Boise police sergeant sues city, former Chief Ryan Lee over neck incident

A Boise police officer whose neck was injured when former Police Chief Ryan Lee demonstrated a neck hold on him has sued the city and Lee.

Sgt. Kirk Rush, a member of the Boise Police Department’s K-9 Unit, alleged in a lawsuit that he had been at odds with Lee over planned policy changes to the K-9 unit, to which Rush was assigned. In October 2021, the officer said, Lee demonstrated a neck hold on him without his consent, which caused him injuries that later required surgery.

The lawsuit follows a tort claim over the same dispute, filed in April 2022. Tort claims in Idaho are legal filings against government agencies that precede lawsuits.

The lawsuit accuses Lee of civil battery, accuses the city of negligence, and asks for damages. Civil battery is intentional contact, including harmful or offensive contact, without permission.

News of the Rush incident was one of multiple controversies that led to Lee’s ouster in September. Earlier this year, an independent law firm reviewing the department’s policies determined that veteran officers had chafed at Lee’s reforms — which he began implementing after he was hired from the Portland Police Bureau — and pushed him out.

Lee received a severance package from the city and has not spoken publicly about this incident or his ouster. His attorney did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment.

In an interview weeks after the incident, Lee told state investigators that he was surprised to hear Rush had been injured, saying he did not exhibit signs of distress during the demonstration and had not taken any subsequent time off of work.

Earlier this summer, Mayor Lauren McLean told the Statesman that she “made the best decision I could” in asking Lee to leave.

In an email, a spokesperson for McLean, Maria Weeg, said a workers’ compensation claim Rush filed over the incident has been settled.

“Sgt. Rush has received the medical and other benefits to which he is entitled, and the city is willing to pay for any other medical claims associated with his injury into the future,” Weeg said. “We remain open to mediating any issues Sgt. Rush and his lawyers believe were unresolved.”

What does the lawsuit say?

At an Oct. 12, 2021, staff meeting, Lee explained to officers that one of their members had inappropriately used a type of neck restraint known as a lateral vascular neck restraint, according to the lawsuit.

Neck restraints have received heightened scrutiny in the wake of George Floyd’s and others’ killings.

At the briefing, Lee said the vascular neck holds should only be used when “deadly force is authorized,” the lawsuit said.

After explaining the neck hold, he asked Rush — the acting watch commander — to join him at the front of the room. He then “suddenly grabbed” the back of Rush’s neck and pulled him around the room.

“Sgt. Rush felt humiliated to be treated this way but felt that he could not object or ask to be let go because Mr. Lee was the chief of police,” the lawsuit said. Lee then asked him if he could stand up. Rush said no, and Lee released him.

Lee then asked the sergeant to face away from him, and then “violently grabbed Sgt. Rush’s forehead and yanked his head backward.”

Three days after the meeting, Rush filed the worker’s compensation claim with the department. His supervisor, Lt. Josiah Ransom, later filed a human resources complaint.

“In late October 2021, someone within BPD command staff requested that the Idaho State Police investigate the incident as a felony battery,” according to the lawsuit.

In January 2022, Rush had surgery on his neck, which included implanting a plate, according to the lawsuit. His injuries included a “cervical neck sprain” and “multiple bulging discs.”

The state police investigation ended that same month, and E. Clayne Taylor, the Clearwater County prosecuting attorney, concluded in August 2022 that criminal charges could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, but that his was a “very difficult decision” and “a close call.”

On Oct. 3, Rush was told in a letter that the city had “determined there is sufficient evidence to conclude that an officer or department employee violated law or policy.”

What has Lee said?

Lee spent close to an hour talking to the Idaho State Police about the incident.

In an audio tape of the interview obtained by the Statesman, Lee expressed surprise at being told that Rush was injured.

Lee said he had been concerned since becoming chief about the frequency with which vascular neck holds were used at the department. The holds have largely been done away with at other departments and were temporarily suspended in Boise before he became chief.

Lee worked to make the suspension of the move permanent, which he found “caused some consternation” among the rank-and-file.

While attending the Oct. 12, 2021, briefing to introduce the new deputy chief, Tammany Brooks, Lee was questioned by officers about how else to subdue suspects. He told ISP that he asked Rush to help him demonstrate some other ways to subdue suspects, to which Rush responded, “Well, you’re not going to choke me out, are you?”

“To me it was very clear that I was asking, ‘could you help me,’ and that he was agreeing to help me,” Lee said, saying that what he had done was hold on to Rush’s neck, and subsequently hold his head and tilt it backward.

He said he has a third-degree black belt in Judo and had worked as a defensive tactics trainer for close to two decades.

“Having been a DT instructor for years, I’m being mindful to make sure that its not painful or uncomfortable,” he said of the Rush incident, saying it had been “very light, low-pressure type stuff.”

A couple of days later, Lee said he apologized to Rush because some officers had chuckled during the incident and he worried he had embarrassed him. In response, Rush told him the moves had hurt him, which Lee said he was surprised by.

He said he did not hear that a complaint had been filed until two weeks later.

“I think it was totally appropriate at that time,” he told investigators of the demonstration.

Disagreement over use of dogs

Rush’s lawsuit notes that Lee and Rush also had disagreed over a policy change the chief was exploring.

The department’s K9 policy trains dogs to bite suspects when they find them. Concerned over liability and about whether dog bites were always justified in searches for suspects who were hiding, Lee said he was considering shifting to a bark police, wherein dogs would instead first bark at suspects after locating them.

Lee said he and Rush had a “cordial disagreement” about that, and that no policy changes had been made.

In the lawsuit, Rush cited the K9 disagreement as a reason he was targeted.

“Sgt. Rush believed that Mr. Lee accosted him at the briefing because he had disagreed with Mr. Lee about the direction of the K9 unit.”