Police Chiefs Fire Back Association Says No To Call To Disarm Federal Agents

Idaho’s police chiefs have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to strip federal resource agents of their guns, expressing some puzzlement about the motivations of Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth in suggesting it.

Republican state Rep. Twila Hornbeck of Grangeville, acting on Chenoweth’s behalf, asked the chiefs at their annual convention last week to support the federal legislation critics claim would essentially disarm law enforcement agents of the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and other agencies.

“There was no hesitation by the chiefs to vote her down,” said Meridian Chief Bill Gordon, president of the Idaho Police Chiefs Association. “Representative Hornbeck raised the dander in that room when she wanted us to support her opposition to having armed federal officers in Idaho.”

He said local law enforcement typically welcomes assistance from federal authorities, and the rejection of the concept of disarming federal agents by the state’s sheriffs appeared to support that.

“I’ve never been turned down when I requested help,” Gordon said. “The feds fill a gap in accessing for information and people. They come when called to assist in bank robberies and bring sophisticated equipment I wouldn’t be able to afford in 10 years of budgeting.”

Rural point of view

Hornbeck, one of the people who has spread the near-legendary tale of black helicopters swooping down on innocent Idahoans in the backcountry, said she felt the police chiefs “weren’t rural people so they didn’t understand.”

She said she didn’t consider towns like Aberdeen with 1,500 residents and Firth with 500 to be rural.

Hornbeck said the chiefs do not agree with the constitutionalist tenets that elevate the sheriff above all other law enforcement because “they don’t want to admit the sheriff has that much authority.”

Bryan Wilkes, spokesman for Republican Larry Craig who this spring called for disarming federal land management agents, said the senator was not against federal agents carrying arms but was just being “philosophical.”

“We have no intention of sponsoring any legislation taking arms from federal officers,” Wilkes said, maintaining Craig has been accused of wanting to disarm federal officers because of his interest in federal conduct during the deadly 1992 siege of white-separatist Randy Weaver’s North Idaho cabin.

“A lot of people are looking at that,” Wilkes said. “But a few bad accidents, a few bad apples, that doesn’t mean the whole system is bad.”

But Hornbeck did not agree.

“We have law enforcement,” she declared. “We don’t need federal agents in the state at all.”

Helicopter rumors kept aloft

To support her position, she repeated the claim that federal wildlife officers in a black helicopter landed on private property near her home district and refused to tell anyone who they were. She said these officers were doing a fish count and there was a U.S. insignia on the helicopter.

Persistent efforts to confirm the incident have failed and federal officials say it never happened. State officials are perplexed as well.

“There are no helicopter patrols that even in the slightest way resemble that,” said state Fish and Game Department spokesman Jack Trueblood. “Nothing that originates with Fish and Game or any of the federal wildlife agencies or government contractors that we are aware of.”

Garden City Police Chief T.C. Brock went so far as to accused Chenoweth of trying to undermine the cooperative spirit that has marked the local-federal law enforcement relationship.

“Cooperation is the name of the game,” Brock said. “Chenoweth is going around saying cooperation but is trying to build up a wall. She’s trying to stir up enough animosity to lose that cooperation. Well, we’re getting along despite her.”