me," Jones said. "That's a scary thing."
Bobby Reynolds, Jones' stepfather, said the video infuriated him, and he believed the deputy unnecessarily escalated the situation.
"I think he's hot-headed," Reynolds said. "At the very least, he needs to be pulled off the street, get some additional training."
Reynolds said he filed a report with the sheriff's office, spoke on the phone with Sheriff Chris Bowman, and met with five other deputies, but he said all of them told him they are under no legal obligation to answer any of his questions.
He said he has no idea what happened after he and his stepson filed their report.
"I'm just looking [for] justification from them on treating my stepson the manner they did," Reynolds said.
In a phone call, Sheriff Chris Bowman told WCNC Charlotte's Brandon Goldner that the off-duty deputy notified dispatch and followed Jones after being flipped off because of concern for other drivers' safety.
However, federal courts have repeatedly ruled that giving a law enforcement officer the middle finger is protected by the Constitution.
Sheriff Bowman originally agreed to an on-camera interview, but on the morning of the interview, he asked to postpone it, and in the weeks since, he hasn't returned any of WCNC Charlotte's calls or text messages.
Contact Brandon Golder at bgoldner@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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