VAN BUREN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WXYZ) — A customer at a Van Buren Township gym says an off-duty police officer attacked him. He's now demanding answers as to why that officer is not facing charges.
Greg Sizemore says it all started when he came to the Anytime Fitness after getting a call. He was told to come in to talk about why his membership was suspended, so he recorded the conversation on his cell phone.
It sounds like a relatively casual and friendly conversation at first. He was told he put weights in the wrong place.
"Had (he) just told me what happened, I would have said I apologize for leaving weights out and would have said next time I will make sure I put my weights away,” Sizemore said.
Put your weights away! We have video of a wild altercation at a gym in Van Buren Township. It was between an off-duty police officer working there and a customer. And it started over weights. What the prosecutor's office is saying about charges - only on @wxyzdetroit at 6. pic.twitter.com/tQPHYd9vbn
— Kim Russell WXYZ (@kimrussell7) February 25, 2020
Instead, it escalated rapidly. He soon was being ordered to leave.
“I did get up,” Sizemore said. “I tried to reach for my phone. He started to shove me to the door.”
Sizemore is outraged at the recent news that the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office has decided not to press charges against the off-duty Belleville police officer seen in video pushing him. We aren’t naming him because he isn’t charged with any crime.
“If I had put my hands on him, I would have been arrested that day,” Sizemore said.
The off-duty officer’s attorney, James Murray, says his client has a much different story.
He says Sizemore should have left when asked. He says his client removed Sizemore with reasonable force and in self-defense. He says he believes the gym owner encouraged Sizemore to speak out as retaliation because of an argument with his client over money tied to an agreement to buy the gym that fell through.
The gym’s owner denies that.
7 Action News spoke to the owner of Anytime Fitness in Van Buren Township on the phone. He said he regrets this happened at all at his business. He says at the time, the off-duty police officer was looking into buying the business but since then, that relationship has ended.
“I want an explanation of why nothing was done,” Sizemore said.
7 Action News received a statement from the Prosecutor’s Office saying, “The entire evidence in this case was reviewed by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office and it has been determined that there was insufficient evidence to charge a criminal case in this matter.”
