by Travis Mateer

In 2019 Mayor Engen extended a job offer to Jaeson White to be Missoula’s new chief of police. 2019 was a contentious year in Missoula regarding development and the use of public money to “incentivize” growth in a town that was set to experience HYPER growth once the pandemic hit just months after Jaeson White was hired.

Before leading Missoula’s Police Department, Jaeson White worked for the California Highway Patrol. White also divested from something called the Iron Cross Ranch before taking the Top Cop job in Missoula. Curious.

White’s hiring was announced in December of 2019. What had been happening in the months previous to the hiring of Jaeson White? Well, it just so happens I made a little 3 hour documentary about this time period, titled Engen’s Missoula, so you can see for yourself how upset the public was when $16.5 million in Tax Increment Financing was set to be directed at a private developer for a massive convention center, a project the pandemic thankfully killed.

The public outcry over this development controversy ended with a BANG when, just two months after White was hired, a Missoula police officer allegedly experienced the spontaneous shattering of his cruiser window, which he mistook for being fired upon. This incident sparked a massive police response, forcing anyone in the downtown area to shelter-in-place while White’s police force tried to figure out if they were being attacked or not.

Why was everyone so skittish? Who could have been attacking our police officers in downtown Missoula?

Well, some of those members of the public, who weren’t down with public money flowing to Nick Checota’s coffers, were military-trained and proven killers in the theater of war. Yes, I’m referring to this scary Veteran who tightened the sphincters of City Council members with his stick.

Brandon Bryant was arrested on this charge, and given a HUGE bond, just one day BEFORE the police officer experienced that strange and TOTALLY spontaneous window shattering incident. I’m sure that was a coincidence. And the rumors that quickly circulated that Brandon Bryant was the one shooting up the town? Rumors GIVEN OXYGEN by the high school newspaper where one of the threatened Council members just happened to have a kid attending? All unfortunate side-effects of this unfortunate incident of cold taking out a cop window.

For a more in-depth look at this time period, check out this article. Maybe someday, when the author of that article comes out of hiding, we can take a look at the part of this story we never got around to including in the documentary we made.

Stepping back from the explosive start of the year 2020 in Missoula, it’s interesting for me to think about things that come from California. Jaeson White patrolled those California highways, hopefully keeping all those tourists with money safe as they come to recreate in BIG SKY country. And since Jaeson White operated a badge while patrolling those highways, I hope he did his job to stop the BAD things that get trafficked with the traffic.

The man accused of strangling Sean Stevenson inside the Poverello Center–Johnny Lee Perry–was from Oakland, California. This is the same man shot and killed by the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office just two weeks after I published a portion of this video:

Another entity from California I have NOT written about yet is a religious octopus called the Dream Center. I call this thing an octopus because it has tentacles ALL OVER this country, and I’ll be tackling this group soon in future posts. Maybe around the same time T.J. McDermott finally announces his candidacy for Mayor.

Other things and people that come from California include City Council member Bryan Von Rocket Scientist, who worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and that billionaire up north who left California to go all Batman in Whitefish with Two Bear Air. Owning a police department and fucking 5,000 women are just cherries on top for the people who use Montana as their personal playground.

With all this context in mind, it will be pretty interesting to see who our Multi-Modal Placeholder Mayor selects to lead the Missoula Police Department into the post-Engen era.

One thing to reflect on before wrapping this post up is the dissemination of information by local law enforcement. My podcast co-host, Allie, pointed out that the Public Information Officer (PIO), Lydia Arnold, has quietly left her role with the department. When the department’s first PIO, Travis Welsh, retired, the Missoulian ran an article about it. Now, the lack of information about the information officer leaving is eerily similar to the lack of information the public gets when The Law takes lethal action against the public.

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Thanks for reading!