Five officers assaulted while removing transient man from fairgrounds in Lynden
Five Lynden police officers were assaulted, but none were seriously injured when they attempted to remove a transient man from a building at the Northwest Washington Fairgrounds Friday evening.
Alexander Lynn Pollack, 28, was booked into Whatcom County Jail Nov. 6 on suspicion of third-degree assault, felony harassment and an outstanding criminal trespass warrant out of Blaine, and jail records show he is being held in lieu of $15,000 bail.
Though five officers were assaulted in the incident, Chief Steve Taylor told The Bellingham Herald that the incident was “not as big a deal” as social media reports at the time. Taylor said two officers received bites, two were kicked and one was punched in the face, and though a some of the officers received medial treatment, none of the five were expected to miss a shift due to injury.
Police received a call from a witness who saw Pollack enter a building on the fairgrounds, and police responded to find that he had made a camp inside.
“For whatever reason, he was not happy with being told he had to leave,” Taylor said.
Pollack responded by punching one of the officers in the eye, Taylor said, and the other officers took him to the ground. As they wrestled to subdue him and take him into custody, Pollack reportedly bit two of the officers and kicked two others. One officer’s hand got pinned between the mass of bodies and the concrete floor, causing some bruising, but it was not broken, Taylor reported.
“It was more of a donnybrook than anything,” Taylor said. “Nobody was seriously injured.”
Taylor said there also was no damage to the fairgrounds, other than some trash that need to be cleaned up.
