MISSOULA - Missoula City Council member Daniel Carlino was issued a letter of warning after he sent an email threatening the former chief of the Missoula Police Department.
MTN News spoke with both parties and while the former chief felt threatened, Carlino says he'll pressure anyone working against his agenda.
The Missoula City Council Committee on Health and Safety was considering decriminalizing hallucinogenic mushrooms on June 15, 2022, and was listening to then-Missoula Police Department Chief Jaeson White explain how the measure would have unintended consequences.
“The overwhelming majority of cases we investigate involving entheogenic substances involve multiple dangerous substances, including methamphetamine, opioids, and fentanyl,” White said at the time.
Carlino had proposed the resolution and just two minutes into Chief White’s testimony, sent an email with the Subject line, “Can’t wait to see you fired.” The email contained just one sentence and read, “You are a toxic police chief who doesn’t care about our safety or improvement as a society.”
White later filed a complaint with the Missoula City Council, saying Carlino had sent the email in an effort to, “Intimidate, threaten, harass, and retaliate.” We asked White about what he was thinking while he was reading the email.
“I thought ‘Holy cow.’ I had no idea. I was a little shocked quite frankly about the whole thing. I had never been treated by an elected or appointed official like that,” White said. “I thought it was unprofessional and unethical.”
A Missoula City Council investigative panel agreed with White and sent a document to Carlino in July that said he violated City Council Rules around technology use and harassment. Carlino sent the city council an apology that month, saying it was not his intention to “Threaten harass nor retaliate against Chief White.
“However, when he met with me, he did not use remorseful language,” White said.
“We need a change in leadership. A change in law enforcement leadership and politicians if we want to not continue the war on drugs, and continue the incarceral state,” Carlino told MTN News.
When Carlino was asked if he could empathize with White's position on the matter Carlino said, “No, I don’t emphasize… as the chief of police, who is upholding policies that put people in jail for drug use rather than getting them the help they truly need, I see him as taking years off of people’s lives by upholding these policies of continuing the war on drugs.”
The Missoula City Council’s letter of warning serves as Carlino’s first violation of council rules and White says that the letter is enough.
“I’m extremely happy with how City Council handled it,” White said. “I think they did a fair job and reached a reasonable conclusion with what info they had at the time.”
According to our partners at the Missoula Current, the Missoula City Council could have voted Carlino out but chose not to — saying this punishment was enough.
Click here for more more on this story from the Missoula Current and to read the city documents.
