Joseph Rauchwater

A man who spewed obscenities, racial slurs and death threats at passersby and police spent three weeks in jail for his outbursts.

Joseph E. Rauchwater, 47, was arrested the night of Dec. 1, after a citizen reported he was screaming, yelling and threatening to kill people in a City of Powell parking lot. Powell Police Sgt. Sean Alquist responded from the nearby police station around 11 p.m. and spotted Rauchwater yelling at a passing van.

Rauchwater initially ran at the officer, but stopped when Alquist told him to and then laid down, charging documents say. The suspect smelled strongly of alcohol and was slurring his speech, Alquist wrote in an affidavit. “I asked Joseph [Rauchwater] if he was drinking beer [or] liquor, to which he said, ‘yep.’”

When police prepared to take Rauchwater into custody, he began bellowing “curse these mother f—ers” and “no forgiveness, kill ‘em all, their mother, their father, their children,” followed by the N-word, the affidavit says.

Rauchwater initially pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor count of breach of peace. However, after being unable to post a $5,000 bond, Rauchwater and his court-appointed defense attorney, Travis Smith, reached a deal with Park County prosecutors. Rauchwater agreed to plead guilty and prosecutors agreed to recommend he be released from jail, with credit for the 21 days he’d already served.

Park County Circuit Court Judge Joey Darrah approved the arrangement Dec. 22.

Court records show Rauchwater has a history of similar offenses. That includes a June 2019 incident in which he drunkenly walked in and out of oncoming traffic on a state highway south of Saratoga, then swore at and resisted responding officers. Then, during a separate January 2020 arrest in Saratoga, he reportedly used the N-word and threatened to kill an officer, the officer’s wife and the officer’s children.

Rauchwater has said he suffered a life-altering head injury in his past.

“I am trying to be a productive being in society,” Rauchwater wrote to a Carbon County judge from jail in the latter part of 2020. “It [is] not easy when the Lord has made me different and 2,000-plus pounds of metal fell over 30 feet and gave me [severe] brain damage.”

He said it takes “more than anybody will ever understand or even care to understand for me to be able to communicate and work.”

No probation was ordered in connection with this month’s incident in Powell, but Rauchwater must pay $220, with a partial payment due by mid-March.