N. Idaho Cops Hire Terrorism Expert

North Idaho’s five sheriff’s departments have hired a full-time terrorism expert to gather information and monitor right-wing extremist groups.

Bill Litsinger, a retired Los Angeles police officer and Lewis-Clark State College instructor, will use the information to teach North Idaho cops about patriot, militia and constitutionalist groups.

“There’s nothing secret about this job,” said Kootenai County Sheriff’s Capt. Ben Wolfinger. “He’ll read the newspapers and collect the literature and go educate other agencies.”

Litsinger has studied political violence since his days as a graduate student in the early 1970s at Long Beach State College and still teaches a terrorism course at Lewis-Clark.

“My research goes back even to people like Che Guevera,” he said, of the left-wing revolutionary and Fidel Castro associate.

He said he plans to keep authorities “abreast of what’s happening out there in North Idaho.”

The Inland Northwest has been plagued in recent years by a resurgence in right-wing activity, both criminal and civil.

Some so-called patriots have used idiosyncratic interpretations of the U.S. Constitution to justify filing bogus liens against public officials. Others have attempted to pay taxes with promissory notes. One woman even refused to serve on a jury, calling it a man’s job.

In downtown Coeur d’Alene, a couple recently had its car vandalized with racial epithets and swastikas. Another woman had her coat set afire and thrown in her back seat shortly after being taunted by a skinhead.

Meanwhile, authorities in the Spokane Valley are still seeking suspects in a pair of recent bombing-bank robberies, the first of which may have been linked to an Aryan Nations splinter group.

While Kootenai County exchanges information regularly with Spokane County and the FBI, some smaller police departments in the region don’t have that luxury, Wolfinger said.

“Priest River city has to deal with all the liens and constitutionalist stuff too, but with three officers they don’t have the time or manpower to get any kind of training,” Wolfinger said.

Litsinger is a civilian employee and will be paid using a three-year, $60,000 state grant, which covers his salary, office expenses and training.

Litsinger has been on the job about two weeks. He will work out of an office at the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department.

, DataTimes