Coeur d'Alene town hall gets chaotic, with security guards dragging woman out of her seat

This story was originally published by the Coeur d'Alene/Post Falls Press

COEUR D’ALENE — A legislative town hall organized by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee devolved into chaos Saturday when unidentified, plainclothes security personnel dragged a Post Falls woman from the Coeur d’Alene High School auditorium for heckling legislators.

Though the company that provided security for the event has been identified, town hall organizers and Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris have claimed no knowledge of the security personnel or who hired them.

Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White confirmed Sunday that the men who dragged Teresa Borrenpohl from the meeting worked for the private security firm LEAR Asset Management.

Reached by phone on Saturday and Sunday, the firm’s owner, Hayden resident Paul Trouette, declined to comment.

As the town hall got underway and legislators made their remarks, Borrenpohl said the audience cheered and jeered at turns.

“Nobody was telling people cheering to stop cheering, but any time there was a negative reaction, we were scolded,” she said. “I felt comfortable expressing displeasure because people were very openly expressing their appreciation for the legislators there.”

Borrenpohl said the turning point came when Rep. Ron Mendive, R-Coeur d’Alene, spoke about how he helps to take care of Idaho’s public lands as co-chair of the Resources and Conservation Committee.

“I screamed — out of turn, admittedly — ‘Phil Hart stole timber from public land,’” Borrenpohl said. “That’s when they seized on me.”

In 2010, The Press reported that Sen. Phil Hart, R-Kellogg, issued a $2,450 check to the state for the 1996 market value of logs he took from state school endowment land to build his home.

Borrenpohl said she didn’t recognize Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris at first when he approached her in the semidarkness of the auditorium because he was dressed in jeans and a baseball cap.

“I was really dumbfounded because he said, ‘Do you want me to pepper spray you?’” she recalled. “That was the first thing he said to me that I remember.”

Footage from the event showed Norris take Borrenpohl’s arm with both hands and make multiple attempts to pull her from her seat.

Borrenpohl said that after she declined to leave, Norris turned to the unidentified men and said, “Guys, get her.”

On video, Borrenpohl can be seen repeatedly asking the men to identify themselves. They did not. She asked Norris if the men were his deputies, and he gave no answer.

Kootenai County GOP officials said Saturday that they didn’t know which company provided security for their event and told the Press to seek that information from the sheriff.

“Bob (Norris) was right there,” KCRCC chair Brent Regan said. “Nothing was done without him being aware.”

Norris denied knowledge of the event’s security arrangements and said he didn’t know the security personnel.

Norris said his handling of Borrenpohl was in line with protocols that were set before the town hall began, though he did not explain what the protocols were or who had set them.

“(Borrenpohl) was asked to leave,” he said Sunday. “She was asked to leave.”

With recordings of Norris and the security guards pulling on Borrenpohl circulating widely on social media, Norris said he’s received death threats and he believes the incident is not being covered fairly.

“(The security guards’) reaction was to (Borrenpohl’s) action,” Norris said. “The reason why that occurred was because people came to disrupt.”

White said it’s not appropriate for law enforcement to forcefully remove a person from a town hall for speaking out of turn or shouting.

“I don’t care what your message is, especially in an open town hall like this,” White said. “We have to respect everybody’s First Amendment rights, regardless of what side of the aisle you happen to sit on. I know there’s some people up here who probably disagree with me and would like us to take action and maybe try to silence a voice that’s in opposition to theirs at a town hall, but there’s very little we can do with regard to First Amendment protections. We have to make sure people have the protections afforded them under the Constitution.”

Mary Rosdahl attended the town hall and described watching the sheriff attempt to pull Borrenpohl from her seat, then beckon to the security personnel. Rosdahl, who is a nurse, said she stood nearby during the incident because she feared for Borrenpohl’s safety.

“They came and took her by the arms and pulled her and then took her by her feet and pulled her into the aisle,” she said. “They laid her face-down on the floor. Two of them were on top of her, holding her down, and then eventually they boosted her up on her feet and dragged her out the door. I was worried about their handling.”

Borrenpohl said she remembers “hands coming from everywhere” trying to haul her from her seat and pushing her to the ground. To her left, she said, she heard friends defending her while people across the aisle jeered at her and applauded the men who were attempting to remove her from the auditorium.

As the men dragged her down the aisle, Borrenpohl lost her shoe, and at one point, her shirt nearly came off.

“It was really violent and really traumatic,” she said. “They had grabbed my wrists. They contorted my body. They lifted me up and dropped me down. My only thought was to maintain my airway. They were forcing me down on the ground. I just wanted to make sure I could still breathe.”

Borrenpohl said she bit one of the men who was dragging her from the auditorium.

“I didn’t know if I was being detained by what I now knew to be the sheriff’s office or if these were private hired guns,” she said. “I was so confused and I didn’t know if I was being arrested by the sheriff’s office or if I was being kidnapped.”

White confirmed that Borrenpohl was cited and released for misdemeanor battery because of the bite, though he noted that the officers who responded to CHS didn’t have access to the numerous video recordings that showed what happened before they arrived.

“Now that we are in receipt of several videos that show the majority of the event that we didn’t have at the time, (the battery citation) will be under review by our prosecutor’s office,” he said.

White said his officers declined the sheriff’s request that Borrenpohl be arrested for trespassing.

“We respectfully informed the sheriff that, since this was an open to the public event, we are not going to arrest anyone for trespassing,” White said. “That would be inappropriate.”

Police and prosecutors will also consider the actions of the security guards, White said.

Coeur d’Alene city code requires security agents to wear uniforms “clearly marked” with the word “security” in letters no less than 1 inch tall on the front and no less than four inches tall on the back. The security personnel at Saturday’s town hall were in plainclothes, with no visible sign they were security.

When the Coeur d’Alene City Council approved the uniform requirement last summer, Trouette testified against the change.

“Paul Trouette contacted me and told me they wouldn’t be doing any security of that type in our city, and yet, here they are,” White said. “As far as I know, (LEAR Asset Management has) a license, but not a license to perform activity such as this.”

If LEAR Asset Management is determined to have violated city ordinances, White said, the city can suspend or revoke the firm’s license and the city prosecutor may take action.

Norris said he was invited to lead the Pledge of Allegiance at the town hall and remained onsite after doing so because of a recent threat against Rep. Jordan Redman, R-Coeur d’Alene.

On Saturday morning, Coeur d’Alene police were investigating a threat against Redman’s office that originated on social media. White said his agency only learned about the town hall because Redman mentioned it when they spoke with him about the threat.

Coeur d’Alene police officers were in the parking lot at CHS during the town hall in case the Shoshone County resident who allegedly made the threat appeared, White said. When there was a disturbance in the auditorium, no one alerted the officers until after Borrenpohl had been removed.

Norris said this was because it wasn’t the agency’s place to act.

“They don’t have jurisdiction,” he said of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department. “They would not have come into a private event held at the high school and the person who secures the location gets to set the protocols of what occurs.”

White pushed back on Norris’ comment. Coeur d’Alene High School is squarely within his agency’s jurisdiction, he said, and his officers would’ve entered the building had they been called sooner.

“We would’ve stood by to make sure no one was in danger, while at the same time protecting people’s First Amendment rights,” he said.

Rosdahl, who regularly attends town halls and other political events, called Saturday’s scene “terrible” and said she’s concerned the chaos will have a chilling effect on political speech in Kootenai County.

“It was a time for our legislators and the moderator to put forward their ideas about government, but there was no public feedback,” she said. “They didn’t want to hear what the community had to say. That was very clear.”

Borrenpohl ran as a Democrat for a legislative seat in 2020, 2022 and 2024. During the past several years, amid North Idaho College’s accreditation crisis, she vocally criticized three former NIC trustees who were backed by the Kootenai County GOP.

“I didn’t know if I was in trouble for saying Phil Hart stole from public lands or if it was because I’m a known Democrat in the area,” she said.

The town hall was meant to be a forum where constituents could engage with their legislators, Borrenpohl said.

She said she was denied that opportunity. Borrenpohl also alleges she was assaulted.

“I think that my civil rights were stripped from me in that moment in a really embarrassing way,” she said. “Admittedly, I spoke out of turn. But do we live in a country where you speak out of turn and the result is three men assaulting a woman?”