At trial, Colorado reporter recalls Marine following, strangling him after demanding proof of citizenship

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (CN) — A former TV news reporter recalled before a jury on Tuesday being followed and assaulted by a Colorado man in December 2024, as the stranger demanded proof of his citizenship in the name of “Trump’s America.”

“I wish I didn’t remember it,” Ja’Ronn Alex told the jury. He was 22 years old and working his first gig as a TV news reporter for KKCO in Grand Junction, Colorado, on Dec. 18, 2024. After collecting interviews for a story on a nearby ski resort, Alex was driving back to the news station through scenic Delta when he noticed a white car with a Sunshine Rides logo following him.

After a 40-minute drive, Alex reached a stoplight in Grand Junction, where the white car pulled up next to him and the driver, 39-year-old Patrick Egan, shouted at him.

“He was asking me if I’m an American citizen,” Alex recalled. “He was telling me he was a Marine and that ‘this was Donald Trump’s America,’ and I was supposed to show him if I’m an American citizen.”

Alex, whose father is Black and mother is Pacific Islander, said he was shocked at Egan’s conduct, whom he had never met before.

“He was being an asshole,” Alex said. “He was being racist to me. He doesn’t know who I am, but he thinks he has the right to my time.”

When he arrived at the news office, Alex told the jury he didn’t run inside “because I have the right to walk into my workplace without being threatened.”

Without warning, however, Egan charged, and Alex found himself on the ground, with “just the blue of the sky” above. Egan wrestled Alex and strangled him, even as his co-workers intervened.

Police charged Egan with second-degree assault, bias-motivated crime and harassment. The Marine veteran pleaded not guilty in August. Public defenders requested several arraignment delays to consult mental health experts.

During jury selection on Monday, public defender Ruth Swift asked jurors about their biases toward people who take medications and their views on racism.

Along with Alex, Victoria Fazzino, deputy attorney for Colorado’s 21st Judicial District, also called to the stand a broadcast engineer who witnessed the encounter and Egan’s boss at Sunshine Rides, who provided camera footage from the taxi in question to law enforcement.

Twenty-first Judicial District Judge Jennilynn Lawrence sat the jury of 12 and two alternates on Monday. The trial is scheduled through Friday.

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