His rights didn’t extend to smoking

First, you should know that the late Kootenai County Sheriff Larry Broadbent was a big man with a big taste for nicotine. Also, in the course of his law enforcement career, Broadbent became the first North Idaho cop to recognize the threat posed by Richard Butler and his Aryan Nations compound. Onward. As part of a film series about the 25-year history of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, Tony Stewart, the North Idaho College instructor/human rights activist, invited SR reporter Bill Morlin and me to discuss the task force. Morlin covered the bad guys. I covered the good ones. Afterward, Stewart recalled the time that Broadbent demanded a pit stop as Stewart, the late Bill Wassmuth and he were traveling together to Wyoming. And the trio pulled into a rest stop. Broadbent was dragging on a long cig when Wassmuth and Stewart emerged from the restrooms. Wassmuth ordered Broadbent to put it out and get in the car. Next thing, Broadbent was crouched down by the side of the car with a big knife pointed 2 inches from the front tire. If you move, he told Wassmuth, we’ll be sitting here for a while. Then, the big cop leisurely finished his smoke. And that incident became one of the ties that bound the two late human-rights giants together.

Memory lane

During the taping of the show, Morlin and I playfully jabbed each other about which side was more dangerous to report on. Morlin’s subjects were thugs with guns, bombs and evil intentions. And he covered them superbly. But there were times when things got touchy on my side, too. I missed the second biggest civic crime that supremacists committed in our midst, the 1986 bombing of Coeur d’Alene. I was vacationing in Kalispell when my sister informed me that “they’re blowing up your town.” But I didn’t miss the bombing of Wassmuth’s parish house shortly afterward. I still remember the look on Wassmuth’s face when I arrived early in the morning to report on the bomb that had been planted in a trashcan by his back steps: shock, fear, dog-tiredness. The blast had ripped up the back of his home, knocked out windows and sent shrapnel into the ceiling of the kitchen and through a garage roof across the street. But for the grace of God …

Scary times at Noxon High

Then, there was the time I traveled with Wassmuth, Stewart Marshall Mend and African-American Walt Washington to Noxon, Mont., to cover the task force’s attempt to promote human-rights concepts in western Sanders County, an area being overrun by racist activity at the time. I knew we were no longer in Idaho, Toto, when Montana cops in bulletproof vests met us at the state line and escorted us to the high school gym. About 400 residents packed the gym, including some 40 racists in Nazi regalia at the back. When the speeches began, Stewart mentioned to Mend that the white shirt he was wearing made him a prime target for anyone looking for one. I was glad I was in the audience and could pretend I was still a northwest Montana resident if things got ugly. We survived. The cops escorted us back to the Idaho border afterward. Only later did we truly realize the danger we’d been in.

The Big Apple

Easily, the dumbest thing Butler’s disciples did was to bomb Coeur d’Alene and Wassmuth’s home. That rallied a community that had been debating whether it was best to confront the Aryan Nations menace or ignore it. The task force was struggling to make inroads into the business community and most local politicians had their finger in the wind. Responding to a question at the time, Broadbent told a secret business gathering what would happen if the task force wasn’t around. Instead of 60 Aryans, he said, you’d be dealing with 600. The bombings shattered the apathy, led to an outpouring of community support for Wassmuth, and attracted the attention of the Raoul Wallenberg Committee, which bestowed its first civic award on Coeur d’Alene, for its battle for human rights. At New York City Hall, with the world’s media looking on, I heard Coeur d’Alene held up as a model for a racially divided New York by civil rights giant Bayard Rustin and future mayor David Dinkins. And then listened with Wassmuth and Broadbent as Coeur d’Alene Mayor Ray Stone seized the moment and gave the speech of his life, telling of seeing the evil of racism as a young man when he helped liberate a Nazi concentration camp.

Huckleberries

I didn’t intend to dedicate this column to my 21 years of covering the task force. But there are so many memories … Of the shock that occurred at a task force news conference during the Ruby Ridge siege when we learned Randy Weaver’s 14-year-old son, Sam Weaver, had been killed, too … Of Butler droning on about race traitors during an interview while he was running for Hayden mayor and of one of his followers calling me “rabbi” … Of visiting the deserted compound with Stewart after Butler had been sued into bankruptcy and seeing the burnt logs that’d been used for crosses … Of retracing the desperate escape route of Virginia and Jason Keenan along Rimrock Road as they tried to escape Butler’s bullies in hot pursuit … Of Wassmuth and Broadbent, now gone.

Parting shot

I covered the ribbon-tiers, the lemons-to-lemonade makers, the turn-the-other-cheekers, the tortoises who plodded along, consistent in message and purpose, never realizing that I was watching Inland Northwest history unfolding.