After a fire broke out in their Iowa apartment complex, a group of evacuated residents were met by an attorney offering them legal aid. When they declined, the attorney began using racial slurs and threats, WCVB reports.
West Des Moines Police Sgt. Jason Heintz said that attorney Adam Kehrwald threatened to go retrieve a firearm and return to the scene, prompting police to get involved.
"We tried to calm him down, me and another girl, and I told, 'Adam, please don't talk like that. That's not nice,'" said Paula Black, who said she's known Kehrwald for at least a year. "Then he went around the corner and started yelling at all those people."
Kehrwald even punched officers who were trying to arrest him.
"When they went to place him into custody, he began to fight," Heintz said. "He struck a couple of the officers in the face with a fist and an elbow, and then he also assaulted a third female officer that we had on-scene before they were able to take him into custody."
The charges Kehrwald faces include using abusive epithets and assaulting a police officer causing serious injury.