Essex police later arrested Sheldon Rheaume in a Hannaford parking lot. Officers found the 23-year-old wearing a tactical vest and with a loaded 9-millimeter pistol in his car.
During a court appearance later Tuesday morning, a shackled Rheaume, wearing a white T-shirt and jean shorts, listened quietly and occasionally looked up at Judge David Fenster. Rheaume faces charges of aggravated assault and reckless endangerment, offenses that carry heftier potential prison sentences for him because prosecutors consider the crimes motivated by hate.
In court documents, deputy Chittenden County state’s attorney Zoe Newman argued Rheaume poses a continuing threat to the public.
“[Rheaume] went into a store, seemingly at random, and, unprovoked … held a loaded gun to the victim’s head because of her race and/or ethnicity,” Newman wrote.
At the urging of the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s office, Fenster ordered Rheaume held without bail.
According to an affidavit filed at Vermont Superior Court in Burlington, Rheaume walked into a Maplefields convenience store in Essex early Tuesday and noticed a clerk, a 27-year-old woman of color, sitting in a chair behind the counter.
Rheaume allegedly called the clerk a “lazy nigger bitch” and walked out of the store to speak with a male employee. That person allegedly told investigators that Rheaume complained about the clerk, “repeatedly referring to her as ‘nigger.'”
When the woman went outside to where the two men were standing, police say, Rheaume pulled a pistol from his pocket, pointed it at her and said: “I’ll handle you.”
Before he drove away, according to the affidavit, Rheaume said, “Come send anyone you want after me and I’ll shoot them,” and then took a “tactical vest with ballistic plates” from his car and put it on.
Tuesday wasn’t Rheaume’s first time bearing arms or sporting a tactical vest in public. His photo appeared at the top of an April story in the Burlington Free Press about a gun rights rally in South Burlington. He was shown standing along Shelburne Road wearing the vest and holding an AR-15.
At the same rally, Rheaume gave an interview to ABC- and Fox-affiliated Local 22 & Local 44.
“This isn’t an evil rifle,” he told the TV station as he hefted the weapon. “It’s a tool.”
Rheaume faces a maximum of five years in prison on the aggravated assault charge and one year in prison for reckless endangerment.
In Vermont, a hate crime designation can add more time to prison sentences. Rheaume faces up to two additional years because of his allegedly racist motives.
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In April, he was a good guy with a gun. Today, he’s an alleged racist bad guy with the same gun. Did none of his buddies at those rallies see this coming?
This a-hole ought to lose the right to own a gun permanently because of this incident, but the NRA won’t be having it
Another clever Fox News /Alex Jones feller “Makin’ ‘Murica Great again” . . . almost.
Id like to point out Sheldon has or had anger/short temper since the 1st grade. He was always a good kid and a little crazy at times. I played on his baseball team and saw him in school all the way through high school. He had a para educator in elementary school, never knew why but Ive always found him nice at school but with a short temper. I dont have a side on this because there is always two stories to what happened. Take Sheldons guns away but dont lock him up like really? 6 years? Hes 23 and I believe this is his first crime. Not saying what he did was right by any means because it was wrong. Im a assault rifle owner and it took 30 minutes to buy a gun. Mentally unstable people shouldnt posses firearms plain and simple. There should be a law passed stating you need a Hunters Saftey course or Weopons course to own a gun. Ive got my hunting license and had since I was 12. I was in the same hunter Saftey course as Sheldon. All it takes is a split second to set someone off. Its the 21st century, everyones got blood flowing through their veins. Havent seen him in a few years but people change. At the same time sending a young 23 year old to prison is very young and the stats show the ex cons usually end back up in prison not on the streets.
Sorry, Copper. I don’t care what he did in high school…if he pulled a loaded gun and stuck it in another person’s face, he deserves to be in jail for a very long time Frankly, 6 years probably isn’t enough.
Those of us that own firearms and use them in a responsible manner need to be at the forefront of pushing for stiffer penalties for those abusing other’s rights because they can’t act responsibly. I want to continue to be able to own a rifle for hunting season, and d-bags like this are the ones threatening that right, not lawmakers pushing for gun control measures in response to morons like Sheldon. We should be pushing the state to throw the book at this guy.
Hes really a nice guy. Or at least he was before insert horrifying future event here.
Ive had a fucked up life. Ive never waved a gun in anyones face and called them racial slurs before so fuck off with that bullshit.
Racist assholes are racist assholes.
Perfectly said, Scuba.
Maybe, just maybe, if you have a burning need to show up at a public rally toting a AR in a tactical vest, you might just have personality disorder which should preclude you from owning a gun.
GOVt are their own worst enemy.
@ scuba – 6 years is plenty for a man to learn right from wrong, if he at all has the capacity to. If he doesn’t have that capacity, then attention to his mental health is first and foremost (with whatever restraints accompany that, because, yes, he needs to be restrained for some time). 6 years for a 23 year old is too much, not because he is 23, but because and only after all else (this event) is taken into account. Sheldon threw a water bottle at me once in Earth Science class; little did I know that 8 years later it’d be a gun. (I know you don’t care for his actions in high school; the last comment is just for the sake of general comparison)
Verbally disparaging someone is distasteful, but not against the law. Why did the clerk approach him, escalating the situation?
Wondering if perhaps those advocating for leniency see this situation a bit differently after the terrorist shootings in El Paso and Dayton over the weekend? White men with machine guns are slaughtering innocent people all over the country, and often targeting people of color. We’ve got to stop this.