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Police officer's stalker convicted, jailed Homeless man tells cop he'll kill another officer and his family By CHRIS BRISTOL A homeless man with an anti-cop attitude was convicted Wednesday of stalking a Medford police officer and sentenced to five months in jail. At issue was whether Robert Grasmick intentionally or unintentionally delivered a threat to kill Officer Mike Strouse and his family via a "third party" -- in this case, another officer. After a daylong trial, a Jackson County jury of five women and one man found Grasmick guilty. Jackson County Judge Daniel Harris then sentenced Grasmick to 150 days in jail and two years of supervised probation, plus counseling. The judge also warned Grasmick, 34, not to contact the officer or his family again. The way Grasmick saw it, he never did. If he ever does, though, he faces a felony conviction and up to 20 months in prison. In trial testimony, several officers portrayed Grasmick as a belligerent and somewhat deranged street person who challenges them to fistfights virtually every time they contact him. The violation occurred Aug. 3 when Officer Steve Banry arrested Grasmick on a warrant. Banry testified that Grasmick threatened to kill him and several Medford police officers -- by name. "He said, `Last, I'm gonna kill Strouse and his f------ family,' " Banry testified. The threat bothered Banry enough that he warned Strouse about it. Only then did he learn that Strouse had a stalking order against Grasmick and that Grasmick was only a block or two away from where Strouse lived. Strouse testified that he obtained the court order after a series of run-ins with Grasmick in the summer of 1998. Grasmick was seen several times outside the apartment complex where Strouse lived with his wife and two small children, and Strouse said his wife saw Grasmick staring at her one day as she drove home with the kids. Later that same day, Strouse said Grasmick confronted him while he was off duty at a nearby store and began "going off" about an earlier case. According to court records, Strouse had arrested Grasmick for public indecency and banned him from city parks. The jury heard various allusions to the arrest (and that charges were later dropped) but not the exact circumstances. Strouse said the incidents bothered him enough that he got a stalking order. He said he found himself checking inside closets and under beds whenever he came home and worrying constantly about his family's safety when he was at work. "I've never had a person make continuous and unwanted contact with me or my family," he said. Nevertheless, nothing more happened for almost a year -- until the night Grasmick got arrested on the warrant. In sometimes incoherent testimony, Grasmick, who opted to wear his green jail togs in court instead of street clothes, denied threatening Strouse and testified that police in Medford and Ashland harass him because he is homeless. He claimed that on the night he was arrested, Strouse had cited him for trespassing in Hawthorne Park. Strouse testified that he did cite Grasmick -- several nights earlier and only after notifying a supervisor. "All I'm doing is trying to be a citizen and live," Grasmick said, adding he thinks there are too many police officers in Medford and Ashland. In closing arguments, defense attorney Doug Engle argued that his client only "popped off" while being arrested and never instructed Officer Banry to pass along the threat. "I don't think there's any subtlety in this guy," Engle told the jury. "If he wanted a message to Officer Strouse, he knew how to do it." But prosecutor Debbie Minder argued that Grasmick's threat violated a provision of the stalking order prohibiting the defendant from communicating with Strouse through a "third party." "He has to know what he said would get back to Officer Strouse," she said. "You can't say something like that to somebody's co-worker and not think it won't be relayed back." After the verdict, Minder said she believes Grasmick may be mentally ill. "It's the criminal justice system that's taking care of people like him, instead of the mental health industry," she complained. "Prison probably just makes them worse." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA