Ex-Boise police oversight director says his firing is retaliation for whistleblowing

Three days after being fired by the Boise City Council, former police oversight director Jesus Jara filed a whistleblower lawsuit, alleging that he was retaliated against for investigating complaints against the former police chief and reviewing police activity via body camera footage.

The lawsuit also offers more details on the lead-up to Jara’s suspension earlier this month and his termination on Friday.

On Dec. 2, Jara was put on administrative leave, and Mayor Lauren McLean released a statement saying she had a “lack of confidence” in Jara’s office.

A week later, by a vote of 5-1, the City Council fired Jara on Friday, with city leaders maintaining that Jara had surveilled police and the public by frequently watching police body cameras as the director of the Office of Police Accountability, a semi-independent agency tasked with reviewing citizen complaints against police.

McLean then put out a news release accusing Jara of exploiting his access ”by randomly viewing over 8,000 videos, almost exclusively without cause.” Jara alleged that the news release is libelous, and that the city punished him for doing his job.

A spokesperson for the mayor’s office, Maria Weeg, declined to comment on pending litigation.

What does the lawsuit say?

Jara previously worked as an investigative analyst in an earlier version of the city’s police oversight office, as well as in the city’s human resources office. Before taking over as director of the accountability office in June 2021, he worked in human resources in Oregon.

When he was hired, Jara alleges he received “conflicting guidance” about what to do when complaints about high-level officers came across his desk. A city regulation was updated to allow him to conduct “director’s investigations” in certain instances instead of forwarding them to the Office of Internal Affairs.

McLean’s chief of staff, Courtney Washburn, told him that the city was “working” on an update to the ordinance about how to handle sensitive complaints against police leaders, the lawsuit said.

In early 2022, the lawsuit implies, McLean was happy with Jara’s performance. The suit said he was “regularly praised for his excellent work” this year, and that he received a $1,000 “flex reward” in March, as well as close to a $20,000 “performance-based” promotional raise. In August, he also received a 1.5% salary bonus. (The McLean administration has not yet responded to an Idaho Statesman request for Jara’s salary.)

But Jara’s lawsuit suggests his troubles were already beginning in February, when he received an email from the police department’s Office of Internal Affairs, then run by Capt. Tom Fleming, raising concerns about former Chief Ryan Lee’s “interference” in internal investigations.

The Internal Affairs office, like Jara’s, is designed to investigate police misconduct, but unlike Jara’s office, it reports to the chief. Jara reported to Washburn.

“Approximately nine separate BPD staff members,” including in command-level positions, submitted complaints to Jara about Lee that month, the lawsuit said.

“The complaints ranged from general concerns regarding hostile work environment and retaliation, to concerns regarding waste of public funds and manpower, to serious concerns of interference in ongoing (Internal Affairs) investigations arising from concerns of excessive use of force by active officers and allegations of otherwise criminal behavior and violations of the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics,” the lawsuit said.

The suit notes that the complaints included concerns that Internal Affairs had failed to “investigate or discipline” one officer Jara believed to have been subject to about nine use-of-force investigations, nine citizen complaints and three department-initiated investigations. Jara thought the officer had been involved in “abusive treatment towards a refugee juvenile.”

Another concern was about a Boise officer who “may have made inconsistent (or potentially dishonest) representations” about an off-duty shooting he was involved in that left a person dead, the lawsuit said.

Lee, whom McLean appointed chief in 2020, was also investigated for allegedly injuring an officer’s neck during a training in autumn 2021. No criminal charges were filed, but a prosecutor who reviewed an investigation by the Idaho State Police called it a “close call.” That incident is not mentioned in Jara’s lawsuit.

Jara reported the complaints to Washburn, noting that they seemed “pretty severe,” the lawsuit said. He asked whether his office should handle the initial investigation or whether it should be sent to an external organization.

In response, Washburn said the complaints were probably from officers who had “already reached out to her office and others in the city” and “were always making noise,” according to the lawsuit.

Between Feb. 23 and March 18, Jara interviewed each of the officers who had complained about Lee and other members of the Police Department, according to the lawsuit. He then wrote a memorandum summarizing the complaints and delivered it to the mayor’s office on April 5.

Jara’s memo recommended placing Lee on leave while the complaints were investigated further by himself or a third party. Three days later, Washburn responded, telling Jara that his office’s involvement in the complaints was over for the time being. The lawsuit does not say why.

In May, a memo from Washburn informed Jara that the third party — whose identity City Hall has not disclosed — had reviewed the complaints and determined that “there has been no violation of city or Boise Police Department policy or procedure,” the lawsuit said.

Later that month, the lawsuit said Jara received a question from a local journalist asking him about his office’s recommendation to suspend Lee. Jara did not respond, the lawsuit said. But a week later he got an email from Washburn “accusing him of releasing ‘confidential information.’ ”

Jara says there was ‘change in the work environment’

In June, another memo from Washburn told Jara not to investigate complaints from city employees about workplace conditions, the lawsuit said. That appears to have included complaints about the work environment under Lee.

Jara’s lawsuit said the memo “unreasonably restricted (his office’s) ability to perform its legal duties.”

In September, about four months after Washburn allegedly accused Jara of revealing confidential information, KTVB published the first page of Jara’s memo about complaints against Lee, including interviews with two officers, Captains Matt Bryngelson and Tom Fleming, who were among the complainants. A day later, McLean asked Lee to resign.

After Jara’s memo became public, “he began to be isolated by city officials,” the lawsuit said.

In October, McLean told the Statesman that the public release of the memo was “unprecedented,” and that the chief could not continue to lead in such an “environment.”

McLean added that the officers complaining about Lee had been “venue shopping,” taking their complaints to departments across the city. At that point, complaints had been lodged with Internal Affairs, the city’s Human Resources Department and the Office of Police Accountability.

At the time, McLean also noted that Jara’s recommendation to put Lee on leave “waded into personnel matters” and was “unauthorized by their ordinance.”

Jara had three meetings in October with City Council members and Washburn, the lawsuit said. On Oct. 13, Washburn sent him a memo reiterating the June memo’s directive that complaints from police officers should be handled by Human Resources.

On Nov. 1, another memo from McLean and two council members, Elaine Clegg and Holli Woodings, said there were “instances where the office has exceeded its legislative authority” and “failed to follow through with certain responsibilities,” the lawsuit said.

“Mr. Jara’s meetings with city leadership became increasingly hostile, and Mr. Jara became concerned with what he believed to be efforts to ‘censor’ (his office’s) investigations,” the lawsuit said.

On Nov. 21, Jara filed a grievance against city officials, according to the lawsuit. A day later, the police oversight office’s access to evidence databases was revoked.

At a meeting that day, Jara and McLean, Clegg, Woodings, Council Member Jimmy Hallyburton and Washburn discussed the office’s practice of reviewing officer body camera footage. Jara said the mayor’s office accused him of “live auditing” such video, which he said he could not do. The mayor’s office also accused him of exceeding his authority by auditing past body camera videos.

Jara’s suit argues such a practice is within the scope of the office’s ordinance. But he did not specify why he watched the videos except to say that city law allows him to “conduct regular review of police actions” and also cites part of the code that says he can provide “on-scene monitoring of critical incidents.”

Clegg — who is City Council president and was one of the five council members who voted to fire Jara — told the Statesman on Friday that the ordinance that governs the accountability office instructs the director to open investigations when a citizen complains about a police interaction, or when a critical incident — meaning use of severe force or a vehicle interaction that results in serious injury or death — occurs. Other than that, the office is not supposed to investigate incidents without cause, she said.

The ordinance lists review of citizen complaints, audits of internal investigations into police conduct, investigations of critical incidents, analyzing data and making recommendations to improve city policy among the office’s duties.

This fall, the two officers who spoke to KTVB about Lee made news themselves.

Fleming, who retired in July, filed a whistleblower lawsuit of his own against the city in early November. His attorney, Grady Hepworth, also represents Jara.

And Bryngelson, who retired in August, was connected to racist blog posts and a scheduled appearance at a white nationalist conference. The city hired a law firm to investigate the racism earlier this month.

Jara’s lawsuit, filed in Idaho’s Fourth District Court in Boise, includes a request for damages and a demand for a jury trial. The Statesman has requested copies of complaints Jara has lodged against the city.