Hey, it's Aaron. This week on the pod, Val, other Aaron, and I met up to chat through two important stories that dropped in range this week. The first is Seller's deeply reported and deeply human story of how Idaho's ban on state funded gender affirming care might herald a dark future for Washington's queer folks as the federal government considers slashing its own funding for the same care. That story was picked up in the national outlet, the 19th. Congrats, sellers. Second, I talk about running down the facts behind a Republican town hall in Coeur d'Alene from which a woman was violently dragged by private security guards. This is Free Range, a co production of KYRS and Range Media. This is Aaron Hedge. I'm here with other Aaron, Aaron Sellers, and Valerie Osher, our managing editor. This is our first time having Val on in a while and fun fact about Val, she is You're laughing because I, I warned her, I gave her a little bit of a heads up. Val is one of the only people on our team to have gone to J school and she was a crime reporter out of California for a while. Excellent crime reporter. Thank you. Maybe arguably the best crime reporter to ever come out of California. And today, Val's going to be dusting off those old crime reporting skills and really digging into some news that came out this week by interviewing both Hedge and I about our most recent pieces. Ooh, I think you guys gave me a lot of credit, but you know, I'll take it. Deserved. Thank you. So first we're going to talk I know we just talked about crime, we said it a lot of times but first we're going to start off with Aaron Sellers. We were going to start off with your story on we just did a partnership with the 19th news, which is a national news organization, not national nonprofit news org focused on gender or They're focused on reproductive justice, LGBTQ issues, kind of anything that touches like underrepresented groups in America. The 19th is a reference to the 19th amendment, which is the constitutional amendment that gave women the right to vote. And it was established by, I think, The publication was established by Emily Ramshaw, who was the former editor of the Texas Monthly, and Wow, Head Gets Women History Points. I think, well, I did take a women's studies course once. But it's a really excellent publication, and Erin Sellers has a byline in it now. Yeah. Erin, you pitched this story to the 19th, because we're part of their partner network. But it was, it was a secondary story or like a follow up story to an original story about trans folks in Idaho. Can you tell me a little bit about the first story that you did and then what led into the second story? Yeah. When we were brainstorming our election coverage for the 2024 elections, I know we were all kind of thinking about our mission of like centering the most. impacted people and also ranges unique position as a news outlet in arguably like a border community. We are right next to Idaho, we're not too far from Canada and so I was. I grew up in Idaho. As a queer person, I left. Moved to Spokane. Never left. Love it here. Buying a house. Plan to be here for the rest of my life. But I was curious with the kind of fraughtness of the 2024 election, both in state wide and in nation wide politics how queer people who called Idaho home, who's stayed there, who made that their place, how they were thinking about national politics, statewide politics, and their place in that as a group that kind of finds itself targeted in Idaho. So that was the first story. It came out. It was lovely. I ended up doing so many interviews for that that Luke, our editor, was like, oh, we've got to turn this into a series, otherwise this is going to be a 7, 000 word piece and nobody's going to read to the end of that. And like two weeks after it came out, I got a text from one of my sources, who I hadn't featured super heavily in the first story. I think I only referenced him once. There was one line about like Avery Ellis, a drag performer based out of Twin Falls. And he, he performs under the name Tom from accounting, which is a detail I will never stop repeating. And he let me know that. He was no longer able to get his gender affirming care in Idaho because of a state law that had been passed and went into effect over the summer. And somehow he had been slipping under the radar. He was still able to get his care covered by state insurance, but on October 23rd, he texted me and he was like, Hey, just in case this is useful for any followups, you write, I've hit a snag, I can't get my care anymore. Mm hmm. And then that, that. But you'd be like, okay, I need to follow up on this story. And we haven't done a series yet with all those interviews. But this was one of those stories that came out. And so, can you tell us about, so, Avery Ellis they, they're a transgender man. Meaning he was assigned female at birth. And then he's, your story said he's not from Idaho. So, how, where, I want to say he grew up in the Midwest. I'd have to double check my notes. But I do know it was, I want to say it was one of the Carolinas. And it was another red state. What even counts as the Midwest? It was a red state that had similar restrictive laws to Idaho. And he moved to Idaho. And when he moved there, he was not out as trans. He wasn't out as queer at all. He was just sort of like, I'm a big ally. I love my queer friends. And as he was able to participate in what might be a surprisingly vibrant queer community in Twin Falls, Idaho, he found himself. He transitioned, he found a partner that he loves, he started doing drag performance. Like, he really came into his own in Twin Falls. It's the place he, he loves. He calls it his home. And now it's become the place where he can't access life saving, critically important gender affirming care anymore. Your story says it's South Carolina, and it was a bigger city that he moved from. Thank you for fact checking. It's just like, moved to a smaller town in Idaho that is ostensibly more like, or less diverse, and probably more conservative than, I mean, South Carolina is still pretty conservative, I think, but Actually, I shouldn't say that, I don't know, but But yeah, it's just like, that's, that's a really interesting shift. Yeah, and, when I got that text in October, I wanted to write that story immediately. But then, what, a week and a half later, we have the national elections. And And then, I got sucked into other things, and then the start of the new year comes, and we're hit with just a barrage of executive orders, a lot of them targeting transgender people and their access to care, and that is when we decided, like, okay, you'd been a I'd been pottering along on this story, and now it becomes really important A, because of some campaign promises that current President Donald Trump made to shut off access to federal funds for states that require their state insurances to cover gender affirming care, and B, just because they're, like, those campaign promises paired with the, the quickness and the sheer amount of executive orders targeting trans people and trans healthcare. And at the heart of all of that, that's getting litigated, like, a bunch of these are tied up in the courts. I mean, just today, we saw that the military is now forcibly discharging all trans people, regardless of whether they detransition. Anyone who has ever reported having gender dysphoria is getting discharged from the military. But this is all happening so quick, right? And at the heart of this is, it's people. It's people like Avery. And so I wanted to make sure that his story didn't get lost. And also I don't know how to put this gracefully, but like maybe serves as a bit of a warning or foreshadowing or a heads up as to what could be coming down the pipeline soon. Idaho shut off access to insurance and that is what President Donald Trump said that he was planning to do in office. So even for folks who are like, let me move to a blue sanctuary state like Washington where the state law forbids insurances, whether they're private or state funded, from denying access to gender affirming care. So, arguably, it's a pretty great state to be trans in. And also, all of the federal funds, because state insurance, sorry I'm bouncing all over, but if you didn't know, state insurance, like Apple Health in Washington, uses between 50 percent and 90 percent of its funding, depending on the procedure come from federal dollars, federal Medicaid dollars. All of that federal money could potentially go away, which means the state would be on the hook now for paying 90 percent that it didn't pay before or 50 percent that it didn't pay before. And Washington is broke right now, so nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen with that. So I was trying to unwind all of these threads and do it in a way that didn't lose the humans and the people and the real life stakes. So, can you talk a little bit about, like, so Avery is Idahoan and they had, or he had access to his gender affirming care, which is testosterone shots? I think so, yeah, it's, he the photographer got a picture of his bottle of testosterone that he would inject from. And So, and their healthcare was through Medicaid. He was on state insurance. So again, it's like one of those things where it's technically paid for by the state, but then the state gets reimbursed through Medicaid dollars. And so Idaho. is one of 10 states that currently does not allow you to use state funding for gender affirming care. Okay, and that is House Bill 668? Yes. Okay. And that bill is also tied up in the courts. However, the specific way that it got tied up protected access to care for the, I think, it's like three or five trans people living in Idaho who signed on to that lawsuit. And so, for the people that signed on to the lawsuit, they're able to continue accessing their care, but it didn't put a blanket pause on the law. So, for people like Avery, who were not signed on to that lawsuit, they now cannot get access to gender affirming care paid for by the state. That's interesting. Yeah. It's like a weird kind of, it feels like that kind of lawsuit is more of like a class action situation, but I don't know enough about that. I am not a legal reporter, so I get a little lost in that, and there have been other states that have tried similar things to this, and some of those states, the, there are nine other states that currently have these bans in effect. I did find reporting from I want to say it was Missouri, but don't quote me on that, where they had tried to pass something and their courts, their state courts shot it down. So it's one of those legal issues with a lot of different precedents that are developing as cases move through state and federal court. But I don't have all of that living in my head. I'm so sorry. I think, I think one of the, I think the central point to that though, is like, this is a. An extremely like fluid situation and there's a lot of like movement in these stories and so it's hard It's really hard to follow them. And I think that's like kind of part of the point of the chaos There was a section in my story There was like three paragraphs about executive orders and like where things are at that as we went back and forth in the editing process Like I had to just keep perpetually updating those paragraphs as to where those things stood, because it was changing so much, even just as we were going back and forth on, on notes and edits, both between the, the range editing team and the 19th editing team. Yeah, I remember I like, kept highlighting that section, like, it was like, triple check, triple check. Is this still accurate? And in some cases it wasn't, because things have been, it has been the longest and fastest two months of my life, I think. Yeah. So, a big part of this story was that And the reason why we pitched it to the 19th as a national story is that Eastern Washington and Idaho, like, our area is I always call it like a microcosm of the U. S. Like, we have, this blue dot and a red C of Spokane City, and then, we have a lot of extremism issues alt right issues in Idaho. And a big mix of, like, rural versus city issues. And so, like, it's a really, good look into, like, what the rest of the U. S. could look like under a Trump administration. So, like, what did you find that is, I guess, under threat? with Washington, on the Washington side, on the quote unquote safe side. Yeah, so, it's interesting because we have a lot of state laws that enshrine protections for LGBTQ plus people, and specifically for trans access to healthcare. I interviewed Senator Nicole Macri, who is, I think, the chair of the LGBTQ caucus at the state legislative level. And, in a lot of ways, she was reassuring. She was like, it is in, like, it is state law that your insurance has to pay for these things. So, even if federal funding turns off, like, if that's like, water flowing through a shaft, and all of a sudden, like, the water gets turned off, we're not getting the federal tap anymore. The state is still legally on the hook for covering the cost of those gender affirming care procedures. However, and this is where it gets tricky, Washington is in a couple billion dollar budget deficit. There's a lot of debate about whether that number is 5 billion dollars or whether that number is like 20 plus billion dollars. Cause projections are fluid. But because Washington is in such a budget deficit, it becomes A little bit of a question of like, okay, we're legally on the hook for that, but where's the money coming from? Who, like, if the state can't, can't pay for it, or maybe the state has to pay for it because like trans affirming healthcare is. State law, but maybe state law doesn't say like, Oh, we have to cover your diabetes medicine. So do they legally have to pull money that was supposed to be covering that and directed towards this? There's a lot of like uncertainties and Macri expressed that to me that like, we do have a line of defense. It wouldn't go away overnight there, but a lot of things are in flux with the state budget deficit. And then also. With can, like if you look at national congressional level, there was a bill passed through the house yesterday. It's not a law yet, I think it's supposed to go through the senate, but that would mandate slashing most of the federal Medicaid funds. regardless. So maybe it's not even going to be a trans specific issue. Maybe it's going to be a 90 percent of Medicaid goes away overnight because Congress won't okay those funds anymore. And so that's what's really hard about reporting on these things, because we've got things that are technically supposed to be enshrined protections. We've got stuff moving at the state level, moving at the federal level. Moving in the president's office as executive orders come out and people try to decide if that's legal or not and I think That's panic inducing, both for reporters who have to cover that, and more so for trans people who are trying to figure out how long can I access my care, where can I access my care, do I need to be stockpiling money, will insurance cover it, will pharmacists prescribe it, like, what are things going to look like in three months? There's a lot of uncertainty around, like, reproductive healthcare, and, A lot of people with uteruses, are wondering should I go get an IUD so that I at least have birth control for the next five or ten years or however long that IUD would last for. Personally, I'm like, should I be stockpiling my birth control pills, it, it's a scary time in general, like, it, you mentioned, offhanded, and not like this would happen, but like, state law enshrines that we have to cover, or that insurances have to cover trans affirming, or, gen And I think reproductive care is also enshrined in the same way. Okay. It was a, not a trend, but like, they were trying to Trump proof the state in some ways, of like, and give birth. comfort to people who are like, Oh no, what if the federal government says X, Y, Z? It's like, well, it defaults to state rights. We're going to enshrine this here. So I think both trans affirming care and reproductive care are both enshrined in Washington state law. That's good to know. Yeah. Just not diabetes care. I'm kidding. Well, I pulled that example off It's super possible that there is something in state law that says like, you have to be, like insurance has to provide care that is mandatory for your, I don't know. And also I just don't know where any of this money is going to come from. Yeah. And there's, there's lots of lines to this story. I talked to, and, and like this, this is, somewhat unrelated to it. I mean, it's related, but it's like, it's on a different plane of what you, you've been reporting on. I talked to Mae Griff Griffith, who has a show on this radio station who's out and about Yeah, it's a, it's a great show. It's, and she, she, she's a trans woman veteran. And she gets a treatment called estradiol through the through the VA. And we've, we've heard some things. Estradiol? She pronounced it estradiol. Okay, nevermind. That's how I said it. Who knows how to pronounce any of these? It's gender affirming care, and it's probably gonna go away. And Maeve is like, not super freaked out about her situation, but, cause she can get that on the market for like 8 bucks a month or something like that. But she made this point, that was like, it's not just, Trans healthcare that's gonna go away. It's everybody, like she said trans people are the canary in the coal mine. And she said this thing that has stuck with me. This administration, this is, this is her opinion like, it's not just coming after trans people. They want to kill everyone and so, yeah, it's like, it's gonna, it's gonna expand out and have ripple effects. I mean, like, and, and we don't know how successful they're gonna be at it, but like, they're not just coming after trans people, and I just looked up Estradiol because I, I've I knew that medication. But it also can be used to treat symptoms caused by menopause or removal of the ovaries. If you are a cisgender woman it can also, it's just. This is the Google overview, so, but it says it also treats prostate and, or can also treat prostate and breast cancer and prevent osteoporosis. And that kind of brings me to a question I wanted to ask. In your story, uh, about Avery you were talking, there was a, a point in time where he went to the pharmacy to pick up his testosterone, and and because of that law, the, the, the whatever, House Bill 6 6 8? 6 6 8. And the pharmacist asked what's your, your gender? Or your, your sex? I don't remember which one. But they asked, what's your gender? And because it didn't match what is on Avery's Medicare or Medicaid paperwork, the pharmacist denied or had to deny the testosterone. But if they were a cisgender man getting Testosterone prescribed to them for also a gender affirming reason. Like. That would have been allowed. Yes. So, the bill specifically had language in it that read that you couldn't use Medicaid state insurance, quote, for gender transition purposes, or procedures, and it also said that any treatment to affirm the individual's perception of their sex in a way that is inconsistent with their biological sex. So, it's government legalese to say, If you are a cisgender man who wants to use testosterone because you've lost your hair or because you are struggling in a department, I'm not sure I can say on the radio, that's fine. You can do that. You can get that prescription. Medicaid will pay for it. Your hair loss is important to us. But if you are a trans person, you cannot use this medication to affirm your gender. And that's what's so frustrating about it to me. That like. Avery had to disclose this information. When you have a prescription at the pharmacy, it is your doctor saying this is medically necessary. I have signed off on this being medically necessary. You should just be able to walk up to the pharmacy, give your last name and your birthday, and get your prescription. But Avery was asked invasive questions about his medical history and he had to out himself as trans at the pharmacy. And was then turned away from medication that his doctor said was necessary. Um, these policies are just cruel and I probably can't say much more on I am a journalist, so We can point out right and wrong things. That's my role. Well, I think, that, that kind of like Is now a good time to ask this question? Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think that, that, that, what you just said, kinda brings me to like, it's, to one of the most beautiful lines in your story. And you're talking about like when this bill was passed, it was, it was passed, this Idaho bill HB 6 6, 6 6 8. Your, the line reads, Last October, Ellis was left to wonder whether his state would ever care for him like he cared for it. And I think, some of the, some of the folks you spoke with for your, for your series really seem to love Idaho in a way. That some in power in the state don't seem to love them back. And can you talk about, like, what Avery said about this relationship with Idaho and what it meant to him? Yeah, it was I had three total interviews with Avery. The first I did over the summer when he was still able to access his gender affirming care. The second I had over the phone with him right after he was not able to get his testosterone at the pharmacy. And the third I had with him a couple weeks before the story went live right after Trump had been inaugurated. And when I was writing this story and going back through These three different interviews, I honestly cried in the office listening to the difference in the way that Avery was talking in the first interview. There was a lot of, there was a lot of hope and a lot of like, dig my heels in, this is my state. This is where I've found community. All of the people I love are here. I have found myself here. I have like, yeah, things aren't great. And sometimes, sometimes people say things and the state legislature says things about who I am that are just incorrect and are wrong, but like, I'm willing to dig my heels in and fight and continue to build community here. And the line I ended my story on. It came from the most recent interview and he said that, I'm poor, so my contingency plan is based around what I can afford. Even though it's scary living in Idaho, I just don't have the ability to move to a safer state. This came after his therapist recommended that he move for his own, like, mental and physical health. And he said it's left him with an impossible choice, quote. Buckle down and make a decision on if I want to live out and proud and be a beacon of hope or conceal himself and go back in the closet. And that's a wildly different situation than he was talking about being in over the summer. I mean, I don't I don't feel the same way about Idaho, but I feel that way about Washington and being a transplant to Washington and like finding myself and my community and people I really love here. And so, like, I can't imagine going through all of that and then not being accepted by my own. My new hometown, mhm. And Avery didn't say this, but somebody else I interviewed for that same first story did. That like, They grew up in Idaho. They'd been in Idaho their whole life, and they talked about how, like, the values that they grew up with were about, like, minding your own business, being a good neighbor, like, helping people when they're in trouble. Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to. Like, some old fashioned kind of traditional values, but mostly it was just, like, mind your own side of the fence. I want my independence. Leave me alone to make my own decisions and you make your own decisions. And they talked about how, like, I think they're in their late 20s now. And just since 2015 ish, they'd seen, like, a big shift in the state. Being a lot more targeted and less like personal freedoms and more like let me regulate how you live your life because I don't like it Yeah, and seeing that shift That's been very jarring for somebody who grew up there and came out there and found their partner there Did do your experiences reflect that? As well, I, I remember growing up there and I did not feel incredibly accepted in like my high school. I wasn't comfortable being out. And then I went away to college and I remember one of the first times I came back to visit Idaho and we went to the Dogwood Festival in Lewiston, Idaho, where there's like local artists and you celebrate the blooming of the dogwood trees and you eat popcorn and listen to music at the amphitheater on one of the college campuses. And I went with my family to just walk around and I got so excited because I saw like, I saw queer couples like out holding hands public and I saw people wearing, it's so millennial cringe, but the like the shirts from. Schitt's Creek. This is a name. This is a name, not a curse word. The Panic Eyes, that is the name of the TV show. And it is spelled with a C H. But they have this shirt that says, like, I like the wine, not the label. The one, the, the from David, or like, Anyways, there was like shirts of, of people who were like, speaking out about their queer identity, or about their allyship. And I remember feeling really excited that maybe things were getting better, maybe things were changing. And my brother was still in high school and he told me that there was like a lesbian couple in high school for the first time. And the first time that either of us could remember. I remember feeling really hopeful. And then a couple years after that, it just seemed like all of that had, all that had gotten erased and tensions had ratcheted up. I don't really have anything incredibly hopeful to say I'm trying to find a nice way to end this segment so we can play some, some sponsor clips and move on to Hedge's interview, and I'm sorry that I can't leave us on a hopeful note, but I think things I, I, I mean, like, so I, I have, like, this kind of parallels the, I mean, the reproductive healthcare crisis in Idaho, where, OBGYNs are leaving the state, and so Like, the resources for Idaho are growing thinner, like, and the entire population is impacted by this. And if people like Avery, if Avery could leave, like if people like Avery leave, that's going to leave the state. Weaker too. And Yeah, queer people aren't just queer. They are also your plumber. They are in the military. They serve your dinner. They work for your businesses. We are part of the fabric of this nation. And trying to scrub people out doesn't do anything but weaken our foundations. And there might not be anything helpful to say about that but I hope that Avery can find some solace and some peace. A good place. I don't know. I mean, that's, yeah. Okay, and on that note, We're going to shift to another Idaho story. Oh my gosh. So much time spent on Idaho today. The Idaho Show. Hey, I like that. Anyways. We're rebranding. So yeah, we're gonna It's tangentially related, but it's a story that came out of Coeur d'Alene and has gone viral across social media and is even gaining attention in the international press. Hedge, can you tell us what happened in Coeur d'Alene on Saturday? Yeah, so if you, if you haven't heard on Saturday, the the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee hosted this It, it was billed as a town hall for, about eight or nine legislators, state legislators to come and talk about state policies that are coming down the pike or already enshrined in state law including to include the, the the trans legislation or the gender affirming care legislation that your story was about, Aaron, or that it included. And. This town hall was held at the Coeur d'Alene High School and I had a source who, who told me the reason it was, like, normally, normally these events are held at churches I had a source who told me, and I haven't confirmed this yet, but one of the interesting notes about this story is a source told me that, like, one of the reasons it was held at the high school was because the churches had upped their their, Event venue rates. what? And so they, the reason I've seen cited is like, oh, some people don't wanna mix their politics and religion, but that's so funny. I had no idea. Well, and, and apparently, and apparently some, some churches are like gonna, gonna ratchet 'em back down for the, the Casey or the K-K-K-C-R-C-C-K County Republican Central Committee. Anyway, so there was this event at the Coeur d'Alene High School. It was billed as a town hall. The, the The Republicans had applied to have this event at the high school, and part of the application is they basically have to agree that it's going to be an event that's held for the public, and with the, just like, it's an event for everybody. So, a lot of people showed up. It was, it was, the, the auditorium in, in the Coeur d'Alene High School was essentially full, and they, Started talking about legislation, and the crowd grew, like, pretty raucous. There were, there were, the conservative folks who showed up were cheering for conservative legislation, and the liberal folks who showed up were booing it. And there was this one character there, her name is her name is Dr. Theresa Borenpahl. She's she's run for state office before. She's a prominent person who lives in Post Falls. She's well known in the community. She, she was one of the louder people who were heckling the, the events. And She People on the stage were saying that people shouldn't be heckling. They, they were, they were fine with the cheers, but they were not okay with the jeers. And eventually Teresa said is this a town hall or is it a lecture? And when she said that the Kootenai County Sheriff, Bob Norris, who was wearing, he wasn't fully uniformed but he was wearing a baseball cap that said, Kootenai County Sheriff walked up the aisle to her and beckoned for her to come out and said that she was being kicked out of the event. And she just ignored him. And, and just like very very pointedly continued to boo. She was saying, boo, boo. You can see it. There's, there's video of it. It's gone viral on the internet. And, as she did that you can see, you can see on the video Sheriff Norris becoming very upset about this and he, he, he leans in and he, he's like threatens to arrest her and then he threatens to to pepper spray her and escalated very quickly. Yeah. And she, and she's not, she's not being violent. She's just. She's, she is being loud, but she's But other people were also being loud. There were lots of people being very loud, yeah, on, on both sides. And he grabs her by the wrist and, like, tugs on her arm a little bit and says, You're coming with me. And she says to him, she says This isn't a good idea, and as soon as she says that, he lets her arm go, and he, like, goes back out into the alley, er, into the aisle, and he looks up the auditorium at these guys who are standing nearby in black jackets, and beckons for them to come down, and he points at Teresa. And they basically, like, they approach her, and they're like, you gotta come with us. And she's like, I'm not going with you. Do these guys have anything on their jackets, or are they just plain jackets? They're plain black jackets. You can't see, there's no security labeling or anything like that. And they're wearing just like blue jeans and cargo pants. These guys are. Doesn't look suspicious at all. No, not at all. And so she starts she uses some choice phrases that I can't say on the radio. She says, who the are you, and she, she asks Sheriff Norris, like, if, if they're his deputies, and he doesn't answer and then she says to Sheriff Norris that they're assaulting her because they, they grab her by the arm and start dragging her out into the, into the aisle. And there's a scuffle that goes on for, for several minutes, and she, she bites back really Pretty fiercely to get back to her seat. And her shoes come off, and so she's barefoot, and they, they eventually, like, zip tie her and drag her out of the auditorium. And The person who's sitting next to her Laura Tennison, who's her friend shot video of this and posted it to YouTube and Facebook, I think. And it, It just went all over the world very quickly. The Australian picked it up. The New York Times wrote a story about it NBC Newsweek all had stories about it. Just these, these guys who nobody knew who they were and the folks I spoke with like compared them to like Pinkerton agents. Where did they take her? Like they took her out to like, I'm assuming maybe the, the breezeway of the auditorium, or did they take her to jail? They took her, so they took her out into the hallway and her friend who I spoke with Megan Koons brought her her shoes and by the time she was able to reach her She was, she was being, the police, the Coeur d'Alene police were on scene, and they were, they were starting to investigate the, the incident, the incident, and This is different than the sheriff, just to be clear. These are two different two different agencies, even though it is, And none of them are the ones who dragged her out. And none of them are the ones who dragged her out. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that that was puzzling to some people, like, like, if this were actually a law enforcement matter, like, why are we having these, these guys who apparently don't Like, we don't know who they are. So who are these guys? I know you tracked them down, and who hired them? Well, so, it was quickly reported in the press that, I guess you didn't track them down, sorry. Yeah, I mean, I tried to. I tried to talk to them. But they're employees of a company called Lear Asset Management, which is this private security firm that does work with Kind of governments all throughout the West, mostly in California and they've surfaced in the news in the last decade for having policed and arrested people doing like pot grows in Humboldt County and other regions. Like, anti logging environmental, like, protests in Northern California. You could just arrest people. They're like citizen arresting people. Well, I guess, I guess arrest probably, I guess arrest probably isn't the right term. They, like, so they detained, like, there were, there were some protesters in Humboldt County who were They were protesting a proposed logging operation and folks from Lear Asset Management showed up and detained them and brought them to the Humboldt County Sheriff. And the Humboldt County Sheriff are the agency that arrested them. I was just about to ask that. That is a really good question. I'm googling that right now. I saw the thing today that has been making the news about this is like an argument over Whether or not these guys are actually hired or not. Yeah. Like, there's been a debate over whether a contract existed between them. There have been reports that there was a contract, but for the price of one dollar, to make them technically contracted employees, which might mean they could carry guns. Oh my goodness. Versus the fact that somebody said they volunteered. Brent Regan, the chairman of KCRCC, originally said he had hired them. There's been all of this back and forth, but it seems like none of the reporting I've read has been able to distinguish exactly what is true because people are saying many things, and sometimes the same person is saying different things. Well, and, and Megan Coon said that she could see that they were Carrying weapons under their under their jackets. That's not confirmed. I don't think there's supposed to be guns in the school. But yeah, that we we don't that a lot of those details are unconfirmed. Yeah. So, so, Chairman Regan, Regan did tell the spokesman that he hired this company. There's a lot up in the air, and they keep changing the story. And then, like, later he said that they volunteered. Yeah. He said two things, so. And then, you also reported that they're from California, right? This company is based in California? They have a license in California. They and they have a license in Idaho. Had a license in Idaho. It was revoked. After this incident. Yeah. Yeah. And was it revoked in all of Idaho or just in Coeur d'Alene? How does that work? It's, it's just Coeur d'Alene. The, the Coeur d'Alene city pol I, I read that the Police revoked it, but I, it, some, some arm of the city revoked their, their license to operate in Coeur d'Alene. Okay, so there's the question over, like, who hired these guys? Were they volunteer? What does that mean? But there's also the debate over, like, is this a public event or a private event? Why is that a debate and why does that matter? Well, so, much of the criticism has centered around the KCRCC and their emcee a guy named Ed Bejarana, which I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, it's B E J E R A N A he's like a local voice actor who, I don't know if he was, and we don't know if he was hired by the KCRCC to emcee the event or if he's a member of the, of the party. He's not on their website in any capacity. I called his I called his phone number that he has listed on his, on his website and it said, due to a high volume of spam phone calls we're, we're discontinuing our voicemail service. So I couldn't even leave him a message. I did email him, but these folks, the, the KCRCC and this guy, Ed We're basically saying during the event, like, you don't get to speak here. To the people who were jeering like, you don't have a voice here. What did he call Teresa? Didn't he call her something? He called Teresa a little girl. Mmm. And one of the folks that I spoke with said that she perceived that to be, like, just, taking away her agency as a human being. Yeah, he was, I mean, like, I think people perceived it as being very condescending and But it's also, like, a question of First Amendment rights. Yeah, yeah, and I think that's what's at the heart of it, the Coeur d'Alene police chief Lee White, told The Coeur d'Alene press that, this is like, this is an event where people are allowed to show up and express their views. And even though it was raucous, like, nobody was being violent. It was, it was a, like, he sees it as a public event, and I think the folks that I spoke with see it that way, too. Obviously, the KCRCC is, has said that it's, it was, no, it was a private event, even though on their application with the school, they had affirmed that it was going to be a public event. So, there's a lot, I mean, there's just a lot of inconsistencies. So, like, at a private event, the organizers of the event, have more leeway to kind of police or control what speech is allowed. But at a public event, if I'm understanding, correct me if I'm wrong here, at a public event, it's more so like Like, the city council meetings are a public event, but because they have an agenda and a plan and a specific direction for when speech is allowed and what kind of speech is allowed, like you can't go to council and yell slurs or you'll get kicked out like that allows them to kick people out who are violating the rules. But because this was a town hall without an agenda and without clear rules around what speech was and wasn't allowed. Because they let people yell affirmatives, they also have to let people yell negatives, like Teresa was. And if they try to control what kind of speech is happening, or the content of that speech, then it maybe becomes a First Amendment violation? Is that the argument that's happening here? I think so. I think that's right. And yeah, so these lawmakers who showed up to this legislative town hall, like, they weren't conducting public business. They were there to talk about have, like, have a values based discussion mm-hmm About these, these laws that were, that were going to into effect in Idaho. They, they weren't, they weren't there to make, they weren't, it was not part of the law making process. Mm-hmm And so, the argument is people should have been allowed to fully express their opinion. Were there so what lawmakers were there? Or elected officials. That's, that is unclear in my reporting. And I haven't read anywhere exactly, like, who was there. And, like, how lawmakers responded to seeing a constituent get dragged down the aisle by men in unmarked uniforms. That's also unclear. I didn't have time to report that part out. But it would be interesting to know how, and I know that, like, one of my, there was a guy Senator, I'm forgetting his name right now. Let me look it up. So, Carl, Carl Bergerke. Bergerke? Yeah, and he represents, he represents Coeur d'Alene in the state legislature. And one of my, one of my sources told me that she sent him an email asking, like, if she can be truly representative represented by him as somebody who's, Has different viewpoints in a charged environment like that. And she hadn't heard back from him by the time I talked to her. I, for me, the scariest thing about this, I mean, the free speech stuff is scary, the, the actually getting dragged out is scary, but like, just the fact that, us as humans, like, this woman got violently dragged out of a public meeting with At least dozens of people, maybe hundreds of people. I don't know. There were hundreds, hundreds of people in there, and, and law enforcement and these unmarked men dragged her out and zip tied her like that. What if they put her in a car? Like, I've been watching way too much true crime recently, and like, that's where my mind goes. And so, I think it's it gets to a really scary place in where we are politically, or in our political environment that this is happening. And I think that's why this story has reached as far as it's gone, is because it almost seems like a, I don't, I don't want to say it's like a sign of things to come because I really hope it's not, but like, what can you say about those kinds of worries, Hedge? And maybe the sheriff's involvement here as well, because I feel like that kind of interplays. Yeah. I think it, I think it's, I think it comes down to like, being able to discern between who is there, who, who is, who is policing an event in, an official public capacity as, like, Like, how do you tell the difference between police who are paid for with public dollars, who are there to represent everybody, and, and there's obviously, like, huge problems with, with that industry as well, and how do you tell the difference between them and just, like, essentially, like, Private security goons who show up and like, just like start, like, detaining people. And yeah, like, who knows, who knows, could it go farther? We don't know. I mean People knew who the, the sheriff says that he was not there in any official capacity. He wasn't wearing his uniform, but he was wearing a hat that identified him as a sheriff. And he was directing these men to grab her, like he waved them over, he talked to them. And I guess I, I wonder about that as like, did people think, oh she's being officially arrested because the sheriff is telling these guys to do it and I don't want to get in trouble with the cops. Well, and I think that's one of the questions that Teresa herself had, and she voiced it very loudly. She said, are these your deputies, Sheriff Norris? And he wouldn't respond to that. He wouldn't respond to that? He didn't say anything. He just videotaped the thing with his phone. I didn't notice that detail. That was so interesting. Yeah. Well, we have two minutes left. We have, don't we have to start to close out? Yeah, we, it close out at 355. Oh, just kidding. We can keep talking. You can answer one more question. What do you think is more important, details on Lear and Paul Truett or stuff about Brad and Ishii? And what can you say in two minutes? Well, alright, I'll talk about Paul Truett. Paul Truett is he's the guy who owns Lear Asset Management. And, very interestingly, he had surfaced at a Coeur d'Alene City Hall meeting about a year ago, I think it was I think it was June 18th of last year, to protest the city implementing laws that would require private security, which, and these laws, these, these rules did get implemented into city code. Rules that say, that Private security has to be, like, clearly identified on their uniforms. And that is the rule that they were violating, the rule that they got their license pulled for when they were at this event, because they didn't have any identifying clothing. Not violently dragging a woman. And zip tying hair, got it. Yep, and just black jackets. Yep. Their outfits were wrong. Basically, yep. Crimes against fashion. And also maybe the First Amendment, possibly. Possibly. Okay. Well, this is Free Range, a weekly news and public affairs program presented by Range Media and produced by Range Media and KYRS Community Radio. We'll see you next week. Bye.