Last September, Boise Chief of Police Ryan Lee resigned at the request of Mayor Lauren McLean. This resignation came in the wake of nine separate complaints by officers under Lee’s command. What appeared to be a blemish on the city’s record was quickly turned into an opportunity for McLean and the council to grandstand about race.
Former Boise Police Captain Matt Bryngelson was the primary complainant against Chief Lee, and seemed to have been the spokesman for the aggrieved officers. However, the story was flipped on its head as soon as journalists discovered that Bryngelson had once spoken at the white nationalist American Renaissance conference. Local politicians and journalists rushed to put out statements condemning Bryngelson, the mayor announced an investigation into his entire career, and articles made sure to point out that Chief Lee is Asian-American — implying, of course, that the complaint was racist in nature.
With all the problems in Boise, such as crime - according to statistics from 2021 only 16% of rape cases were successfully closed - it is telling that the council would rather highlight an investigation into a former police officer’s heinous atrocity of associating with an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a hate group.
Of course, had a minority officer spoken to a Black Lives Matter gathering, it would have generated no controversy. Even with the knowledge that BLM promotes Marxism and violence while condemning whiteness, such an event would prompt no investigations or breathless newspaper headlines.
Whatever one might think about Bryngelson’s opinions, using city resources to investigate a retired officer for his opinions seems a poor use of taxpayer money. The city paid Washington DC firm Steptoe & Johnson $650,000 to investigate the Boise Police Department for racism, however one might define the term. The firm quickly burned through the initial half million dollars before even looking through the tens of thousands of documents they accumulated, and Boise paid another $150,000 for work they had already done.
Their preliminary conclusions were vague. They reported that some minority officers reported some form of racism, but most did not. They also reported that Bryngelson had a poor reputation in the department.
Phew. Wasn’t that money well spent by the taxpayers of Boise?
The Idaho Dispatch quoted Mayor McLean thanking Steptoe & Johnson for their work. “I deeply appreciate the work you did… the offering of provisional findings in this report, and also the recommendations you provided for us today. I’m relieved and really grateful that you couldn’t point to clear evidence of widespread racism and white supremacy… This look into the department was key to ensure that our officers haven’t experienced racism.”
I recently spoke with Brenda Gilchrist, co-founder of an HR consulting firm with decades of experience in the sort of investigations provided by firms like Steptoe & Johnson. She said the entire thing sounded like a witch hunt.
Gilchrist explained that she has investigated hundreds of employee relation complaints including bullying, sexual harassment, hostile work environment, and discrimination over the last 20 years at the behest of law firms and employers. As a neutral investigator, her role is to investigate and document facts from the complainant, the alleged harassers and, if needed, from witnesses. She says that her role is not to make decisions related to whether or not harassment or discrimination took place, rather it is simply to gather the facts in order for decision makers, along with their in-house or outside counsel, to decide if harassment occurred and, if so, what actions are necessary to resolve the matter.
Gilchrist believes that the first task of a neutral investigator is to determine if there’s even a case. She asks clients two questions: “Who is the complainant?” and “What is their complaint?” She suggests that having a complaint in writing is very helpful at the start of the investigation. She said that she would decline to take any case that did not have a specific complainant or was regarding an incident related to a former employee unrelated to the workplace, as was the case with Bryngelson.
Gilchrist had two major concerns regarding the Steptoe & Johnson investigation:
McLean never should have hired an outside group to investigate a matter without an active complaint and/or observation of inappropriate behavior.
Steptoe & Johnson never should have taken on the investigation since there was not an active complaint or an active observation of inappropriate behavior.
Consider that the City of Boise spent $650,000 of the taxpayer’s money for an investigation regarding what a former employee did on his own time for which there was no specific complaint. Then ask yourself what the true purpose of this investigation might have been.
Gilchrist said experts in the field call this type of investigation by McLean a witch hunt. She says, “In my expert opinion, McLean’s investigation was frivolous and unwarranted and a direct reflection of her inexperience is handling staffing issues.”
What are the ramifications of witch hunts masquerading as investigations? According to Gilchrist, “Investigating and interviewing people is a very serious matter. Investigations without merit leave participants feeling mistrust and disengaged, ultimately resulting in turnover and/or inability to attract talent.”
Mayor McLean herself defended spending tax dollars on this witch hunt in the pages of the Idaho Statesman. On the other hand, the police union denounced the investigation, suggesting it should have been handled by internal affairs. However, lost in the discussion is the fact that the left is making supposed “white supremacy” into the biggest bogeyman in America, pretending it is a far greater threat than rising crime and declining standards. It was an easy scapegoat they could use to distract from what seems to be mismanagement of Idaho’s largest city.
Launching this taxpayer-funded investigation to root out supposed racism might have played well with far-left activists, but it makes a mockery of the investigative process, and makes it hard to take the City of Boise seriously in the future. This investigation was just another attempt to distract from McLean’s demagogue act as she pushes Boise further down the road of decline. As the maladies that have nearly destroyed Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco begin to manifest here, expect more distractions and scapegoats to come out of Boise City Hall.
Excellent analysis, again, Brian. Unfortunately, I suspect two things are true:
1. Idaho will have to take Boise seriously because of the harm it causes to the entire state.
2. Voters probably will re-elect Mayor McLean or someone even worse for the citizens, just as the voters did in Chicago when they replaced leftist Lori Lightfoot with lefter-leftist Brandon Johnson.
Boise is a big target for the corrupt, greedy, ideological corrupt groups, that say they just want to do good, but are in it to get rich and to have the feeling of power. Mayor McLean is all about money and power, and not the best interest of Boises future. There’s a lot in this manifesto (see link below) that is centered directly around the mayor and her cronies, getting richer and more power, without solving all the root problems. A lot of it sounds really good on the surface, but it’s just a good marketing, as it’s from the same playbook that is clearly ruining Portland, Seattle, San Fran, LA, etc. One of the biggest pieces of evidence highlighting her phony caring/tactics is that she doesn’t actually address the root issues. That’s the biggest red flag of all. If you really want to solve problems, you solve the problems, not symptoms. but she doesn’t want to solve problems. She just wants to get rich and be popular.
https://www.cityofboise.org/media/9915/transitionreport-equitablecity-final.pdf