Archives for September 2010

From the Twin Falls Times-News

BURLEY — A Cassia County judge has sealed a court case regarding child-sex charges levied against a suspended Burley teacher.

Fifth District Judge Michael Crabtree’s order will keep any further information about the case, including its outcome, under wraps and bar the public from the courtroom.

Michael S. Brinkerhoff, 42, was charged in August with felony sexual abuse of a child under 16 and enticing a child over the Internet after he allegedly pretended to be a teenage boy in order to have sexual conversations with a student.

Cassia County Prosecutor Al Barrus told the Times-News in mid-September that he planned to file a motion to have the case sealed in order to protect the female teenage victim.

Brinkerhoff waived his preliminary hearing in magistrate court Sept. 10, and the case was bound over to district court in front of Crabtree.

Barrus had also filed a motion to close the Sept. 10 hearing, which was granted by Magistrate Judge Rick Bollar.

Barrus said afterwards his effort to close the hearing was also made to protect the victim.

Brinkerhoff was suspended with pay by the Cassia County School District pending the outcome of the case. He was hired by the district in 2006 and had a previous record of misdemeanor petit theft charges in Bonneville County. District officials said a background check performed prior to his employment with the district failed to turn up the charges.

Brinkerhoff taught English and drama at Burley Junior High School and was charged after he allegedly pretended to be his own 15-year-old nephew in order to engage the young girl in sexual discussions.

According to court records, the victim’s mother allegedly turned over more than 1,000 pages of messages to law-enforcement officials that had allegedly been sent between the victim and Brinkerhoff. Many of the messages were graphic and sexual in nature.

From the Twin Falls Times-News

From the AP/Idaho State Journal

Idaho State University did not violate the state’s open meeting law when a parking advisory board met behind closed doors in May, the Idaho Attorney General’s office says.

In a letter dated Wednesday, Assistant Chief Deputy Brian Kane wrote that the advisory board was created internally by the school and not by Idaho statute.

Kane said that means the board is not a public agency under the Idaho Open Meeting Act and for that reason didn’t violate the law. The letter was obtained by the Idaho State Journal.

But Kane also writes that the parking advisory board should “voluntarily balance the necessity of holding a closed meeting with the cleansing effect of holding an open meeting and act accordingly.”

Kane notes that his letter is informal and unofficial because the complaint about the meeting was filed after a 30-day deadline. Kane said he responded because of the importance of the issue.

Idaho Freedom Foundation Executive Director Wayne Hoffman requested the opinion after the advisory board denied admittance to reporters. At the meeting, faculty members discussed proposed changes to the school’s parking policy.

“I’m still dumbfounded as to why a university believes this sort of discussion needs to take place behind closed doors,” Hoffman said. “I don’t think anyone can make a sane argument why the parking board needs to meet privately.”

Idaho State spokesman Mark Levine declined to comment on future meetings.

From the AP/Idaho State Journal

From the Associated Press

Public records recently obtained by the Post Register detail a strange incident in which four Idaho State Police officers were left scrambling for safety when they were shot at by an unknown assailant at a remote mining claim.

No one was hit by the gunfire and no arrests were made, but the Jan. 14, 2009, incident was shrouded in secrecy until the Idaho Falls newspaper won a nine-month court battle to unseal the Idaho State Police documents.

The documents, ordered released by 7th District Judge Gregory S. Anderson, say that the police were responding to a citizen’s report of possible illegal drug activity when they rode snowmobiles to a shed on a mining claim at the remote central Idaho ghost town of Gilmore. The ghost town, made up of about two dozen buildings, was once at the heart of Idaho’s largest silver-lead mining district outside of the Coeur d’Alene region.

The officers’ pace was leisurely, according to the reports. Before going to the shed’s door, they ate their lunches while sitting atop their snowmobiles.

Though they knew who owned the building, the officers didn’t have a search warrant and didn’t announce their presence before trying to enter the shed, according to the ISP reports. That’s when someone opened fire, sending the officers running for cover behind a man-made berm.

All of the officers’ names were redacted from the reports.

“I yelled toward the structure that we didn’t want any trouble, and if he stopped shooting we would leave the area,” one of the officers wrote in his narrative of the incident.

Eventually, the officers did just that, leaving their snowmobiles behind and crawling on their bellies through snow to a nearby creek bed. Once under the cover of trees, they walked four miles in 3- to 4-foot-deep snow to their vehicles.

None of the officers returned fire, according to the reports. The group returned days later to retrieve their snowmobiles, which were unharmed.

The incident wasn’t reported until April 2009, after a Post Register reporter began digging into the matter. At the time, ISP Capt. Danny Bunderson refused to provide details because the case was still under investigation.

Bunderson declined requests for an interview this week, saying the agency can’t release additional information without risking investigative efforts being conducted by the Lemhi County sheriff’s office.

According to the ISP reports, the officers knew the building was owned by a former Idaho Falls resident and they’d even conducted surveillance on the man in the past. Lemhi County Sheriff Lynn Bowerman says he believes the man is still in the area and says deputies will try to reach him soon to ask him to meet with law enforcement, on the promise he won’t be arrested or detained.

According to records from the Idaho State Police debriefing following the incident, the officers didn’t take their police radios with them and only had some food. ISP officials concluded the shooting “should have been (treated) like all critical incidents,” and that ISP leaders should have considered relieving the officers from duty for a time. Additionally, the shooting should have been investigated by another agency, the debriefing officials found.

“The biggest thing was that having to do it again, they may not even attempt it or at the least be better prepared,” the debriefing said. “Planning and communication are always essential elements when planning an operation such as this.”

From the Associated Press