Part Two: Officer Sarah Boggs and the Shoalwater Bay Workplace. 

After nearly four years of no hope under the current administration, a new HR gave some confidence that finally her concerns would be heard, understood, and changes made. Sarah's trust in the new HR was understandable because the HR Director gave every indication of being professional and proactive, and Sarah decided to take a chance.

In this way, Sarah opted to follow the Tribe's handbook and report her concerns to HR. In the first complaint to the new Human Resource Director, Sarah was not ready to address poor workplace conditions directly. Instead, Sarah focused on various forms of unethical behavior that she had witnessed. Within a financial context Sarah mentioned the word abuse along with fraud and theft.

As she told Washington State Internal Affairs investigator James Riley, Sarah was very upset that the administration manipulated her report when they "decided, for some reason, to separate these two complaints." Here Sarah pointed out how the administration parsed out her fraud complaint, leaving out the theft and fraud aspect, capitalizing instead on the word "abuse." Not in financial terms as the context would seem to imply. "Now," Sarah said, "this is alarming, and it – in itself, is a hard environment to work for. But when I blew the whistle, it was over theft."

Sarah had realized that her complaint had been twisted and manipulated to place the focus on "abuses" by police management, something she had not intended. The administration's action was not only alarming but also part of the hard environment within the Shoalwater Bay workplace that was used to brand her as an empty complainer, making her appear disgruntled and disloyal. HR also immediately leaked her complaints unfiltered and readjusted in a manipulated way; strategies that usually served to give a message not to make complaints in future or face severe consequences.

Findings:

Placing the appearance of a healthy work environment over substance: This overriding focus has lead to a heavy emphasis on discouraging complaints rather than taking steps to improve the workplace in practice. Instead, the administration and management have employed various ways to retaliate against unwelcome speech; including ignoring the complaint, leaking an expressed concern to management in a way that places the employee in an unfavorable light, and failing to protect the employee from negative consequences for filing a concern.

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 source used: Washington State Patrol. Internal Affairs Investigator James Riley. Case #: OU18-1445. Statement: Shoalwater Bay Tribal Officer Sarah Boggs, October 19, 2018.