Knudsen

Knudsen later added: “This has been going on since yesterday and I was hoping the hospital would do the right thing. But my patience is running out.”

Abbott, and Senate Minority Leader Jill Cohenour, D-East Helena, both commended the responding patrol officer, who acted appropriately, they said.

“I just want to keep saying that this is a problem with the chain of command,” Cohenour said. “This is not a problem with that law enforcement person, who responded appropriately when they were asked to do so, went and did what she was asked to do, and then took that through the appropriate jurisdiction with the county attorney. She understood her jurisdiction, and she applied her knowledge of the statute appropriately in this situation and with professionalism.”

Cohenour and Abbott said the patrol officer should never have been dispatched in the first place. They criticized the report for failing to investigate what policies Department of Justice officials relied on to decide to send that officer.

“I think that we’re missing the policies and protocols that were used to decide to send law enforcement into a situation where they didn’t have jurisdiction,” Abbot said.

Abbot and Cohenour added that the report doesn’t account for the “shifting nature” of the attorney general’s office’s explanation of why the agency engaged in the first place, and their justifications for doing so. “We want to make sure that those aren’t political decisions because Montanans, all Montanans, should feel the ability to access law enforcement when needed. It should not be a political decision,” Cohenour said.

According to Belke’s report, St. Peter’s is conducting

its own investigation into the treatment of the patient at the hospital. A request for more information about that investigation went unanswered as of press time.

“For some reason, the special counsel felt that she couldn’t include what is, I think, one of the central questions, which was: how did this decision get made? And what was the process? What internal process was followed or not followed?”

Belke indicated that the DOJ is also conducting an “ongoing investigation,” and that some documents related to the case will not be made public because they remain “confidential criminal justice information.”

Fielder, in a letter to Belke and in an interview with MTFP, called for a “full investigation by the appropriate authorities.”

“What happened at St. Pete’s needs to be fully exposed and corrected,” Fielder said.

Cohenour and Abbott said they would continue to seek additional answers about the incident, specifically related to what policies and procedures, if any, the DOJ relied on when deciding to dispatch a patrol officer to investigate.

“That is one of the things that’s most troubling about the summary,” Abbot said. “For some reason, the special counsel felt that she couldn’t include what is, I think, one of the central questions, which was: how did this decision get made? And what was the process? What internal process was followed or not followed?”

Cohenour said Democratic lawmakers would also be looking for ways to strengthen the legislative branch’s ability to investigate and hold the executive branch accountable when the Legislature is not in session.

“That’s the question that we’re going to be asking ourselves between now and the next session,” she said.