by Travis Mateer
Before we get to the story about Montana’s Attorney General, Austin Knudsen, using fear of the cartel to hide information about local law enforcement, let’s take a look at HOW this story came to be because The Pulp apparently couldn’t do this story on their own. Nope, it took help from something called the Invisible Institute to get this story written.
Here’s a little context about the media assistance organization The Pulp used:
The Invisible Institute arose out of the work of executive director Jamie Kalven during the final chapter of high-rise public housing in Chicago. From 1994 until the final demolition in 2007, Kalven’s base of operations was the Stateway Gardens public housing development, said on the basis of the 1990 census to be the single poorest community in the nation. Kalven had several roles there. He established a program of “grassroots public works” aimed at creating alternatives for ex-offenders and members of street gangs. He served as advisor to the resident council, participating in negotiations with the Chicago Housing Authority, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and private developers. And he practiced a form of human rights documentation that Studs Terkel once characterized as “guerrilla journalism.”
Is this organization really doing “guerrilla journalism”? No, absolutely not, and I say this confidently because it’s simply not in the nature of “guerrilla journalism” to be supported by a big collection of foundations.
With this foundation-powered support for The Pulp’s reporting, what did our upstart media company find out about our Attorney General and his fear of the cartel? Not much because the article is all about what the media NO LONGER GETS from the shifting political winds in Montana.
In 2022, Montana’s policing regulators at the Public Safety Officers Standards and Training Council, or POST, received a request for basic information that the board had released before: the names of the law enforcement officers that POST certifies to work in Montana, and their public employers.
It’s simple data that most states around the country release. Montana, up until that point, counted itself among them, having provided the data to journalists at least twice before: In 2017 to a reporter with the Scripps News Washington Bureau, and in 2019 to Invisible Institute, a Chicago-based journalism nonprofit.
However, this new request, from a reporter with the Associated Press, was different. Not because the content or context of the request were significantly different, but because the political environment at POST had undergone seismic shifts.
Further down in the article we find out how many media organizations are getting the sads because they can’t better track what they call “wandering officers” (emphasis mine):
In addition to the AP, in recent years Montana’s data have been sought by a reporter for The Seattle Times, a law professor and criminologist with Duke University, and a coalition of news organizations convened by Big Local News, a program of Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative, and including Invisible Institute.
The lack of transparency in police employment data prevents the public, press, and researchers from being able to monitor the state’s oversight of “wandering officers”: those who leave one police department after committing misconduct and easily find work at another.
Does this collaborative media effort give you an actual example of what a “wandering officer” looks like? Nope, but I will, because I’m practicing REAL guerrilla journalism.
One of the basic needs I have as a citizen journalist is getting local officials to respond to my inquiries, but that ability was suddenly halted last month when Becky, from Parks and Rec, included me in an email thread ABOUT me. Here’s the email:
If I can no longer expect responses from local officials to my inquiries then my content will be negatively impacted. Because of this politically motivated move by our local cabal, I’ve decided to stop the one paying writing gig I’ve maintained since entering into my own period of homelessness on June 1st. This wasn’t an easy decision, but I can’t offer what I want to offer if getting basic response from local officials is no longer available to me.
Getting back to the subject of THIS post, here’s how our Attorney General is framing the political pullback from allowing POST disclosures to media outlets about publicly-paid badges (emphasis mine):
AG Knudsen first registered his discontent through a March 31, 2022 email addressed to Eric Gilbertson, a Lewis & Clark County sheriff’s deputy who was serving as the POST bureau chief at the time.
“The Montana Department of Justice DOES NOT recommend releasing the names of every law enforcement officer in the state to the AP,” Knudsen wrote. “It is reasonable for law enforcement officers to expect privacy until there is evidence they have violated” the public trust.
He quoted David Ortley, a deputy attorney general: “This is a one-time event; once all names have been released the bell cannot be un-rung.” Both men failed to note, however, that the POST council would be merely re-ringing a bell it had already rung twice before.
Ortley also cited an “informal survey of officers” at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy, where he served as legal counsel and is still an instructor. The survey resulted in officers rejecting the idea of releasing their employment information.
“Those who have come from out-of-state feel even stronger based on the unwarranted attacks in populated areas,” he noted.
Knudsen claimed that releasing data showing the name and employment history of Montana police officers would easily result in the officers’ photos and residences being exposed. “Montana is seeing a large increase in Mexican drug cartel activity,” he wrote. “I simply don’t think it wise to prospectively provide the cartels with photographic facial recognition and home address intelligence on Montana’s law enforcement professionals.”
I’m glad our Attorney General used the C word because it’s not something I ever hear locally when our retarded cabal lectures local citizens about urban camping. It’s just too bad the context is his own political cowardice and misdirected obsession over SOUTHERN borders when it’s Sheriff Funke and Mineral County he should be paying closer attention to.
If you appreciate what REAL guerrilla journalism can produce, please consider donating to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). I use ALL the fun words the begin with the letter C.
Thanks for reading!