PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Juelie Dalzell will not pursue charges against two Port Gamble S’Klallam tribal officers after the Tribal Council said its officers erred in detaining three nontribal elk hunters in Brinnon on Oct. 3.
Jeromy Sullivan, Port Gamble S’Klallam chairman, said Tuesday the lead officer, Gus Goller, has been fired.
The tribe has been working in cooperation with Dalzell’s office and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and determined the officers in question should not have detained the hunters on nontribal land, Sullivan said.
“I’m out to get him never hired in law enforcement again,” Dalzell said of Goller after a more than two-month review of the evidence.
“I can never give the victims back that day. I can’t make them whole. All I can do is try to protect the public in the future.”
She is recommending that Goller be decommissioned, meaning he would be ineligible to seek employment in law enforcement anywhere in the state.
“It’s been a long time, and I agonized over this,” Dalzell said Tuesday after releasing her prepared statement.
Dalzell said the other officer involved was a reserve officer and following Goller’s orders at the time.
Dalzell’s investigation was prompted by a complaint filed with the Sheriff’s Office by Adam Boling of Brinnon, one of the three hunters, on Oct. 5.
Boling said in his complaint that he, his 2-year-old son and Boling’s two friends, Shelton residents Don Phipps and Danny Phipps, were detained illegally by law enforcement agents of the Port Gamble S’Klallam tribe’s natural resources department.
The tribal officers did not cite the hunters.
Boling declined to comment Tuesday night, saying he had not yet seen the prosecuting attorney’s statement. He said he wanted to first meet with his attorney before commenting.
Outside authority
Sullivan said after reviewing reports from the Sheriff’s Office and state Department of Fish and Wildlife, “We determined that although our officers acted in good faith, they acted outside the scope of their authority.”
The earlier Sheriff’s Office and the Department of Fish and Wildlife investigation concluded that the tribal police — based in Hansville in Kitsap County — acted beyond their authority when they detained the hunters, who were on private land in Jefferson County and had a hunting license, after one shot an elk.
The tribe conducted its own internal investigation.
Tuesday’s conclusion reverses a Port Gamble S’Klallam tribal statement released Oct. 16 that said the officers were within their jurisdiction and operating on the tribe’s “usual and accustomed hunting grounds” when they detained the hunters.
Sullivan’s Tuesday statement said, in part: “This incident has made it apparent that we need to review the current guidelines set forth by Natural Resources Enforcement.
“We will make changes to these procedures as necessary to make sure that laws are properly enforced and an incident like this does not reoccur.”
Halted at gunpoint
Boling, contacted in October, said he and his son watched as Don Phipps shot and killed an elk and then loaded the animal into the back of his pickup truck.
“Then, as we were driving off, two officers came out with guns pointed, screaming that we were under arrest,” Boling said.
“He had Don and Danny down on the ground at gunpoint and kept telling me to drop my son.
“I was holding him in my arms, and they were pointing a handgun and an assault rifle at me, telling me to get on the ground.
“I had to put him down, and he started screaming and crying. That was really, really hard for me to see.”
In his complaint to the Sheriff’s Office, Boling said he was detained for two hours while the tribal law enforcement officers conducted their investigation.
“It was easily two hours,” Boling said. “I kept telling them they had no right to do this, but they kept going.”
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Port Townsend/Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
