Part Four: Crisis and Aftermath. 

The media crisis that followed is rare in our Tribe's history; this is because the Tribe usually does not create a situation where all the documentation about the Shoalwater Bay Tribe and its people are available and open to public and media discovery. Despite this, how events were handled is consistent with continuing problems within our workplaces. The specific incidents are different of course, few events are as dramatic in terms of media attention, yet the themes that allow and facilitate a difficult work environment have not changed much.

One of the most prominent key aspects of the Shoalwater Bay workplace is the administration's (and many manager’s) desire to control and filter information before it gets to Tribal Council. Tribal members and especially regular employees can receive a heavy retaliation if they speak to a Council member about a concern. The negative consequences of this overly stringent application of speech control is that it can obstruct Council awareness and allow various tribal institutions to operate with little or no checks and balances.

Managing Tribal Council's Perceptions

The administration could no longer contain the Internal Affairs Investigation from Council when a police officer stepped up and alerted Tribal leadership. This report to Council most likely happened because the tribal administration dropped negative and potentially traumatic information on a targeted officer before their Internal Affairs interview; following a similar distress-inducing-strategy used against Officer Kristof Aho before his interview.

Just before the November 9, 2018, interview the tribal administration threatened a Shoalwater Bay management-level officer to either resign or face termination. The officer told investigators (this information is recorded and transcribed) that the Shoalwater HR Director, on that day, informed the officer that they, “needed to resign from employment prior to the completion of this investigation, uh – because if not, I was most likely going to be terminated.” It was around this time that Council was directly alerted to the Internal Affairs investigation, sparking a new crisis management challenge, that of explaining the events to a Tribal Council that had been kept in the dark up to that point.

To manage Tribal Council perceptions the administration took two significant steps in their strategy. First, the employee who was accused of revealing information to Tribal Council was fired. The move was a retaliatory action, but more importantly, it served to disgrace the person, discredit the report, weaken the person at all levels, and get the employee out of the way. Next, the administration had to convince Council that their actions were justified. To do this they required the materials and findings of the State Internal Affairs investigation. 

When the administration asked for the materials Detective Riley informed them that the final report was far from complete, he had a few audio recordings that could be sent, but the most important interview transcriptions were not done yet. Transcriptions were needed for quotes, and a final report was not possible due to time constraints, see Detective James Riley email string of November 13-14, 2018, Washington State Internal Affairs documentation.

The Shoalwater Bay administration resigned itself to a partial set of audio recordings, writing back to internal affairs that, "Audio would be enough for now. A complaint has been made to the council regarding how I handled the investigation and they want to interview me on Friday. I may not get to listen to all the audio but I can say it was helpful in making the decision to terminate the Lt. It appears the chief and/or the Lt. have the council's ear." In this way, after the fact, the administration was able to present a convincing case to Council. Tribal leadership was misinformed that the firing was firmly based on evidence obtained in a high-level investigation, that all was in order, and administration actions fully justified the termination of a command-level employee.

The Aftermath

When knowledge about the Washington State Internal Affairs investigation hit the media, reporter Natalie St. John contacted Washington State Patrol's Government and Media Relations Director for comment. Internal Affairs immediately alerted the administration, causing them to scramble as intense media, community, and Tribal Council scrutiny hit the Shoalwater Bay Tribe and the Pacific County Press.

Sarah Boggs was a key figure in the media attention that followed, something that did not help her within the Shoalwater Bay workplace. As the situation escalated Sarah was driven to heavy despair and helplessness; the Tribe's official structures and institutions let her down. In an attempt to defend herself in the middle of a media storm, Sarah filed a complaint with Pacific County police authorities.

In 2019 Sarah's case was sent to the Lewis County Sheriff's office citing conflict of interest concerns with Pacific County. In the Incident Report by Detective Gabriel J. Frase, Sarah expressed intense despair fearing she could be physically harmed and was, she felt, on the verge of being removed from her position. "I'm assuming I'm gonna get fired," she told the detective, "maybe, worse I don't know." These documents are available at request from the U.S. government.

Findings:

Control and the Filtering of Information from Tribal Council: One of the most prominent key aspects of the Shoalwater Bay workplace is the administration's (and many manager’s) desire to control and filter information before it gets to Tribal Council. Tribal members and especially regular employees can receive heavy retaliation if they speak to a Council member about a concern. The negative consequences of this overly stringent application of speech control is that it can obstruct Council awareness and allow various tribal institutions to operate with little or no checks and balances.

Article Documentation Basis: Tribal News in Perspective: A fact-based editorial on Shoalwater Bay Tribal News based on documents, interviews, and evidence. Page numbers and quotations come from the main sources used: Washington State Patrol. Internal Affairs Investigator James Riley. Case #: OU18-1445. Statement: Shoalwater Bay Tribal Officer Sarah Boggs, October 19, 2018. Detective James Riley email string of November 13-14, 2018. Emails from Communications Director John Shaffer, Police Lieutenant Kessler (WSP), and internal affairs investigator James Riley on November 26, 2018. Lewis County Sheriff's office 2019 Incident Report conducted by Detective Gabriel J. Frase.