by Travis Mateer
As the title indicates, I’m worried the hat-ridden chaplain/LifeGuard CEO, Lowell Hochhalter, may be suffering a professional freak out regarding how his peers and potential clients are reacting to him and his organization, the LifeGuard Group.
First, let’s take a look at the case of John Ulrigg, someone well-known to local law enforcement. John sometimes comments on this blog, and we communicate through social media. I don’t judge the passion of John’s long comments, regardless of typos, as he raises awareness about his experiences with local power.
John recently forward a correspondence he had with Lowell Hochhalter and part of the correspondence features Lowell ridiculing Ulrigg for having THE SAME confusion I had regarding the FACT Missoula County employs TWO L. Hochhalters.
Here is the ENTIRE forwarded message, with a little commentary, and prepare yourself because it’s LONG (I guess Lowell Hochhalter is just trying to match John’s passion)
———- Forwarded message ——— From: Lowell Hochhalter <lowell@thelifeguardgroup.org> Date: Mon, Apr 18, 2022, 2:52 PM Subject: Re: A message from your 406 Stop Hotline website messenger. To: <inventionier@gmail.com> Mr Ulrigg, Your email is quite scathing and rude, especially to folks that you have never encountered before or met.
First of all, let me give some clarification. WE ARE non profit organization that works with those who are victims of human trafficking, whether that be sex trafficking or labor trafficking. We DO NOT “crack” cases. We DO NOT investigate cases. We are NOT law enforcement on any level. Your court cases that you speak of in your email…, we have absolutely no knowledge of. We are not privy to LE information, unless it is made public.
The emphasis I added at the end is the part where I think Lowell is lying. If you listen to the podcast STOLEN about Jermain Charlo (like I did) you will hear Lowell himself claiming he was privy to the direct questioning of Charlo’s ex-boyfriend, Michael DeFrance. That, along with the video footage he claims to have viewed, is enough for me to call Lowell Hochhalter, in this particular case, a bald-faced liar.
Let’s continue.
You accuse us of not doing anything to help you and your family, who you say were trafficked, but looking back through our records, you have never reached out to us previously as a victim of human trafficking. You have never called the Hotline, sent us an email, or called our office phone, NEVER. Your accusations about The LifeGuard Group, or me personally are completely false and unfounded. Your “coincidently” about Loren Hochhalter delivering you a restraining order is where I believe your delusion begins.
While Lowell claims John Ulrigg is delusional, I’ll remind readers that in a NBC Montana piece (I think this one), Lowell cracks a joke about impersonating law enforcement. Fucking hilarious, Lowell, and totally not a contributor to possible confusion on the public’s part.
Let’s continue.
Your anger toward Law Enforcement and specifically Deputy Hochhalter have nothing to do with The LifeGuard Group. Loren Hochhalter is a completely different person than Lowell Hochhalter, who, in fact, is me, the Executive Director of The LifeGuard Group. I AM NOT a deputy with Missoula County Sheriff’s Office. I DID NOT deliver a restraining order to you and/or your family. If you have a complaint with Deputy Hochhalter, which again, is NOT ME, you should approach the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office and follow their complaints process.
For you to accuse me, who you OBVIOUSLY, do not know anything about, of creating a “business” to profit off of victims of human trafficking is simply ignorant and foolish. You have no concept or idea what me or my family have done for those victims that we have had the privilege to come alongside and help. Your accusations are ridiculous and completely unfounded. You have absolutely NO knowledge, nor will you, of the victims of labor trafficking, sex trafficking and organ trafficking we have helped.
Organ trafficking? Please, Lowell, tell us more.
Your anger toward Law Enforcement, Judges, has been lodged against me and The LifeGuard Group. Yes, my son and my wife work for the organization. We founded this as a family 12 years ago and have been working to help people from that time, and will continue to do so.
As far as your facebook trolling, no, we will not delete your comments, or block your comments. We will allow your ignorance to stay on display for all to see. Mind you, we will defend the work of the organization and those that give countless hours to it.
Who we are, what we do, and what we stand for speaks for itself and will continue to do so. If you would have reached out to The LifeGuard Group, as a victim of labor trafficking, you would have found that we stand ready and willing to help. You would have found courteous and passionate people willing to help you navigate the system that often leaves victims behind. You would have found resources to help you during this time to make sure your family was well taken care of.
Instead, you ignorantly lash out and bite the hand that could have potentially fed you. I hope you find your way.
In The Fight,
Lowell (not Loren) Lowell Hochhalter, Executive Director THE LIFEGUARD GROUP 111 Higgins Ave N, Suite 430 Missoula, MT 59802 www.thelifeguardgroup.org 406-396-5053
After this long diatribe to counter what I’m sure was an equally long diatribe from John Ulrigg, Lowell Hochhalter shifted gears to another front in his defensive war against any and all detractors. It was on a Facebook post with Michael Burks, of Angel Flight, who is running for HD 97.
Before getting to the comment from Britney Higgs, I’d like to thank Lowell for preemptively blocking me on Facebook. I must admit I was a little confused why his response to Higgs wasn’t visible on my FB page, so I used a surrogate to check it out.
Here’s a portion of Higgs’ comment:
Here’s Lowell’s response, but typed out, because I couldn’t get a screenshot (emphasis mine):
Britney Higgs I know that Mr. Burks in NO way meant to devalue or demean what your organizations are and have been doing. He was not making any statements against anyone else. The comment made about being “fully health integrated” was to the point that we have medical, dental and healthy fully interlaced in our programming. We have no intent to “compete,” or detract from your mission. Our only goal is to be diligent in what we are doing. We have gained amazing mentorship and advice from many of the groups that you tagged above and honor all that they have done. It is discouraging, however, that our greatest detractors are those that are doing the same things we are.
Lowell Hochhalter might want to take a step back from that emphasized point he concludes his response with and ask himself WHY his biggest detractors are other organizations involved in combatting human trafficking. If Lowell Hochhalter did that, maybe he would discover that they are NOT in fact doing the same things the LifeGuard Group is doing.
I hope Lowell Hochhalter can get his shit together, because Missoula County Sheriff Deputies are going to DESPERATELY need their chaplain as transient traffic increases with the temperature, making those scary homeless camps EVEN SCARIER! Plus, we must remember that Missoula’s Sheriff, T.J. McDermott, is on his way out, paving the way for the muscles of Jeremiah Peterson to seize control.
I know you can do it, Lowell! I have faith in you, and part of that comes from how the Holy Spirit is working in my life.
I pray you find the strength to face what’s coming. You’re gonna need it.