As a full-time and freelance reporter for various news outlets, I have covered the environment, tribes, growth, extremism, and crime, among many other subjects in western Montana, Idaho, Washington, and elsewhere in the West. My four-part investigation into the drugging of children at a psychiatric residential treatment center for adolescents in Montana led to its closure. My investigation into end-of-life treatment at the Montana State Hospital led the governor to launch an audit. I aim to dig deeply and write engagingly about what’s happening in the West.

Reporting for Lee Enterprises

Native American students say school pushed prescribed drugs on kids, threatened punishment

The use of punishment to push students to take medications, including psychotropic medications, is legally and ethically questionable, experts say. 

Kids were prescribed medications at their Native American school. Their parents had no idea.

Naomi Johnson was devastated, she said, when she saw what her girls were carrying off the bus that transported them home to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation from the Flandreau Indian School: “big bags of medicine.” 

One year later, federal response to parental concerns about Native school still unclear

Of seven complaints involving Flandreau Indian School that have been filed since 2018, the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General has not directly investigated any of them.  

Untrained employees mishandled kids’ meds at Native American boarding school, staff allege

A lack of training and a disorganized system contributed to “med errors,” including some students being “given the wrong medication," said one long-time teacher at the BIE-operated Flandreau Indian School.

Witnesses: Tribal police threatened Native American man before fatally shooting him

“The cop had — it wasn’t a pistol,” she said. “It was what I would consider a high-powered rifle, and (the cop) made the comment that those bullets were for Jacob. When you say that to a mother, that will never leave you. So I knew all along, for some reason, they wanted him dead.”  

As police kill Native Americans on this reservation, families left afraid and in the dark

In over a dozen interviews, residents, former tribal officials and even ex-law enforcement officers said repeatedly that Rosebud Sioux tribal police use force unlawfully, selectively enforce the law, harass residents and violate their civil rights. 

Rapid City police killed 7 people in 3 years. All were Indigenous. Will the feds intervene?

Disproportionate rates of arrest, incarceration, victimization and fatal encounters have produced a palpable and ever-present feeling of racism in Rapid City’s Native community, said Sunny Red Bear, associate director of organizing for the Rapid City-based activist group NDN Collective.

Cops kill Native Americans at a rate 5X that of whites and 3X of Blacks. Why?

Interviews with dozens of surviving family members, law enforcement officers, attorneys and others — as well as reporting trips to Native American communities both on and off tribal land and the examination of lawsuits, police records and other documents and data — give new insight about the forces that have been fueling these deaths.

Examining Student Safety in the Bureau of Indian Education System

As the federal government reckons with the troubled history of its system for educating Native American students, this three-part series aimed to determine whether student harm is widespread within the BIE.

‘Hunting for Clean Energy in the West’

As federal, state and local governments pursue ambitious targets to end carbon pollution from power production, energy communities across the West are facing an uncertain future. This series examines what the adoption of clean-energy technologies like small-modular reactors, wind and solar farms, and hydrogen power plants will mean for the future of electricity production, jobs, tax revenue and the environment as the transition takes place.

Reporting from Investigate West

Tribes Look To Renewable Energy To Power Jobs Of The Future

From Florida to Alaska, dozens of tribes are working to harness energy from wind, sun and water to generate millions of dollars in revenue, create short- and long-term jobs and reduce utility costs for citizens, while also helping combat climate change and boost energy independence.

Reporting from The Spokesman-Review

‘We’re still here’: Colville tribal member’s long battle against declaration of extinction reaches Canadian Supreme Court

BOUNDARY, WASH. - The descendants of the Sinixt once moved freely across this landscape, far into what is now British Columbia, into a country that considers them officially extinct. But a 2010 hunt will soon force the Supreme Court of Canada to at last come up with a definitive answer as to their existence.

‘It has to be meaningful’: Parents recall a life that began in Spokane and ended in apparent political killing in Portland

The instant in which Aaron “Jay” Danielson’s life was taken has been the subject of countless news articles, fodder in the heated presidential campaign, and a significant flashpoint in the political divisiveness and unrest roiling much of the country. But while that moment has been boiled down in the minds of many to a simple and stark dichotomy, Danielson’s parents said the truth of who their son was and how he ended up dead at about 9 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 29, is vastly more complex and personal.

Concerns about ex-comic starting a ‘Ruby-Ridge-style compound’ roil Boundary County

GOOD GRIEF, IDAHO – Glen Oakes took a ride on his four-wheeler to the dead end of Earl Lane Road in northern Boundary County on Wednesday morning to do something many of his neighbors have been reluctant to do: Welcome the new occupants of a recently purchased 10-acre parcel along the Moyie River.

‘It’s time to bring them back’: Tribes’ canoe journey calls attention to loss of salmon, legacy of residential schools

FORT SPOKANE, WASH. - They may have been paddling upstream, but the wind was at their backs. Their hand-carved cedar canoes may have weighed 800 pounds and stretched 31 feet in length, but they moved easily through the waters of the Columbia River. The salmon may have been barred from those waters some 80 years ago, but the Spokane and Colville tribal members who began the six-day, 60-mile journey from Fort Spokane to Kettle Falls on Tuesday morning believe schools of salmon will one day follow them along the same route. And while colonialist forces have worked, sometimes brutally, to strip them of their native language, they counted their strokes in Salish, made jokes in Salish and sang in Salish as they paddled between the reservations they were allotted when their ancestral territories were taken.

‘Coerced’ murder confession complicates case against one Bonners Ferry chiropractor accused of killing another

BONNERS FERRY, IDAHO - A murder case fell into doubt last month when a judge ruled that the suspect’s rights were violated, that his confession was coerced and that his admission of guilt – and everything that followed in his interview with investigators – should be thrown out. Meanwhile, a defense attorney has raised a whole host of accusations, insinuations and uncertainties about how the case has been handled – and about who may have had a motive to see Drake dead.

‘A lot to prove’: Can ‘green’ boost propel Bunker Hill to reopen as a clean, low-impact mine?

KELLOGG, IDAHO - The key to unlocking the mine’s apparently rich reserves is growing demand for lead, zinc and silver. And what’s driving that demand, in part, is one of the forces that contributed to Bunker Hill’s closure in the first place: environmental concern. As people and companies seek ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they are pursuing new technologies that rely heavily on metals that must be mined.

As Rathdrum Prairie disappears, with no plan to save it, some farmers are holding out – for now

RATHDRUM, IDAHO - If nothing is done soon to preserve open space, it’s possible, if not likely, that the last bits of the prairie could be a couple of large parcels allocated for what’s known as “land application”: irrigating with treated wastewater.

‘Burnt, like I am’: After fires burn through Colville Reservation, efforts underway to recover, adapt

MONSE, WASH. - When the fire roared down the western edge of the Colville Reservation, Jimmy Timentwa jumped in the 2002 cherry red convertible Corvette he won in a casino drawing and left the cattle ranch that has been in his family for a century. Behind him came his sister, Elaine Timentwa Emerson, the back of her SUV filled with a sample of the traditional handwoven baskets she has devoted much of her life to laboriously crafting and teaching others to craft, some of which have found their way into museum and private collections.

Getting There: Can a 6-lane I-90 and $1.5 billion prevent gridlock in 300,000-person Kootenai County?

It’s safe to say people aren’t moving in droves to North Idaho because they want to sit in gridlocked traffic. But that’s already starting to happen and will become a daily occurrence if nothing is done to expand the county’s highways and roads.

Complete archive of stories

Click above to view a complete list of breaking, enterprise and investigative reporting as well as my weekly transportation column, Getting There, from The Spokesman-Review.

Reporting from The Montana Standard

Montana State Hospital’s end-of-life care questioned: A 3-part investigative series

The revelation that the state mental hospital, whose self-described mission is to provide “psychiatric evaluation, treatment and rehabilitation services for adults with severe mental illness,” is placing most Spratt patients on comfort care measures that call for doctors “to relieve pain and suffering” rather than actively treat medical issues, has advocates from Disability Right Montana, which works to protect the rights of Montanans with disabilities, deeply concerned.

Kids in crisis, care in question: A 4-part investigative series

When an outcry erupted earlier this month in Oregon over the use of injected medication to chemically restrain a 9-year-old girl at Acadia Montana, it brought attention both in and out of state to the Butte psychiatric residential treatment center for adolescents.

But it wasn't the first time the facility has faced allegations of mistreatment. 

Big Hole range rider tracks wolves toward middle ground

Chet Robertson found the spot he was headed to on a recent morning by doing what he’s done six hours a day, July through September, for the last eight summers: following wolves.

Hostage in Butte standoff shows up at suspected hijacker's hearing
'so he knows I understand’

"Right now, I feel like there's somebody with a gun in my back, and it's pretty horrible," Baumgartner said before Gibson entered the courtroom. "But I'm not here against this guy. I'm here to be there so he knows I understand. ... I feel bad for what I did to him, as stupid as that sounds." 

High-tech bird-hazing techniques on display at the Berkeley Pit

On Friday afternoon, Ian Fairweather, president of Fairweather IT, remotely navigated a six-propeller drone his company designed and built toward an exhausted snow goose that had recently landed on the placid, reflective water of the Berkeley Pit.

Comeback tale of the westslope cutthroat trout: A fresh controversy arises

As mist moves over the foothills of Ted Turner's Flying D ranch, the bison that linger and roam in the rain stand out as an obvious indicator that this native species has found a refuge on this 175-square-mile spread southwest of Bozeman and northeast of Ennis.

Parrot project discovers more extensive contamination than many expected

Overlooking the massive, tiered hole in the earth near where the Parrot smelter once stood and where a fleet of heavy equipment was rapidly moving dirt, clay, slag and tailings on Friday morning, Water and Environmental Technologies Senior Engineer John Trudnowski explained the scene below in the most understated of terms: “What you’re seeing right here is more or less a backfill operation.”

That might technically be true, but what was actually happening was a major environmental cleanup that has been in the works since at least 2006, when the state of Montana began pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to remove the buried contamination to protect Blacktail and Silver Bow creeks.

Montana Tech releases draft plan to eliminate programs, faculty positions

Montana Tech will undergo a significant cutting and reshuffling of its faculty, staff, and programs if the university follows through with the recommendations made in a draft report released Friday afternoon.

Puzzling Uptown propeller explained...sort of

But ultimately, after weeks of following tentative leads, the mystery of the massive propeller sitting inside a fence on an empty lot on the 600 block of South Washington Street was solved — or rather, was somewhat solved — through a phone call from Walkerville.

Complete archive of stories

Click above to view a complete list of breaking, enterprise and investigative reporting from The Montana Standard.

Reporting from the Missoula Independent

Freedom Fighter

When rancher Cliven Bundy engaged in a standoff with the BLM, a Montana man initiated a call to action to militia across the country. He considers it just the first battle in a war to reclaim America.

An Interview with Steve Albini

According to Silkworm, an excellent band that started out in Missoula in the '90s, Albini was known around Hellgate High as “Albini the Weenie.” When I called him to conduct an interview, I asked him if this was true and he wouldn't quite answer: “I think,” he said, “that was more local mythology than anything else.”

In Society's Shadows

Legislators, activists and law enforcement are working to combat human trafficking in Montana, but first they have to find the victims. (Archive not available online.)

Translating Tragedy

As Missoula watches Markus Kaarma’s murder trial, a nation abroad waits for justice. (Archive not available online.)

Close Encounters

Montana has a long and involved history of reported UFO sightings, unexplained crop circles and suspicious cattle mutilations. So, is the truth really out there? (Archive not available online.)

Complete archive of stories

A complete archive of news reporting, arts coverage, features and reviews from the Missoula Independent is not currently available due to the paper’s closure.

Reporting from KBMF

Butte struggles to fill gap without homeless shelter

Kevin Foster says it started last month, when he pulled over at a Wyoming rest stop, on his way
from Texas to Butte, where he was coming to be closer to his 11- and 12-year- old sons.

Warden announces closure of Department of Corrections boot camp

The Montana Correctional Enterprises ranch spreads across golden grassland west of Deer Lodge and just east of the Flint Creek Range.

Dioxin at Montana Pole Plant will be left in place, capped

Aimee Reynolds knows a lot about dioxins. A risk assessor with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the agency’s contaminated site bureau chief, Reynolds has spent a significant part of her career trying to find ways to remove these highly toxic, cancer-causing compounds from contaminated sites around the state, from Frenchtown to Columbia Falls.

Economics, environment intersect at Superfund site

Last week, I went up to Montana Tech to hear Pat Williams give a talk. Williams, a Butte native (and cousin of Evel Knievel) who represented Montana for nine consecutive terms in the US House of Representatives, was there to discuss his role in helping craft the nation’s Superfund law, to promote Butte’s initial listing under the law, and to ensure the Butte Hill got the clean-up it needed.