An Arizona man has been arrested and charged after pointing a gun at a DoorDash delivery driver. According to CNN, the confrontation happened immediately after Dimitri Mills pulled up to an apartment complex to drop off an order. The victim says he believes he was the victim of a racially motivated offense.
The incident happened on Sunday in Mesa, Arizona, and led to a standoff between Mills and a man whom police have identified as Valentino Tejada. Mills claims that as he approached his DoorDash customer’s home with the delivery, Tejada pulled his gun and began pointing it at Mills. According to an interview Mills gave to CNN, he then knocked on the customer’s door and asked for help.
Witnesses of the confrontation say they saw Tejada holding the gun and heard him asking Mills to stop stalking him. Mills’s girlfriend, who witnessed the standoff involving her boyfriend from the car, also tried telling Tejada that Mills was simply there for a DoorDash delivery. Mills says he told his assailant that he didn’t mean any harm, but Tejada still proceeded to block him from returning to his car. The delivery driver then asked residents to call the police.
The police report obtained by local NBC affiliate 12 News shows that Mesa Police had reason to believe that Tejada was mentally disturbed, but Mills disagrees. “I think it was a racial thing,” the DoorDash employee told the outlet. “I don’t think it was mental health because I was telling the guy, ‘Here, dude, this is what’s going on. Calm down, lower your weapon,’ and he’s past that.”
Video of the encounter also shows Tejada shaking and telling Mills that he has “the right to be scared” of him. And though he claimed Mills tried to hit him with his car, no witnesses have been able to corroborate the story.
Tejada was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and disorderly conduct involving weapons, according to CNN. The police report states that the gun Tejada was wielding was loaded with a round in the chamber.
Mills has retained lawyer Benjamin Taylor, who, in speaking on behalf of his client, said that they will be making sure that Tejada is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.