ICYMI: Montana Highway Patrol in Turmoil Under AG Austin Knudsen
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
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gaby@montanademocrats.org
Helena, MT – New bombshell reporting from the Daily Montanan outlines the depth of Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s disastrous leadership over the Department of Justice and the Montana Highway Patrol (MHP).
As recounted by MHP officers in the Daily Montanan’s reporting, micromanagement, poor communication, a lack of transparency, and retaliation have created turmoil within the law enforcement agency since Knudsen took office.
Read more below.
Daily Montanan: Montana Highway Patrol in turmoil under Attorney General Austin Knudsen, officers say
October 7, 2024
By Keila Szpaller
Former Col. Steve Lavin and some of his colleagues at the Montana Highway Patrol were optimistic when Austin Knudsen was elected as attorney general in 2020.
Knudsen is a former prosecutor himself, he campaigned to “Back the Blue,” and he’d quickly risen to leadership when he served in the Montana Legislature.
Lavin, in fact, had served with him as a Republican legislator from Kalispell from 2011 to 2017.
“I had high hopes,” Lavin said of Knudsen in an interview last week. “I thought this would be good. He talks the talk.”
But Lavin and other career officers who recently left the Montana Highway Patrol said their sense of optimism vanished, in short order for some.
The Montana Highway Patrol is a division under the Department of Justice, and it has new leadership every time a new attorney general is elected.
A lot of times, a new AG can mean subtle changes, at least for those in upper management.
But not last time.
Nearly four years ago, when Knudsen and his administration took the helm, the result was chaos, poor communication, and a lack of trust felt at every level of the agency, according to six officers with a combined 140 years at the Montana Highway Patrol.
“Within the first month, I knew we were in trouble,” said former Lt. Col. Jason Hildenstab, who served more than 23 years with the agency.
Under the Knudsen administration, the officers recalled petty acts staff viewed as disrespectful and sharp reprimands from the AG himself.
They point to an exodus of troopers and inability to retain MHP officers.
This summer, the Department of Justice had 51 vacant positions of 320 total in the Montana Highway Patrol compared to 39 vacancies in February, according to a legislative report of the 2024 fiscal year.
The report said MHP accounts for 57% of all DOJ vacancies.
Many industries have struggled with retention since the COVID-19 pandemic, but officers said the situation with the Highway Patrol is acute, and Knudsen failed to deliver on a plan to bring on more troopers.
He got sideways with top leaders and MHP union members.
At least two formal complaints allege wrongful discharge and retaliation, a recent one filed by Lavin in district court against Knudsen, and another filed by the union against the Department of Justice on behalf of a trooper.
In an earlier email about the Lavin lawsuit from a spokesperson, Knudsen argued the patrol had lost trust in Lavin, and Lavin agreed to retire, contrary to allegations in his lawsuit that he was forced out.
Knudsen declined an interview for this story through a spokesperson.
High hopes for Knudsen
Knudsen had his detractors early on, but they may have been in the minority.
A retired trooper who spoke on condition of anonymity said he had witnessed Knudsen treat others disrespectfully, and he disliked him from the start, although he acknowledged others at the agency felt differently.
“Very consistently across the board, in my multiple interactions with Knudsen, he comes off as very disingenuous,” said the former trooper, who still fears retaliation to his livelihood because of the DOJ’s connections outside the agency.
Most of the former MHP officers who talked with the Daily Montanan said at first, they supported Knudsen as attorney general, and they believed he supported them, too.
“You could feel the positivity when he first came into office,” Nelson said.
Law enforcement officers are generally “a fun bunch,” Lavin said. They’re typically not happy if things stay the same, but they don’t like change, and a small group always complains about something.
“And it didn’t change much with each administration from what I saw,” Lavin said.
Generally, Hildenstab said a new AG trusts the chief of the Highway Patrol with this attitude: “You just keep it running and let me know if there’s a problem.”
Even if the change meant the AG was going from a Democrat to a Republican, or vice versa, one thing traditionally remained constant, Nelson said: “It was still about protecting the citizens of Montana.”
Shawn Smalley, a sergeant when he left MHP after 20 years, said AG Tim Fox, a Republican who preceded Knudsen, was his favorite, but he believed Knudsen would back law enforcement, too.
“I had hopes that he (Knudsen) was going to be good,” Smalley said. “And that completely dissipated.”
