Boise police fatally shot 22-year-old suspect one month ago. What we still don’t know

Boise police remain tight-lipped amid growing calls from the public for transparency a month after an officer fatally shot a 22-year-old man downtown.

In response to requests, the department has refused to release basic details about the incident. Law enforcement officials, for example, still won’t say how many times the officer fired his gun, where the man was shot and how many of the shots struck the suspect. Whether the officer was previously involved in any police shootings and whether he has since returned from paid administrative leave to regular duty also are unclear.

In the early morning hours of June 24, Officer Chance Feldner was the lone member of Boise’s police force to shoot at Payton Wasson, who fled on foot when officers approached him, the Boise Police Department said in news releases. Wasson disregarded commands to stop and was seen by officers with a firearm in his hand near 5th and Idaho streets, and a firearm was found next to Wasson after he was shot and injured, police said.

The day following the incident, Wasson died at an area hospital from a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Ada County Coroner’s Office.

The shooting has produced more questions than answers, and sparked a crowd of 100 or so protesters to gather downtown the week after. The American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho is among those asking Boise police to offer more information sooner than later, at the risk of threatening to “erode public trust.”

“This incident raises disturbing questions about the specific protocols used by BPD when an officer discharges their weapon in the line of duty,” Leo Morales, the nonprofit’s executive director, told the Idaho Statesman by email. “Unfortunately, we can’t always count on law enforcement to provide answers without pressure from the media and the public.”

The Ada County Sheriff’s Office is leading the outside investigation into the shooting — Boise police’s fourth this year. Declining to answer a variety of questions about the shooting from the Statesman, Boise police cited the forthcoming report from the Critical Incident Task Force (CITF), which takes several months to complete.

Boise Police Chief Ron Winegar called the incident a tragedy and committed to releasing more information, including through a separate internal department investigation.

Still, members of the public, including Wasson’s family, continue to demand and wait for more information.

“I have never been so lost in my life,” Wasson’s mother, Marah Wasson, said in a Facebook post after her son’s death. “I want justice for Payton. … I want this police department and officer held accountable.”

Feldner, an officer with Boise police for 8 1/2 years, remains employed by the department, BPD spokesperson Haley Williams said. “We do not provide ongoing updates on personnel status,” she added.

Boise police this week also denied public records requests from the Statesman, including for officer body camera footage from the shooting. The department typically releases a curated portion of the body-cam footage after the CITF investigation is finished, despite pushback in recent years to release footage sooner.

In August 2021, former Boise Police Chief Ryan Lee said the department was “having conversations” about releasing officer body-cam footage sooner after the high-profile shooting of Mohamud Hassan Mkoma, the Statesman previously reported.

The Ada County Sheriff’s Office, which oversees the 911 dispatch center, also denied a public records request from the Statesman seeking any 911 calls related to the shooting, and redacted all identifying information in the printed dispatch log for June 24. The department cited exemptions pertaining to an ongoing investigation, unwarranted invasions of personal privacy and the potential to interfere with enforcement proceedings.

Former OPA director: Body-cam footage should be released

Pierce Murphy, who directed Boise’s police oversight office for 14 years before taking a similar position in Seattle, told the Statesman that it’s good practice for law enforcement agencies to release body-cam footage early into an investigation.

“There’s really no question about who did it and what they did,” Murphy said. “The real question is whether what they did, was it lawful? And was it within policy and training? The video is not going to hurt the (investigation).”

Murphy said the only reason a law enforcement agency or prosecutor’s office might prolong the release of body-cam footage would be so the agency can “control the narrative.”

“It’s a public record, and the public has a right to have it,” Murphy said. “Why are you withholding it?”

While the department typically releases a snippet of the body-cam video, obtaining the entirety of the footage can come with a high price tag. The Statesman has previously requested investigative reports, which include body-cam footage, from several Boise police shootings, but was informed it would cost nearly $1,000 — sometimes more — for a single report.

“That’s just being obstructive,” Murphy said regarding the price of the records. “There’s absolutely no reason to do that.”

Janne Gaub, an assistant professor within the University of North Carolina’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, told the Statesman by phone that if the footage isn’t accessible to the public, then it can’t be used as a tool for accountability — which, she said, is what the public expects from body-cam footage.

“The reason that people bought into it and said, ‘Yeah, this is really important,’ was not so that it could protect the police,” Gaub said. “The reason was to shed light on the things that were kept in the dark.”

As investigation delays, family seeks answers

Police said the shooting unfolded out of an ongoing investigation related to a “suspicious vehicle” near 5th and Main streets, about a block from where Wasson was shot. Nearly a week later, they specified that the investigation involved what officers believed was gang activity or narcotics sales.

A second man involved in the incident, Mario Garza, 26, was arrested and charged with felony possession of a controlled substance. Garza was sentenced to at least six years in prison for three felony convictions after he and another man began shooting at each other in a Nampa Walmart parking lot in 2016. One of the bullets struck and injured a 10-year-old girl.

Garza remains in custody at the Ada County Jail and isn’t able to bail out because of a hold from the Idaho Department of Correction, online jail records showed. He was on probation for the 2016 incident when he was arrested last month.

In a video interview from the jail, Garza told the Statesman that police ultimately stopped him and Wasson because of their clothing, adding that he felt like Wasson had been discriminated against because of his clothing choice.

“That’s not right, for anybody to judge anybody without actually knowing them, because he was a good person,” Garza said.

Boise police declined to provide additional details about what led to the downtown operation and ultimately the shooting, and Garza’s arrest. A third person was released at the scene, Williams previously told the Statesman.

Former Ada sheriff: Length of investigations can be frustrating

Former Ada County Sheriff Gary Raney told the Statesman that he understands the family and community’s desire for information after a police shooting — especially when a suspect is killed. Those demands must also be balanced with the need to maintain the integrity and completeness of the investigation to ensure the officers involved in a shooting followed proper procedures, he said.

Raney, who today works as a national law enforcement consultant, said it’s a “legitimate criticism” how long CITF investigations take to finish. But that length of time is with an eye trained on accuracy, he said.

“CITF investigations are very thorough now — some argue too thorough — and that’s why they take so long,” Raney said by phone. “You can never say the investigation is too thorough when someone has lost their life. But at the same time, that thoroughness delays family from getting the answers they deserve.”

While Raney noted each case is different, he said he leans toward providing as much information as possible without jeopardizing the investigation at the outset — and also tried to do so during his more than 30 years with the Ada County Sheriff’s Office, including a decade as the elected sheriff. He retired from the position in June 2015.

But those decisions also vary by the agency and jurisdiction, he said.

“A number of factors impact decisions about when to release information and when not to,” Raney said. “Different agencies have different approaches to when and how much information they release to the family or the community about these events, and those are driven by organizational culture and the head of the law enforcement agency.”

Meanwhile, the ACLU and others continue to press Boise police to keep the community up to date throughout its investigation into the shooting.

“We believe that BPD must fully investigate this incident and provide meaningful answers to the public and the young man’s family,” said Morales, the ACLU’s executive director. “We ask that BPD keeps the public updated regularly and with full transparency on the status of the internal investigation and what happened to cause the death of a 22-year-old in our community.”