Youth Voices in the Sheriff Race: DUI, Response Times, Mental Health & Community Trust

Students from Bigfork High School take the lead in this special bonus episode, asking direct questions to Flathead County sheriff candidates Brian Heino and Evie Cahalen ahead of the June 2 Republican primary.

Representing teen voices across the Flathead Valley, students raise concerns about impaired driving, mental health resources, emergency response times in rural communities, and trust between young people and law enforcement. This unique conversation highlights the issues that matter most to the next generation of voters—and how each candidate plans to respond.

Cahalen, a Marion resident, is challenging incumbent Sheriff Heino, who is seeking a third term. Voters will decide in the June 2 primary who advances to the November ballot.

Watch our interview with Evie Cahalan: https://youtu.be/t3drTik7caQ
Watch our interview with Sheriff Brian Heino: https://youtu.be/FnNf8_UJDGA

These Flathead County Sheriff Candidate interviews were brought to you by Mountain Pass Safes and Coins, a family-owned business proudly serving the Flathead Valley with a wide selection of high-quality safes ready for immediate delivery - no long wait times. Whether you’re protecting firearms, valuables, or important documents, their safes offer advanced fire protection, reinforced construction, and customizable storage options backed by strong warranties. They also buy and sell gold and silver with a reputation for fair, transparent pricing. Stop by their showroom at 2593 US Highway 2 E Suite 4 in Kalispell or visit  mountainpasssafes.com to learn more.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

All right, so we have a collaboration with the Big Fork High School Journalism class here. These lovely ladies uh prepared a few questions with their class for us, and so we're just gonna run through uh what they would like to know.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

Hello and welcome. My name is Lily. I'm Emily, and I'm Lily. We are students from Big Fork High School representing teen voices from across the Flathead Valley. We'll be asking questions that reflect the concerns and experiences of teens in Big Fork and Callisville and the surrounding rural areas. Our goal is to better understand how you plan to serve and support youth in our community. Our first question to you stems from the fact that our valley has either been impacted or lost an incredible amount of lives to impaired driving in recent years. What specific policies or enforcement strategies would you implement as sheriff to reduce DUI incidents, and how would you measure their success?

SPEAKER_05 0:59

I think it's a cultural change, is the biggest issue that we're having with DUI. And I think we're starting to see that now due to the effects it's had on families. Um Montana was definitely started out with drinking in your car was very normal, having beers, I mean, it was just a culture of that. Um I think the reality is set in, and part of that is we have higher volumes of traffic on our roads than we've ever seen before. It's not uh one car every 20 miles, it's constant traffic in in this valley and many other places in Montana. Um, and so that has to change to that aspect of how do we ensure now that we can um educate people on the effects of that. I think the community groups have been a big part of this, though, too. Um Bar Ferries is one that I'll bring up. There's another individual that I met with that um was actually um gotten in trouble for DUI, and now he's providing ride programs. I think um it's gonna be a totality culture. I always tell people if you're gonna make changes, whatever it's gonna be, it's education, there's community partnerships, and there's enforcement of law. All three of them have to occur in order to start to change that dynamic. Um it's just resource-dependent on a lot of cases. But this kind of comes back to the totality of the culture that I try to provide. One is I think the only way we accomplish things in this community is we work together. And that includes at the start of it is law enforcement. We have to work together. Um, and we see that every day through the systems that we provide. Our SWAT teams are joined, our drug task forces that are joined. We we work together on many projects, our canine units now are all together because we unify our resources to say, hey, these are the problem areas that we're gonna deal with, and that's how we're we're we're accomplishing those tasks. The other aspect, of course, is um we work with the community, right? We have to ensure that we have their support in whatever aspects we're doing. So sometimes that's educational fund or educational portions, sometimes that's funding, whatever it is. Um, but that's how we accomplish these tasks, I think. Um, and we've made grounds on that. But again, I think it's a cultural shift that we are seeing, and I think you are seeing it because people are um educating people on the effects of what who it affects in this world. You know, someone lost their loved one, sometimes it's uh somebody got hurt, you know, whether they were just drinking and they crashed their car. Um just the whole dynamics. Um I remember years ago that if we would have gone to the legislators and said, hey, we want to increase DUI penalties, it would have never flown. We are now seeing that in Helena, and I think that's important to realize, and that's often because the community members are saying we want this to be a priority. But you have to you can stop individuals for DUI. It takes roughly three to four hours sometimes to process one DUI, depending on the levels of what you're you're doing, whether it be a blood kit test, whether it's drug and narcotic related, all these different aspects. Do the paperwork, all that, then you're gonna go to court for multiple other aspects. So you're removing someone from the road for that aspect, and so we have to ensure that if we're doing those processes, that there is accountability at the end as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

We absolutely need to do more where DUI enforcement is concerned. Absolutely, without a doubt. Um, I've known people in this community since I've lived here in the last 20 years, since I've been here, that have lost lost their lives or lost loved ones as a result of DUI and uh lack of DUI enforcement and just the DUIs out there. Sadly, Montana is one of the states with the highest incidence of DUI deaths in the entire country. When you think about the actual population of the state of Montana, to think that per capita we have that high an incidence of DUI, we have to have more enforcement. I like the idea of doing DUI stops, DUI checkpoints. I don't know whether I could get that legislation passed in the state of Montana. And again, there's constitutional rights we have to protect when we do that. But people have to understand that there's going to be consequences for driving drunk. And it's not just about alcohol anymore. Now we have legalized marijuana in the state of Montana, and people are driving when they are using that as well. And that does alter their ability to drive safely. That does alter their reactions. And so it's more than just the idea of drunk driving, which is what a lot of us think about. It's the entire picture of people who are driving intoxicated, inebriated, or in altered states of mind because of the drugs that are in their system. Absolutely, I want to do more enforcement. I want to ensure that our deputies have the best, highest quality training, and that we are working and collaborating with all the law enforcement agencies in the county to be able to do this DUI enforcement. Again, we we we have the problem here of not having enough resources, personnel resources, to be able to be everywhere at one time. But what that also means is focusing on the areas where we know we have the highest incidence of DUI and impaired driving. We also have to work on the educational component of that, and that's where young people come in. We need to spend time in the schools talking to young people about the dangers of drinking and driving, the dangers of driving impaired, and how that affects you and how it how it will affect your future. Not only is it just the driving that's that's the problem, but what if you get stopped? What if you get arrested? What impact is that going to have on your future as a young person? The other side of that education component is educating our bar owners. Ensuring that the people who are actually serving alcohol in our community have the requisite training that they have to have by law to recognize when somebody is impaired, to stop serving them, and providing opportunities for designated drivers. I can tell you honestly, I've arrested a lot of drunk drivers in my life, in my career. That was one of my primary focuses was locking up drunk drivers and getting them off the road. But I have people in my own life and in my own family who have been injured and killed by drunk drivers, and it is something that you will never get over. Your family will never get over. And sadly, when I've spoken to people who think that, okay, it's bad to drive drunk, but if I smoke a little weed before I go out and drive, that's not the same thing. Yes, it is. It's the same thing. Impaired driving is impaired driving.

SPEAKER_04 7:40

There can sometimes be tension between teens and law enforcement. What steps is your department taking to improve that? And what role do you think students can play in building that trust?

SPEAKER_01 7:50

One of the greatest programs that we have is school resource officers. Getting cops, getting deputies, getting police and law enforcement in our schools working with our kids. You know what? Kids actually like police. When I was growing up, I loved police. A lot of it has to do with the values that they learn at home and the relationship that those individuals have, their families have with law enforcement. There used to be a lot of respect for police, and some of that has waned over the years. We need to get that respect back. But I think that getting into the schools, talking with kids, getting them involved in programs where youth can actually be a part of law enforcement. You know, we have explorers programs. Get kids involved in that. Let them see the good side of policing, the good side of law enforcement. Again, I really believe at a young age, we can do so much to help them understand why we do what we do, how important it is to keep our community safe, especially the young people in our community. I want to work closely with them. We have predators out there in our community that target young people, specifically. Young people tend to be more vulnerable because, you know, most kids are, they like to talk to people, they're friendly to people. They might not recognize that somebody who is talking to them is actually someone who is preying on them. So again, we go get gets back to the educational component, talking to kids, to be aware of their surroundings, who they're talking to, what they're ha the conversations they're having with people out in the community. But I love, I love having relationships with young people. You know, they are they're our future. They're our future. And we in law enforcement can really formulate their opinion of us by how we work with them, how we react with them, how we respond with them, and how we work with them. And I plan on doing that. I was a DARE officer. I started working with fifth graders as a police officer. I loved it. Couldn't wait to go to work every day and just see the looks on their faces. Just when I walked into the room in uniform, the kids were just overwhelmed and they had so many questions about what it was like to be a policeman. Sadly, the one question I often got was, have you ever shot anybody? And fortunately, I was able to say no. But that always was like, you know, that's the TV question. That's the movie question. But absolutely, I want to train my deputies to work with youth, work with young people. Many of our deputies have children of their own. They're involved in sports activities with their kids. We need to see out, you know, the deputies out there playing basketball on the basketball courts out in the communities and going to the school and working with the kids in the school, training them, being mentors to them. There's so many opportunities for us to work with young people, and I want to do as much or all of it that I possibly can.

SPEAKER_05 10:26

So I interact with many kids every single day because my kids are that age. So, but you kind of they have questions, right? And you have to answer those questions, do those things. My wife and I went to the boosters, and we go to this, and we go. I mean, you have to be involved with sporting functions and everything else. I think it's always been there. I mean, for our community, like born and raised that growing up, I mean, law enforcement was always kind of within the schools or in the sporting activities or whatever. Sometimes it was family-related, sometimes it was, you know, whatever it was, there was a connection with those kids. On the student functions, I think it's back to um being involved in the aspects of of what they want to learn, right? So sometimes I know we do public presentations with our drug task force and that stuff in the school talking about drugs and those things. Um, but I think reaching out and just saying hi to law enforcement is okay, right? I mean, we we interact with them all the time. Um I go to sporting events, I you know, we talk to kids all the time. I mean, it you gotta have that, and it's okay for the kids to do that. So it's a two-way street. Come up and talk to us, we'll talk to you. It's it's just building those relationships. Leadership often, politically specifically, always says I, I did this, I did that. It's a we environment in this community. You I don't do anything without community support, and my my staff has to be involved. There, I make the decisions at the top, but you have to have this. Just telling people that you're gonna do this is yes, there is a time and a place for that, but majority of our accomplishments are a we function. It's not an I. Um and I I say that because on the Explorer program, that was a we function. When we started that youth program, which was a partnership with the Boy Scouts, it's been that aspect that we've back to that connecting back in. People are interested in how do we educate them on what we do, and so if they want to follow this career, here's an opportunity to do that. Um, but all I can really say is majority of people, you know, I'm known as somebody's dad sometimes, and that's okay. And we um have people come to our house, you know, and do different aspects, whether that be a bonfire, nobody has a problem coming to the sheriff's house because everybody seems to be good. Um, but we're we just have to build those relationships. I get phone calls a lot of questions on, you know, I got a ticket, right? Well, this is what you're doing, this is your opportunities, you know, this kind of stuff. Um, and it's okay. Like I always tell them, like it's okay to make mistakes, and then we just have to get through them. So um, yeah, so I I think and the the youth are are great. They're they are very intelligent, they're getting a lot of things accomplished, and I think they're gonna do amazing things. Um the challenge they're gonna have is the world is totally different, you know, with technologies and all these other things. Um, and I think they're they're doing amazing things over there though. So all the schools, our our designs on the on the patrol cars are actually out of the design functions out of the schools, right? We had them go out and design these things. So we try to partner as best we can with them and on all aspects we can.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

In a rural community, like Day Fork, response times for emergencies like fires or disputes can sometimes be longer than usual. What is the sheriff's office currently doing to make sure people get help as quickly as possible? How do you attend to improve response times?

SPEAKER_05 13:50

So when I grew up here, there was kind of this expectation that we we worked with each other, we we talked to our neighbors, we would do these different aspects. Um you always had that expectation law enforcement was a little ways out living in a county and in a rural environment because of of where we were. As we've seen people move in, we've seen this request for for more of a a dynamic of a quicker response, like a city environment, you know, four to five minutes out. Um and that's something this community is gonna have to decide. If they want that level of service, it costs a lot of money to to do that. We do the best job we can with what we have is basically where we're at. We try to spread those individuals throughout the community. Um, if it's a high-risk call, you're going to get more individuals. Um we are going to send more people for officer safety reasons to certain calls and then some moving priorities. We have done some aspects, we've done online reporting more. So some of these minor calls, they can get online, they can functionally push out, you know, whatever it is their mailbox got broken or whatever, so that guys can then go to these emergency calls more significantly and not be trying to take those calls at the same time. Um, but what we really do, I think when we look at it, the unknowns is hard, right? So domestic violence is one of those. Um, you know, but when we're targeting the crime functions, basically, um, you know, theft, drugs, those things, we look a lot at, you know, the data who it is in the investigation portions and target individuals into those areas, which again is back to majority in this this local valley floor area discussion. But it's a hard question because really the answer is resources. And we already are partnering, we're already doing these aspects to try to get it done. Um, and then we zone coverage and look at targeting of enforcement where we're seeing issues. Um, but it's it's a price tag, and and that's the hard conversations.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

I like the idea of having deputies assigned to areas all the time. So they become the community policing officer or deputy for where they work. When you have deputies responding to calls for service in different places all the time throughout the county, they never learn their community. They never learn the young people in the community, they don't know their business owners, they don't know the community leaders. My plan for deploying my deputies is to actually have them assigned to areas throughout the county. Not assigned downtown Kalisbell. We don't need deputies in downtown Calisbell. They have their own police department. We don't need deputies in Whitefish or Columbia Falls, they have their own police departments. We work with them and we will partner with them, but we need to have deputies that are deployed throughout the county and work in those areas, the same place, the same locations all the time to build those relationships with the community that they serve. It is possible to do that. Even with the resources that we have, we can have deputies assigned throughout the county. So when they when they start their shift, they will automatically go to the areas where they are assigned. And they will work that same area over an extended period of time to get to know their communities. That's all part of crime prevention, that's good law enforcement, it's good community relations building, and it allows us then to collaborate with the community on the issues in that community.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

Yeah. In a smaller community, people often know each other. How will you ensure fairness and accountability, even when deputies may personally know people involved?

SPEAKER_01 17:28

That's a really good question. Yeah. Because that's something that people are concerned with. You know, well, if I know the deputy or if the deputy knows me, then does that create a different relationship? Keeping in mind, regardless of who you know or who you don't know, you still have a job to do in law enforcement. I don't necessarily want a deputy that lives in Marion being assigned to work in Marion. Granted, they may go to Marion to respond to calls for service, but it there's kind of a saying in law enforcement, it's not usually a good idea to patrol where you live just because of those relationships. But the other side of that is if you're a professional in your job, you have the skills and the training that you need to work with the people in your community, it doesn't matter. You're a professional. I, you know, from a leadership standpoint, I had people who worked with me and for me that went through the academy with me. I've known them. I knew them from the day we started in the police department together. And I I'd have people say to me, Well, how can you supervise those people? How can you manage those people? Because when you're in that managerial or supervisory relationship, it's different than the friend relationship. It's no different with your community. You're serving your community. There's deputies that are not from here, there's deputies who are from here. They have a job to do. And if they're professional at their job, regardless of who they are working with in the community, whether they know them, whether they're best friends or not, as professionals, they will they are able to do their job and carry it out effectively. But again, it goes back to the relationships that we have built in our community in general between the sheriff's office and our community. If people respect us, they respect what we are doing, they understand that sometimes we will encounter people that we know, but the deputies will be trained to effectively handle that situation professionally.

SPEAKER_05 19:19

So basically, your your one is that if if somehow, somehow they're connected, mostly likely by a relationship or by blood, we have those individuals, not somebody else takes that call, basically. Um the other one is often when we are dealing with um an investigation that may occur within our organization, we call outside entities and it's it's the standard protocols of that. But really, when we're when you know different individuals in this community, it helps you too. I mean, hey, did you see anything on your property? Did you go and then you have that connection? Hey, how's your kids doing? Whatever, and you have these generalized conversations. Let's say it's a um a criminal portion where the person is suspected of something, uh, we basically pull any individual that would be directly connected into that and pull somebody in that would not be a primary investigator. Sometimes that's what the city will call another jurisdiction or something along those lines. Um I I I don't really ever have never really seen an issue with in in my career where there's like um, you know, if a crime occurs, we're going to investigate that crime, we're gonna look into that crime. If it's a suspect, a suspect, they have the accountability to do the same thing anybody else does. Um and you know, that's that's uh I mean, including myself, I uh my kid got a ticket. I told tell them you'd handle like anything else, they gave them a ticket. They have to go to court, they have to do their whole procedural things, and I they actually probably hold them more accountable in my scenario, or I do at least, than somebody else that would probably be in the same scenario. So um pretty high accountability standards with our staff and everything else to make sure that you know if that were to occur they have clear information. But that's why we have supervisors out there make those calls. If it's involving the supervisor, they call up the chain. It's just a process and that we always do.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Sadly, we are not strangers to teens in crisis in our area. Access to mental health resources can be limited. How will your department respond when teens are in crisis? And how can your department help improve teen mental health before crisis arises?

SPEAKER_05 21:28

Yeah, so I think uh a lot of things have been um accomplished on that. Um I was a had to deal with many of the suicides with the kids um and deal with those, uh especially with having kids that age. So it affected, you know, uh the organization and the sheriff's office specifically. One of them actually runs the CIT programs and and the and the crisis portions of that, so that's been a big partnership. Uh the other one I think is working with different uh community based systems. basically to work out those struggles that um that teens often are we we saw during that period of time. The Nate Shute Foundation was a big part of that. We basically now are they're coming up with different options and and realities to to try to provide better care and services in the schools. All the way down to there are they're now working with our the the corner portion of what we deal with and trying to maybe catch some of these um cases that do occur that they the ne the living can have some better opportunities and resources. But it's definitely back to that education of people. I think that was a hard one for me. I had to you know really go back home and talk to my kids and say you know this is a a permanent thing that that you guys are all are talking about. It affects so many after the fact and again with kids I think they often feel there's an overwhelming portion of it being school environment or sports or whatever it is and um you know relationships and all that aspect and I think helping them understand this is just one portion of their life that there's a a continuation after it they'll get through it there's there's different dynamics but local services is a big part of that. I think recognizing it is another one we've done better teaching educators on um those cautionary signs that we've often seen that started with school safety programs right when we're looking at um violence in schools and those things that uh teachers are given more opportunities hopefully to you know recognize and identify those and then passing that information on and then law enforcement takes that very seriously if you if you are posting things on a on open source information or whatever um those are directly looked into and hopefully we resolve and deal with that conflict in different ways whether it be a criminal aspect or working with local services but really it's back to the first questions which is the connection right you have to have those connections recognizing when behavior is changing and people are having a hard time to get them into a different environment but even then that comes back into mental health right so how do we you know do better and provide better services in this community and um I think a lot of schools are are are looking at those projects now too which is amazing where they can have those counselors and information and people that you know can be that direct resource once it's recognized by a teacher or somebody else or a parent or other other kids. I think those are good programs where you're taking you know senior classmen and bringing in this next generation and they have this kind of portions of it but I think connecting back into the to the kids and and watching you know and explaining to them that there's there's always struggles in life but you can get through them. We see you know especially the sh the sheriff's deputies in the corners the aftermath of that of the effects it has on the living the most tragic thing that I see in the news these days is when young people have taken their lives because of something they have seen on social media or they are bullied on social media or they're preyed upon by people on the other side of a computer that may be on the other side of the world.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

It is a crisis in our country right now and it is a crisis in our community. We again a lot of it goes back to education and law enforcement can play a very significant role in that but parents as well we have to work with our families in the community. Again it goes back to trust if I as sheriff am building trust in my community if I'm working with our young people if I'm working with our families and our deputies are doing the same thing because really they're the ones who are out there in the community. I have a whole department to run but our deputies have to understand how to work with our young people and it's not just about school resource officers it's encountering them when you get called to that loud party complaint because the parents are away for the weekend and the kids are having a party how we address that situation and how we deal with that appropriate appropriately. And again we set examples to people in the community by our actions, by our professionalism. When young people feel comfortable in coming to us and talking with us when they see that we are working with programs to help the youth in the community when we are working on sports programs and mental health programs and all the things that young people are involved in and we have the appropriate training to address a lot of these crimes that we are seeing that are affecting young people through the internet they will trust us more they will come to us more and that it's really based on a relationship of trust I want to protect my entire community as sheriff and that community includes our young people and they are tend to be in many respects more vulnerable than our adult community is so we have to have a special focus on our young people. You know one thing I can tell you as a district commander I knew every single principal in every single school in my district I met with them on a regular basis. I had 34 schools that I was responsible for I had five high schools alone in my district alone five high schools I knew every principal I would go into that school I would walk down the hall I wasn't a resource officer I was a commander I'd walk down the halls of those schools and I would talk to the young people in the school I would just say hi to them. You know I'd go in and sit and have lunch with them while they were having lunch in the lunchroom. Building those relationships comes from that visibility from them seeing us as normal people they saw me as a human being with my own family, my own relationships with people. And again that's something that the young people need to see and that helps in in the crises that they are going through when they trust law enforcement to come to us and talk to us and share their concerns with us we have to be professional but we also have to be understanding. We have to have a big heart. It takes a big heart to be a law enforcement officer because we see the worst of the worst but we still have to go to work every day. We still have to go home to our families every day. We still have to be normal people despite the things we see and part of that being normal people is relating to the people in our community just as we want them to relate to us as human beings.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

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