A good cup of coffee and the jailing of BLM ranger Jeff Ellison

Last night I ran into Scott Groene, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) executive director, and he asked me how things had changed in Escalante/Boulder in the last 30 years. I told him I could now get a good cup of coffee, but politically things were just about the same. Scott knew that I’ve been active in environmental issues for 35 years in Southern Utah and that in the 1980s I was shot at and endured house vandalism because I filed timber sales on Boulder Mountain and fought the paving of the Burr Trail.

I explained to Scott the ongoing conditions of harassment by telling him the story of a BLM ranger who I met in late October of last year. Jeff Ellison was a first-year BLM ranger in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. He had transferred in from National Park Service work at Yosemite National Park. We chatted in my driveway, which is where I met him after he had finished installing a box near a vandalized petroglyph panel within the monument. The box was so visitors could read about the importance of conserving artifacts and a place where they could write comments or otherwise leave their mark. I have a five-acre in-holding just a short distance from that petroglyph panel.

Ellison told me that the previous July he had been walking around the Calf Creek Campground talking to visitors about the campfire program he was going to give that evening when he was confronted by a man who told him, “The feds did not have jurisdiction on this land and if he stepped into his campsite again he was going to shoot him.” The man made sure that Ellison saw he was packing a holstered gun on his waist. At the time there was no BLM law enforcement in this part of the monument, so Ellison called the sheriff. The man packed up and drove away, but Ellison got the license plate number. The sheriff’s deputy showed up two hours later and they tracked the man to Beaver, Utah. Nothing more happened. Three months later, BLM officials did not have an answer to Jeff’s inquiries about what would be done about this man whom Ellison believed had committed a felony. I encouraged him to not just let it go and press the BLM for answers.

I didn’t hear from Ellison again until mid-December, a week before he was to leave Utah for a new job. He said he was in trouble and didn’t know where to turn. He thought he needed a lawyer. Could I help? It seems that Ellison had a “water cooler” discussion with an office secretary in the monument offices in Escalante just three days before. She happened to be the mayor’s sister and the mother-in-law of a deputy sheriff. Apparently, the discussion was about Middle East politics, and during the discussion, Ellison, who is also a decorated Irag War veteran, explained the meaning of an IED (improvised explosive device), a weapon used in terrorist action in the Middle East. Apparently, the deputy’s mother-in-law was unfamiliar with the term.

The next morning, two deputy sheriff’s arrived at Ellison’s door and began to question him about his previous day’s conversation at the office. He explained that it was a harmless conversation, but the deputies alleged that Ellison had made some kind of threat. Ellison said there was absolutely no threat in any of the conversation. They told him that their boss disagreed and wanted “to make an example of him.” They cuffed him, and read him his rights halfway to the jail where they would fingerprint him and where he would spend the night. He was bailed out the next day and told to come back in a few days, when they would tell him what the charges against him were. When he returned home, he found out the BLM had interviewed the secretary as well as another ranger who witnessed the conversation. Both had stated that there had been no threat in Ellison’s conversation.

The whole situation seemed so bizarre to me that I asked Ellison if there had been any other problems at work that might help explain this situation. He said whatever problems he had were minor. We then speculated that his problems may have started with the campground incident. The sheriff was known to have problems with the BLM and specifically law enforcement. He testified to that at congressional hearings chaired by congressman Rob Bishop. The fact is that many Western sheriffs do not believe that the federal government has jurisdiction over federal land in their counties. To us, we thought that the reason the sheriff did not arrest a man who threatened a federal employee could have been that the sheriff agreed with the man’s political beliefs.

In a Feb. 2 High Country News article entitled “The Rise of the Sagebrush Sheriffs,” Johnathan Thompson wrote, “Among those officials are a growing cadre of county sheriffs, many of them from the rural West, who believe themselves above the reach of the federal government, constitutionally empowered as the supreme law of the land. Some have chosen to become part of this movement, while others have joined unwittingly, by taking strong political stances or acting on the behalf of local anti-government movements.”

Jessica Goad of the Center for Western Priorities says, “When law enforcement refuses to enforce the laws, it sends a dangerous signal to extremists. It serves to embolden those who tend towards violence. This rhetoric and stance has an extremely chilling effect on the people who are doing their jobs — from park rangers to environmental activists. The thought that the sheriff doesn’t enforce the law is scary.”

Ellison’s chose Patrick Shea, who used to head the BLM in 1997, as his lawyer. Shea told the DA he had no case and to drop the whole thing. The DA resisted because the sheriff wanted to continue with the charges. Ellison was charged with disorderly conduct and threats of violence. Maybe the threat of a counter-lawsuit and front page publicity made them change their mind. Nobody is sure why, but the charges were dropped, and Ellison was free to go. He left the state the very next day. He has two years to file a wrongful arrest lawsuit, and I am encouraging him to do just that.

Yes, the coffee has improved. But around Escalante/Boulder, not much else has. The threats and intimidation continue to reverberate through the county. Other BLM employees have been threatened with the loss of their jobs by overzealous county officials who believe that this is their land and that “outsiders” have no right to interfere. I am afraid we beg to differ.

Written by Robert Weinick