Man breaks in, damages property at Idaho senator’s business. What police say
BOISE – Employees of an Idaho state senator’s family business on Wednesday morning arrived to find a naked man asleep on a couch inside, Boise police said.
The front door had been smashed, evidently with a pallet, said Haley Williams, a spokesperson for the Boise Police Department.
Williams declined to name the business affected, but Sen. Codi Galloway, R-Boise, confirmed that it was Create Spaces, a retail office equipment company at 623 S. Americana Boulevard that her husband owns. She works as a talent manager for the company.
Police have arrested the man on suspicion of malicious injury to property, a felony; and unlawful entry, a misdemeanor. There was no evidence to suggest the business was targeted for political reasons, Williams told the Idaho Statesman by email. The business is located near Shoreline Drive, where homeless encampments have been concentrated in recent years, and a few blocks away from shelters and services for people experiencing homelessness.
There is “absolutely no reason to believe this is targeted,” Galloway told the Statesman by email. “Similar incidents have been happening for years. About six months ago another of our glass windows was smashed open. This is a regular occurrence for all residents and businesses in the area.”
Galloway pushed for homeless encampment ban
Boise on Tuesday changed its rules banning homeless encampments to bring the city into compliance with a new state law, sponsored by Galloway. The law, which takes effect Tuesday, bars cities with populations of 100,000 or more from allowing people to camp on public property or along public roads. The law allows the state’s attorney general to sue cities that allow such camping to continue.
Boise officials were clear at a City Council meeting on Tuesday that they did not support the changes, which will treat camping as an infraction, a civil offense, that comes with a $10 fine. The new rules will curtail police officers’ discretion about how best to respond to someone they find camping, Police Chief Chris Dennison told council members.
In expressing their opposition to the changes, which Boise Mayor Lauren McLean and some City Council members have said will criminalize homelessness without addressing its root causes, they have sought to distance themselves from the law by referring to it as the “Galloway law.”
“While the Galloway law will go into effect with this ordinance that’s being passed, I am without doubt that our residents understand that this is not the solution,” McLean told City Council members. “The solution is to continue to invest in long-term solutions, to look at housing and to look at all the other pieces of investing in a city and in neighborhoods.”
In emails with the Statesman and in legislative hearings on her bill, Galloway has highlighted the “dirty, dangerous and deadly” conditions in homeless encampments, arguing that allowing them to exist was not compassionate. An early version of her bill would have allowed business owners, including her husband, to sue the city over a failure to enforce its ban.