A response

In response to letters written in rebuttal of my claim that Billy Hill has never been a sworn law enforcement officer, peace officer or reserve deputy, I shall attempt to clarify the issue.

There is no dispute that Billy Hill was a special deputy, a search and rescue member, or that he helped the sheriff’s office on occasion. My claim is that Billy Hill was never a reserve deputy or a peace officer, as he has stated. Some people believe this is a simple matter of terminology. Judges, attorneys, and arbitrators have another name for it; they call it the law. They also have a habit of holding people to it in both criminal and civil cases.

The difference between a special deputy and a reserve deputy is night and day. A special deputy is not a law enforcement officer and has no arrest authority. A reserve deputy is a sworn law officer and has arrest authority when on duty. The law defining this is quite clear and goes back to when Billy Hill claims he was reserve deputy.  Full-time law enforcement officers, who are synonymous with peace officers under Montana law, and reserve deputies, are the only two kinds of legally recognized Montana sworn law officers. If you are not one of these, you are not a Montana cop.

Special deputies, auxiliary deputies, and all other types of non-sworn deputies are absolutely not law enforcement officers under Montana law and have no law enforcement authority beyond that of the average citizen. This has been affirmed in court cases where arrests made by non-law enforcement deputies were considered false arrests because they were not sworn law officers.

All of Billy Hill’s documentation and letters that I have seen so far attest that he was a special deputy or a Search and Rescue Special Deputy. I quite agree that he was, but neither of these are law enforcement officers or peace officers. This is not my opinion; this is Montana law.

Since writing the letter about Billy Hill, rumors have had me committing more heinous acts in the last two weeks than I’ve was accused of in the 20 years I was a McLaughlin Creek renegade. My favorite so far is picking up a dog by its ears and throwing it over a fence - on a call that I wasn’t even on. If you have heard any others please let me know, I am collecting them for my book. I must respond to at least the ones leveled at me in writing by Mike Bauer.

I signed the Undersheriff title to my name, with the Sheriff’s permission, because Billy Hill’s claims of being a peace officer and reserve deputy offended me as a law enforcement officer. All of my work and writing on this subject is done on my own time and at home on my own computer, so I did not violate 13-35-226 and will not be paying the $500 fine Mike Bauer was hoping for. All of the information I have about Billy Hill or this campaign is from sources accessible to the public. Nothing came from the Sheriff’s Office files. No candidate, including Billy Hill, has promised me anything for writing these letters. Tom Rummel and Doug Dryden both know whom I am supporting for Sheriff and I remain friends with both of them. However, I do hope when Mike Bauer was a law enforcement officer, he didn’t make his arrests or accusations before doing any investigation, as he did in his letter about me. That might be the method in his former department, but here we do the investigation first.

His point about my good judgment, though, is well taken. If I wanted to use good judgment I would not have written the letter about Billy Hill at all. Until three weeks ago I was Billy Hill’s friend and could have covered all of my continued employment bases by remaining silent. The fact that I have openly challenged Billy Hill’s credibility only shows how important I believe it to be that the voting citizens know the truth. In short, I have everything to lose and nothing to gain by doing this. Except, of course, being able to look at myself in the mirror each morning - which is getting tougher to do with each passing year anyway.

There is some good news, or at least potential entertainment in all of this. Billy Hill put out notices that he is bringing his documentation to the VFW Hall in Plains on Friday, September 24th and he publicly invited me to be present. I spoke at length with Mr. Hill outside of that very location and as you may imagine, we had quite the conversation. He accepted my offer of a public debate on the issue of whether he was a sworn law officer and graciously agreed to put off his fundraiser until the debate is over. (Note to Mike Bauer: Billy did this voluntarily, I did not hold him at gunpoint) We are currently working out the details of the debate and the time is set at 6:00pm. So, in the spirit of the Lincoln-Douglas and Nixon-Kennedy debates, we now have Hill-Wrightsman (I am gracious also-you see, I even give Mr. Hill first billing). I sincerely urge all of you, no matter whom you support, to attend. You will be able to tell you grandchildren you were there.

A few minutes after sending this letter to the editor, I received an email from Billy Hill’s representative, Roger Wicke. He stated that Billy Hill wants to postpone the debate until early October in order to devote a full evening to it and that Billy will get in touch with me. We will let you know the time, date, and place for the rescheduled debate.