A tort claim against the Boundary County Sheriffs Office and a patrol deputy over the arrest of former Boundary County resident James Conachen was dismissed April 29 by Idaho Court District Judge Edward Lodge without oral arguments.

On the evening of February 18, 2008, Conachen, who had a long history of filing complaints about cars speeding through his neighborhood, phoned in two reports to sheriffs dispatchers of a vehicle revving its engine, spinning its tires and “speeding recklessly” by his house in excess of the posted 25 mile per hour speed limit.

Dispatchers sent deputies to his home, and one of them, Donald Van Meter, according to Conachen, “entered his property with an assault rifle, ordering him out of his house, to drop the spot light he held in his hand and to lay face down in the snow.”

Conachen asserted that he was then handcuffed and tasered by the deputy, without being told why he was being arrested.

Officers on the scene, according to the court record, didn’t necessarily dispute Mr. Conachen’s account, but “contend they acted reasonably in light of the threats Mr. Conachen had made in his calls to BCSD Dispatch that evening, the fact that he was armed with a .45 caliber pistol, and he was actively resisting officers.”

Conachen, owner of Air and Sea Composites, a firm that purportedly sold stealth aircraft to the military, moved to Boundary County in 2006, and before the night he was arrested for obstructing justice had filed numerous complaints with the sheriffs office of speeding harassment and vandalism by his home in the Moyie Springs area. When a deputy told him a visual assessment of speed wouldn’t hold up in court, the court’s findings say, Conachen set up a video recording system to catch the alleged speeder on tape.

“Conflicts between he and his neighbors over speeding, Mr. Conachen argues, escalated to at least one instance of him being threatened with a gun,” court records state. “He further alleges that the BCSD were becoming ‘aggravated’ over his repeated reports and started hanging up on him whenever he would call.”

While the sheriff “refused to uphold the law,” Conachen was busy on a variety of websites disparaging Sheriff Greg Sprungl and other county elected and appointed officials for alleged malfeasance and worse, using news aggregator forums as well as his own website to cast public servants in a less than flattering light.

“Eventually, and as a result of their alleged refusal to take action,” the court order continues, “Mr. Conachen initiated other steps against the Defendants, including a campaign to recall Sheriff Sprungl, filing a state tort claim against Boundary County, and initiating a petition to replace the speed limit sign and add a ‘Children at Play’ sign.

His arrest, Conachen claimed, was motivated by malice, violating a host of his Constitutional rights.

As a result of “harassment,” Conachen claimed, he suffered an ulcer, his business failed and was forced to sell his Boundary County home at a loss in 2008.

He sought more than $1-million in damages.

The court found “a complete failure of proof” in Conachen’s allegations to support continued proceedings.

In his tort claim, Conachen contends that his arrest was made without probable cause, with excessive force (before taking him to jail, deputies took him to the hospital to have the taser barbs removed), and with malicious intent. Officers, he said, entered onto his property without warrant.

Conachen’s own words to dispatch shot down those arguments, however.

“This is Jim Conachen on Shingle Mill Loop Road,” the transcript of the sheriffs call log reads. “I just had somebody come by my house, spin the tires, rev the engine, drive reckless as harassment, and I want to know what you’re going to do about it, or should I take a shotgun and just take care of it myself?”

In his second call that night, the record shows that he said, “send a state policeman and a coroner.”

Early on in proceedings in the case, Conachen acknowledged that those were his words.

In addition to calling the Boundary County Sheriffs Office, the record shows, Conachen also called Idaho State Police dispatch that night, indicating that he had reported a traffic complaint, that he was armed and ‘willing to handle the problem himself.’”

To untrained ears, that sounds like a threat. To Deputy Van Meter, “these two calls led me to believe that Conachen may have just or was preparing to commit violence against someone.”

The court, though taking 46 pages to do it, sided with Van Meter’s rationale, and ruled that Van Meter made lawful entry onto Conachen’s property.

The court found in favor of Conachen’s contention that he had not “freely and voluntarily” given the officers his consent to enter onto his property without a warrant, however.

“There is no dispute,” the record states, “that Mr. Conachen called the BCSD and expected officers to respond. In his deposition, Mr. Conachen stated that after he had made calls to the BCSD dispatch and the Idaho State Police, he leaned against his house and ‘waited for them to show up, because I knew they were going to show up.’”

“In the video (sheriffs), Mr Conachen’s actions do not evidence a landowner consenting to the officers’ presence when he can be heard yelling, ‘who’s on my property?”

Despite that, the court found that deputies had every right to go onto the Conachen property, as he’d already implicated himself in wrongdoing by “threatening to take care of it himself.”

As to his claims of excessive force, the evidence presented to the court weighed in favor of the deputies on scene, backed by video.

“Deputy Van Meter repeats his command to get on the ground five times on the video before Mr. Conachen lowers to his knees,” the record states. “Mr. Conachen can be heard warning the officers that he has a gun in his waistband. While starting to lay down, Mr. Conachen is verbally resistive of the officer’s commands, stating, ‘I’m going to sue you f***ers.’”

The video also shows, the court record states, Conachen resisting being handcuffed. When his hand moves toward where Conachen indicated he had the .45 pistol, an officer attempting to cuff him shouts, and Van Meter, standing watch, employs his taser.

Conachen claimed that being tased in the back constituted “cruel and unusual punishment,” but that argument failed because he was never convicted of a crime. Conachen claimed that his arrest was a conspiracy to violate his civil rights, that his arrest was “to teach him a lesson” as a “newcomer” to the community.

Umm, no, Judge Lodge ruled.

In polite terms, the ruling called the plaintiff, Mr. Conachen, and with all due respect and consideration, everything but a good neighbor, and dismissed his case in its entirety.

His former neighbors, no doubt glad that he’s gone, would likely refer to him in terms not quite so polite.