A Payson city councilman says he confronted two teens who were tagging his truck, but Ali Ludlow and Cody Baumann say there were standing in the shade on the side of a building in Payson last month when someone grabbed their necks from behind and attacked them.

"There was no graffiti around at all," Ludlow said.

Baumann added, "Honestly, all we were doing was just sitting."

Councilman Scott Phillips was charged Monday with two counts of simple assault, a class B misdemeanor, and no charges have been filed against Ludlow, 18, or Baumann, 19.

"No charges were filed because there was no damage to support a charge," Salem city prosecutor Christine Johnson said. Salem authorities are handling the case to avoid any potential conflicts of interest within Payson. "There was no damage done to anything, and so no charges were filed."

Phillips now says he and the people he was with that day made Ludlow and Baumann clean the graffiti from the building, the ground and his truck before police arrived. The two teens called the police afterward, he said.

The teens were using a marker or "marker tape," not spraypaint, Phillips said. The councilman was not sure how they removed the graffiti.

"They peeled it off somehow. I don't know how they got it off. They got it off somehow," he said. "I know what I saw and it was graffiti markings and it was some kind of a gang sign on the ground, on the building."

Ludlow said he and Baumann have never done any tagging in their lives. He said he had a small piece of tape, no bigger than a nickel, that he was sticking to things and peeling off while they waited for Baumann's sister to pick them up. But he was not putting up any graffiti, he said.

"There was no damage at all," Ludlow said.

"You'd think if we were vandalizing, he would've just called the police," Baumann said.

After Phillips grabbed them, the teens said he was trying to knock their heads together and push them to the ground. Baumann said Phillips pushed him face-first into a trailer on his truck and punched him three times in the back.

The teens said Phillips and his friends yelled at them, calling them hoodlums, saying they were worthless and telling them to "Get out of my city," Ludlow said. They said Phillips continually used racial slurs against Ludlow, who is black. Ludlow said Phillips took numerous swings at him but didn't connect on any punches.

"He was being pretty racist about the whole thing," Baumann said. "He was, like, actually targeting Ali more than he was me."

Ludlow said he told Phillips that he was only 17 years old in an attempt to defuse the situation.

"I told him I was 17, even though I wasn't. If I told him I was a minor I didn't think he would hit a minor," Ludlow said. "And then after I told him I was a minor he started swearing. He said, 'I don't care if you're a minor. The only way you're going to be safe is if you call the cops.' "

Once the incident ended, the teens said they called the police on Baumann's cell phone. When Phillips saw them talking to the police on the phone, they said, he left the scene.

"He just took off on his four-wheeler and left his truck behind," Ludlow said.

"I told them to [call the police]. I think maybe they said, 'We'll call the police,' and I said, 'Well call the police then,' and I went about my business and went back to work," Phillips said.

Phillips said he did not punch anyone and did not use any racial slurs. He did not have his fists clenched during the incident, he said. He just wanted them to not vandalize his truck and to clean up the graffiti.

"From where I stood up in the window, I know what I saw," he said. "If that was my kid I hope somebody would do the same."

Phillips has served on the Payson City Council for about two and a half years.

• Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or jduda@heraldextra.com.