Former Boise police Chief Lee says officer tried to ruin his career. Lee just sued him

A day after being sued by a former subordinate, former Boise police Chief Ryan Lee sued a police sergeant, asking for $1.2 million in damages.

Lee’s lawsuit alleges that Sgt. Kirk Rush deliberately derailed his law enforcement career by falsely accusing him of injuring his neck. The neck allegation was one of several complaints made about the chief that ultimately left him without a job, and which he says has prevented him from obtaining three other “high-ranking” positions at other police departments in the U.S.

The lawsuit also accuses four other unnamed parties of assisting Rush in a campaign to oust him from the Police Department.

“Sgt. Rush – with the collaboration, encouragement, advice and assistance of other defendants – engaged in a course of conduct intentionally calculated to impair and/or terminate Ryan Lee’s employment as chief of police and effectively ruin his career in law enforcement,” according to the lawsuit.

Rush filed a tort claim against Lee in April 2022, alleging that Lee had injured his neck by demonstrating police holds on him during a staff meeting in October 2021.

The Idaho State Police opened a criminal investigation into the incident. Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennetts referred the case to an outside prosecutor. The Clearwater County prosecuting attorney eventually declined to recommend charges, though he said his decision was a “close call.”

After settling a worker’s compensation claim with the city, Rush sued Lee and the city on Monday, accusing Lee of injuring him and the city of negligently failing to properly investigate the former chief’s conduct.

In Lee’s lawsuit, he said Rush “withheld and concealed” previous neck injuries, instead choosing to blame subsequent health issues solely on the former chief.

Rush said in his lawsuit that he was injured after the neck hold demonstration and had a “cervical neck sprain” and “multiple bulging discs.”

After the demonstration, Lee’s lawsuit said, “Sgt. Rush completed his shift duties on Oct. 12, 2021 without notable restriction or complaint that he was injured, and in subsequent days he never reported to his superiors that he was not physically fit for duty.”

Lee accuses Rush and the unnamed parties of seeking to have him decertified by Idaho’s Peace Officer Standards and Training Division, which would have barred him from “pursuing his career throughout most, if not all, of the United States.”

In May, an independent law firm examining the department determined that veteran officers had bridled at Lee, a reform-minded chief newly hired from Portland, and banded together to oust him.

Boise’s former Office of Police Accountability director, Jesus Jara, wrote a memorandum in April 2022 detailing a set of complaints he had received about Lee and recommending the chief be placed on leave while they were investigated. In a memo, Mayor Lauren McLean and City Council leaders noted that Jara had determined that some of the allegations against Lee were false, but that he had not taken action against those who had filed false complaints.

Jara was later fired, and he has sued the city for wrongful termination.

An attorney for Rush did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lee’s lawsuit.

What has Lee said?

Lee spent close to an hour talking to the Idaho State Police about the incident. In an audio tape of the interview obtained by the Statesman, Lee expressed surprise at being told that Rush was injured.

He said he had been concerned since becoming chief about the frequency with which vascular neck holds were used at the department. The holds have largely been done away with at other departments and were temporarily suspended in Boise before he became chief.

Lee worked to make the suspension permanent, which he found “caused some consternation” among the rank-and-file.

Lee’s lawsuit said the president of the police union asked him to discuss the holds with officers, some of whom were confused about the meaning of the new policy.

While attending the Oct. 12, 2021, briefing to introduce the new deputy chief, Tammany Brooks, Lee was questioned by officers about how else to subdue suspects. He told ISP that he asked Rush to help him demonstrate some other ways to subdue suspects, to which Rush responded, “Well, you’re not going to choke me out, are you?”

“To me it was very clear that I was asking, ‘could you help me,’ and that he was agreeing to help me,” Lee said, saying that what he had done was hold on to Rush’s neck, and subsequently hold his head and tilt it backward.

He said he has a third-degree black belt in Jjudo and had worked as a defensive-tactics trainer for close to two decades.

“Having been a DT instructor for years, I’m being mindful to make sure that its not painful or uncomfortable,” he said. He said his hold on Rush was “very light, low-pressure type stuff.”

“I think it was totally appropriate at that time,” he told investigator.

A couple of days later, Lee said he apologized to Rush, because some officers had chuckled during the incident, and he worried that he had embarrassed him. In response, Rush told him the moves had hurt him, which surprised Lee.

He said he did not hear that a complaint had been filed until two weeks later.