BOISE, Idaho — This story originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
There was a glass ceiling to be broken in Idaho and Brandalyn Crapo broke it.
Not only is Crapo one of 17 female Idaho State Police officers, bringing local representation to a male-dominated profession, she’s also a lieutenant — making her the highest-ranking female officer in Idaho history. She currently oversees 40 people in patrol positions — 38 men and two women.
Her promotion to lieutenant, handed down in December 2023, while surreal and overwhelming, is not all about her, Crapo said.
“Yes, I took this promotion and I got myself here, but I’ve had so many women before me that were huge mentors to me that didn’t reach this level,” Crapo said. “... This is 100% about opening doors for the women and the small girls that someday want to be police officers.”
The highest state police rank is colonel, followed by lieutenant colonel, major, captain and lieutenant. The first rank in state police is a trooper, followed by sergeant and then master sergeant.
Crapo, 36, joined Idaho State Police in 2014, starting in patrol before jumping to the DUI team. After that, she tried criminal interdiction work for a while and became a sergeant in 2021.
Nationwide, about 12% of sworn officers are women, and even fewer — 3% — hold leadership positions, according to an FBI law enforcement bulletin from June 2023.
“There’s a very close circle within the women and ISPs, and it’s, like, super supportive of each other,” Crapo said. “I 100% landed where I’m supposed to be. This is more than a job to me. I absolutely love it. Every day I’m excited to come to work.”
Crapo is now a lieutenant under Capt. Michael Winans, a district commander in ISP’s Meridian office. According to Winans, the two crossed paths several times before Crapo’s recent promotion, which he says is “the busiest job in the state police,” because of all the administrative work tied to the position.
“She’s fairly young when it comes to police work, but I know that she’s extremely intelligent and she has the respect of the troops that she works around, which is critical for a leadership position,” Winans said.
The position Crapo is in now is typically filled by someone who’s had over 20 years of experience, Winans said, as it requires fleet management, supervising patrol sergeants and finalizing people’s schedules.
Crapo’s wide range of experience — as a field training officer, drug recognition expert, law enforcement phlebotomist, honor guard commander, “the list goes on,” she said — is exactly what landed her this promotion, she said, and Winans agrees.
“She’s not only a good leader, but she’s a good cop,” Winans said. “She knows what she’s doing and she does a good job.”
HER UPBRINGING, JOURNEY
Crapo, a distant cousin of Idaho U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, grew up on a farm in Parker, a small town in eastern Idaho where harvest season brought work for the whole family. Some of her early memories are of cool mornings spent harvesting and working on the farm for hours.
“My dad (Ryan) was hardcore,” Crapo said, laughing. “I remember as a little kid calling him on the Nokia phone, asking ‘Dad, like, can we go home yet?’ And he’s like, ‘we’re almost done.’”
A lot of who Crapo is came directly from growing up that way — waking up before the sun rose and working with her family. Now, with her short brown hair and electric smile, Crapo wakes up every morning and gets to work, fueled by the desire to help people.
“I want to be there for people and help them however I can,” she said. “I went through a pretty significant couple of years trying to figure out what that meant.”
The answer, Crapo said, was right in front of her in her brother-in-law — Rexburg Police Lt. Ray Hermosillo, who recently testified during the Chad Daybell trial about his work as a detective in the case. After doing a couple ride-alongs with him, Crapo decided to go into policing.
Back in 2016, Crapo was selected by Bill Gardiner — who was just recently promoted as the new ISP director — to escort the National Christmas Tree from McCall to Washington, D.C. Toward the beginning of the drive, she was involved in a serious collision with a pickup truck. At the time, Crapo was 28.
“I’ve never forgot the words that this person told me over the phone: ‘I’ve seen a picture of the wreckage. I don’t think she’s going to make it,’” Gardiner said, recalling the day of the crash. “You can imagine my thoughts and my feelings when I heard that message.”
Gardiner drove to the hospital to see Crapo and was relieved to find her safe with minor injuries.
“When I walked into her hospital bed and said to her, ‘are you OK?’ And I’ve never forgotten what she said to me,” Gardiner said. “She said, ‘boss, I’m OK. Have faith in me. I was only hit head-on by a truck.’”
During her time as a police officer, Crapo also worked on the interdiction team with Sgt. Chris Cottrell, who’s been with ISP for over 19 years.
“She is a fantastic individual,” Cottrell said. “She ended up being a very savvy and a very powerful teammate.”
UPHILL CLIMB
It wasn’t always easy for Crapo. There was a time when she wanted to quit, particularly when she was in the ISP Academy.
“My academy started with five females and by the start of week two, I was the only one left,” Crapo recalled.”... Our first two weeks of the Academy, we compared it to a military boot camp. It is terrible. And a lot of them were just like, ‘this is not for me,’ or ‘I can’t do this.’”
So, she did what many would do and called her mom, Robin.
“I was so close to packing my bag, sneaking off the premises and never looking back. I called her and I remember very vividly saying, ‘I don’t know that this is for me,’” Crapo said. “She asked me why, and I was like, ‘well, all these other girls quit, and I’m the only girl. Should I be leaving?’ And she basically told me ‘Well, if the other girls left, doesn’t mean that you should prove exactly why you’re there?’”
That push was exactly what made Crapo stay, even though she felt like an outcast amongst her peers. After a while, she made friends who were supportive and helpful, but as a woman, Crapo felt that she had to prove herself more than her male counterparts did.
Even outside of the academy, Crapo had moments when she felt awkward and uncomfortable. When she was a brand new trooper, Crapo overheard a male trooper say that women shouldn’t be in law enforcement. She immediately went to her female coworkers and told them about it — they told her to not let it bother her, so she did her best not to.
A while later, Crapo ended up in a dangerous encounter after she answered a trooper’s request for assistance with a drunk driver. When she arrived, there were three other men in the car and the drunk driver was not complying with the trooper. When they tried to arrest him, it turned into an “all out fight.” Crapo immediately jumped into the fight and she and the trooper restrained the drunk driver.
The video of the encounter was seen throughout her department.
“That same trooper, right before he left, pulled me into one of the offices and apologized, and was like, ‘hey, I saw your video. I should have never said that in front of you. You’re gonna do great things in your career,’” Crapo said. “But to me, in that moment as a brand new trooper, it was insane that I had to prove myself with a fight for you to say that I should be here.”
ONE OF A MANY
Crapo has been in several situations that would terrify anyone — but for her, moments like that bring strength and confidence, not fear.
“One of the more significant things that I have responded to was the Boise mall shooting,” Crapo said, referring to the October 2021 public shooting that occurred at Boise Towne Square that killed three people, including the gunman, and injured four others. “I was a pretty new sergeant at the time, and I’ll never forget driving there. I thought, ‘Man, I’m about to take eight troopers into this active shooter situation.’”
“When we got to the door, I’ll never forget that moment,” Crapo continued. “I remember looking at all of them and saying, ‘you go in, you watch out for each other, and we all go home tonight.’ And then we went in, we did what we needed to do. But that was a huge moment for myself.”
Moments like that are not few and far between for people like Crapo, who has had too many terrifying experiences to count.
Crapo has been in many pursuits — one in particular was a homicide suspect in Ontario, Oregon, who ended up coming into Idaho. Crapo and her team pursued the suspect on the road and then on foot, where he ultimately ended up giving up, was handcuffed and taken into custody.
On another occasion in Caldwell, there was a man shooting out of his house. ISP, including Crapo, set up a perimeter outside the home.
“We were basically across the street from the guy’s house with our rifles drawn just waiting in case he opened the door,” Crapo recalled.
She was laying in the lawn, rifle drawn, for a long time, preparing for a possible gunfight. It didn’t end up that way, but the mental preparation for the worst case scenario is something she goes through whenever she’s in a dangerous situation.
“You just don’t know how it’s going to end, whether it’s going to end in a shooting or whether they’re going to ultimately give up,” Crapo said.
Her endurance in and through those moments is because of her training and because she’s able to stand on the shoulders of the women who came before her — women who encouraged her to keep going, even when she felt alone. Even though her mom, Robin, passed away in 2021, she still makes the top of that list.
“Even though I lost her, she still remained a huge influence in my life. Because, in the back of my mind, I’m always thinking, ‘am I making her proud?’” Crapo said.
Crapo’s wife, Danielle, and her sisters Christy Hermosillo and Angie Peterson, have all influenced her greatly, Crapo said, and there have been countless women — retired or not — who have impacted her work. Women like the Delaware State Police Col. Melissa Zebley, who reached out to Crapo when she was promoted, have made a difference in how Crapo does her job.
Those women and many others changed Crapo’s path, paving the way for other girls who aspire to join various branches of law enforcement, just like Crapo is now.
“If there’s something you aspire to do and you’re being questioned about it, or people are telling you that you can’t do it, you should absolutely prove them wrong,” Crapo said. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do what you want to do. Set your goals and achieve them. Don’t give up, even when you’re told you can’t do something, you absolutely can.”
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press, read more on IdahoPress.com.
