\n\t\t\t\t\t\tA Rankin Borough council member is accused of assaulting a public works employee, threatening his job, and calling him names. According to a criminal complaint, James Weems accused Marcus Clay’s employees, for his side business cutting grass, of using Rankin Borough equipment. According to court papers, Clay told authorities he returned to the work site on 5th Avenue, where he was greeted by Weems, who became verbally abusive.”He just keeps saying I’m a Rankin Borough council member, my job is to do this- to make sure stuff isn’t being taken,” Clay told Pittsburgh’s Action News reporter Marcie Cipriani on Monday. “He starts screaming, cussing, calling me out, my name too, jumping in my face and pushing me.”VIDEO ABOVE: Officials file charges against borough manager James Weems According to the affidavit, Weems pushed the victim backward during the altercation, which caused the victim to lose his balance.Weems allegedly then followed the victim and continued to harass him while he attempted to walk away. As he did so, the arrest affidavit claims Weems identified himself as a borough council member and a member of both the Public Works and Personnel Committee. He allegedly told the victim that he was his boss and that he could fire him if he chose to.Clay said he told Weems repeatedly that the equipment was his, not the borough’s equipment, but he said that as a result, he quit his job in the public works department for fear of retaliation after pressing charges.Pittsburgh Action News 4 reached out to Weems, the mayor of Rankin, and the solicitor, but has not heard back. Weems is facing multiple charges, including simple assault, terroristic threats, official oppression, and harassment. Download the WTAE app to stay connected with breaking news. Sign up for our email newsletters to get breaking news in your inbox.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tRANKIN, Pa. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
A Rankin Borough council member is accused of assaulting a public works employee, threatening his job, and calling him names. <\/p>\n
According to a criminal complaint, James Weems accused Marcus Clay’s employees, for his side business cutting grass, of using Rankin Borough equipment. <\/p>\n
According to court papers, Clay told authorities he returned to the work site on 5th Avenue, where he was greeted by Weems, who became verbally abusive.<\/p>\n
“He just keeps saying I’m a Rankin Borough council member, my job is to do this- to make sure stuff isn’t being taken,” Clay told Pittsburgh’s Action News reporter Marcie Cipriani on Monday. “He starts screaming, cussing, calling me out, my name too, jumping in my face and pushing me.”<\/p>\n
VIDEO ABOVE: Officials file charges against borough manager James Weems <\/p>\n
According to the affidavit, Weems pushed the victim backward during the altercation, which caused the victim to lose his balance.<\/p>\n
Weems allegedly then followed the victim and continued to harass him while he attempted to walk away. <\/p>\n
As he did so, the arrest affidavit claims Weems identified himself as a borough council member and a member of both the Public Works and Personnel Committee. He allegedly told the victim that he was his boss and that he could fire him if he chose to.<\/p>\n
Clay said he told Weems repeatedly that the equipment was his, not the borough’s equipment, but he said that as a result, he quit his job in the public works department for fear of retaliation after pressing charges.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh Action News 4 reached out to Weems, the mayor of Rankin, and the solicitor, but has not heard back. <\/p>\n
Weems is facing multiple charges, including simple assault, terroristic threats, official oppression, and harassment. <\/p>\n
Download the WTAE app<\/a> to stay connected with breaking news. Sign up for our email newsletters<\/a> to get breaking news in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Rankin Borough council member is accused of assaulting a public works employee, threatening his job, and calling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[20604,11228,454,8467,4033,29617,18301,91357,91356,1820,91360,528,139,91362,73,75,74,91361,65622,91359,4470,26430,91358,890],"class_list":["post-207839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-affidavit","tag-assault","tag-charge","tag-criminal-complaint","tag-equipment","tag-fear","tag-harassment","tag-homophobic-slurs","tag-james-weems","tag-job","tag-marcus-clay","tag-name","tag-news","tag-official-oppression","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-public-work-employee","tag-rankin-borough","tag-rankin-borough-council-member","tag-retaliation","tag-simple-assault","tag-terrorist-threats","tag-victim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}