ALTAMONT—A convenience-store employee in Altamont says he is leaving his job to escape what he calls intimidation and harassment by an Altamont Police officer.

Colin Abele, of Berne, a clerk at Ketchum’s Service Store, wrote a letter to the Enterprise editor this week, accusing Officer Joshua M. Davenport of harassing him at Ketchum’s.

Altamont Public Safety Commissioner Anthony Salerno said he is aware of Abele’s complaints.
"An investigation will be conducted," Salerno said. The department investigates all complaints, he said.

Salerno would not comment further or allow The Enterprise to speak to Davenport, whose phone number is unlisted.
"Officer Davenport has repeatedly and consistently used foul, abrasive, and threatening language when approaching me at my place of employment," Abele wrote. "This includes, but was never limited to, calling me such names as ‘f***ing moron,’ a ‘jack**,’ or ‘s***-for-brains,’...On every occasion, he chose to completely ignore my constant pleas that he let me be so I could do my job."

Davenport also threatened to give him traffic tickets for things he didn’t do, Abele claims.
"He informed me the reason he had lied about this was to ‘remind’ me who held the ‘upper hand’ in the village because I had been ‘runnin‘ my mouth about the cops,’" Abele wrote.

Abele told The Enterprise that Davenport has waited for him to leave work and then pulled in front of him.

Abele admitted that he has said negative things about Davenport, but not to his face. Also, he said, he was arrested in 2004 for unlawful possession of marijuana, but that’s not enough to warrant constant attention from a police officer, he said.

Abele said he has decided to leave his job rather than deal with any more harassment. He’s spoken to the commissioner about it and is filing an official complaint, Abele said, but is not confident it will change the situation.
"As of this writing, Officer Davenport’s actions remain unaccounted for, and this can only lead me to believe that this is not the United States of America I was taught about as I was growing up," Abele writes, "nor is this village of Altamont the nice, friendly place it seemed when I began working within it."

A Ketchum’s employee who answered the phone when The Enterprise called on Tuesday said he had heard stories about the harassment, but never witnessed it. He declined to give his name.

Owner Sally Ketchum said that, once, she came into the store from outside and saw Abele talking to a police officer. Abele was doing all the talking, she said.
"The only thing I heard the police officer say was, ‘You don’t have to yell,’" Ketchum said. If she had seen the officer harassing her employee, she would probably have asked him to stop, Ketchum said.
Ketchum said she did, over a year ago, ask the officer not to speak to Abele when he comes in the store, because, she said, "[Abele] can get worked up."