(Listen to the 911 calls and watch deputy body camera video at the bottom of this story)
CALDWELL, Idaho - The Canyon County Prosecuting Attorney declined criminal charges of false imprisonment in a July 27 incident where a Census worker and her mother were blocked in a driveway while they were conducting interviews for the Census Bureau.
The Idaho Press reports the county prosecutor declined criminal charges against the property owner and her neighbor who were involved in the incident.
The mother of the 18-year-old Census worker is considering filing a tort claim against the county.
Maria Boutte was driving her daughter, Samantha Boutte, to a Canyon County home to conduct a census interview when they were blocked on a driveway on Happy Valley Road by the two women.
According to previous Idaho Press reporting, the women told police they thought the Bouttes were acting suspiciously and could be trespassing, though the Bouttes’ car had a U.S. Census Bureau sign and Samantha showed them her U.S. Census Bureau identification.
Deputies arrived and questioned the Bouttes on suspicion of trespassing; the officers stayed on scene for about half an hour and also talked with the two women.
Maria Boutte, who recorded video the incident, said she felt unsafe because she was blocked in.
According to the prosecutor’s report, “the case cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” and “criminal charges are not warranted and not in the interest of justice.”
Maria Boutte, who is Latina, said she felt the deputies treated her and her daughter differently than they treated the white women on scene. In her cellphone recording, deputies ask for physical identification from the Bouttes, something they did not ask of the white women. Canyon County spokesman Joe Decker confirmed the deputies only asked the other women for “verbal verification” of their identification and verified ownership of the property through dispatch.
“My clients were held for over 40 minutes without reasonable suspicion or probable cause,” said Kevin Rogers, the Boise attorney representing Maria Boutte.
He said he was “looking at filing a tort claim on that basis.”
Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue, in a statement released Saturday, said the deputies “professionally resolved a potentially difficult situation.”
“My deputies arrived with body cameras rolling, took statements from all involved persons, and facilitated a timely and peaceful conclusion to a situation that was no doubt stressful for both sides,” he said.
A tort claim isn’t a lawsuit, but it often precedes one. Tort claims are a written demand to recover money damages from a governmental entity, its employees and/or its representatives alleging misconduct. Tort law requires that the agency involved must respond within three months. If the agency does not respond to or rejects the claim then the claimant may sue the agency.
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Full statement from Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue:
“On August 7, 2020, Canyon County’s local newspaper published an article about a citizen interaction involving three of my deputies, a homeowner, her neighbor, a U.S. Census worker, and that worker’s mother. The bare facts of that incident are these: On July 27, my deputies responded to multiple calls involving a verbal disturbance on private property involving census workers and the property owner and a neighbor. The property in question had also recently had reports of suspicious activity. My deputies arrived with body cameras rolling, took statements from all involved persons, and facilitated a timely and peaceful conclusion to a situation that was no doubt stressful for both sides. The property owner, her neighbor, the census worker, and her mother all appeared to believe they were in the right, and each appeared to have strong feelings they believed were entirely warranted by the others’ actions.
That is the kind of unpredictable, uncertain, and potentially dangerous circumstances my deputies, and all law enforcement officers, face on every call they respond to every day. In this case, my deputies professionally resolved a potentially difficult situation and have since written reports that have been submitted to the County Prosecutor to review for any possible charges against all of the involved parties. Those materials will all become public record in time by operation of law and due process. Until then, speculation is unhelpful – particularly when it is one-sided.
Law enforcement is a difficult and essential calling, perhaps now more than ever. My Office welcomes scrutiny and dialogue during these times, as it always has. In return, I respectfully request the local media’s assistance in treating complex and nuanced issues involving law enforcement and criminal justice with the thoughtful and deliberate consideration those issues necessarily involve and require. The immediate gratification and rush to judgement facilitated by social media is a serious threat to an ordered society, made worse when mainstream media jumps on board with those tactics to get clicks. A job of law enforcement, like the job of the press and the duty of any citizen in a democracy, is to withstand intense political and cultural pressures to reach quick and convenient conclusions, and to instead find the path to truth and justice.”
Listen to the two 911 calls made by both parties involved in the incident:
The Canyon County Sheriff's Office also released body camera footage from three of the deputies who responded to the incident:
