Local officials aren’t concerned about accusations of racism against an Idaho sheriff, despite calls for accountability

Local officials have stood by a southwest Idaho sheriff accused by former employees of racist and discriminatory conduct, but an extremism watchdog group and local advocates are concerned the sheriff’s rhetoric could spur violence against immigrants and minorities. 

Five former Owyhee County Sheriff’s Office employees have alleged that Sheriff Larry Kendrick made racist jokes and fostered a workplace that was biased against women and minorities, according to a report published by InvestigateWest last month. Kendrick has also made several public comments disparaging immigrants, including in a letter urging Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador not to recognize police officers from California or Illinois after the two states passed legislation allowing immigrants with work authorization and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival recipients to become police officers.

Kendrick did not respond to an email summarizing concerns among advocates. But an Aug. 14 post on the Owyhee Sheriff’s official Facebook page said the story quoted former employees who brought “unfounded accusations, outright lies and bereft of any reality.” 

“I personally take pride in running a Sheriff's Office that values and supports our employees and follows all employment laws,” Kendrick wrote in the post, which only allowed certain users to view and leave comments. “My team and I have conducted ourselves ethically, openly, and honestly. I am proud of my team of employees that day in day and day out do an incredible job of serving the citizens of Owyhee County.” 

Kendrick has not identified any specific inaccuracies or responded to detailed questions about the allegations brought by former employees. 

Owyhee County Commissioners Walt Holton and Cindy Bachman also did not respond to interview requests about the allegations against Kendrick, nor did Owyhee County Prosecutor Christopher Topmiller.

One county commissioner, however, did not seem concerned at all. 

In a voicemail, Commissioner Kelly Aberasturi said he “wasn’t impressed” by InvestigateWest’s reporting and called the former employee accusations “baseless.” 

“I don’t think we need to talk,” Aberasturi said in the voicemail.

Organizations outside Owyhee County, however, are concerned about the employee allegations and Kendrick’s comments in the letter to Labrador.

“Allowing foreign invaders to enforce state laws on American soil erodes the constitutional rights of American citizens and makes a mockery of our justice system,” Kendrick wrote in the August 2023 letter.

Kate Bitz, a senior organizer for the Oregon-based nonprofit Western States Center, which researches extremism, told InvestigateWest that the organization was deeply concerned about Kendrick’s use of terms like “foreign invaders” to describe immigrants who have work authorization in the U.S. 

She said it is such “rhetoric that we know from the past decade drives violence against marginalized communities.”

“This is an incredibly disturbing line of rhetoric for someone who holds this type of power to be using, and it's very much a public reflection of what his former employees have expressed was happening internally in terms of open bigotry and discrimination,” Bitz said.   

Bitz said the idea that people of color are “invading the U.S.” has motivated mass shootings in the last decade. Ahead of a July 2023 shooting at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart, the shooter posted online a warning of a Hispanic “invasion” of Texas, while a man behind a Buffalo, New York, grocery store shooting in February 2023 said online that he hoped the attack would help preserve white power in the U.S.

“This is incredibly dangerous stuff, and often the worry is less about what an individual, influential person like the Owyhee County sheriff is saying, it's more about how that can be received by a certain audience,” Bitz added. 

Accused of racism and retaliation, this Idaho sheriff is now working with ICE

Former employees say Sheriff Larry Kendrick made racist jokes at work and was demeaning to women

InvestigateWestRachel Spacek

The former employees told InvestigateWest that Kendrick frequently made racist jokes in the office, such as a story about a Chinese person getting killed on a road in Owyhee County while using an accent mocking Chinese people. He allegedly suggested to another employee that, at an upcoming campaign event, his staff should ride in a covered wagon while Bureau of Indian Affairs officers from the Duck Valley Reservation, wearing Native attire, chase after them on horseback, according to three employees. The sheriff also allegedly joked with a former employee about calling Black people the N-word.

Since county commissioners promoted Kendrick from deputy to sheriff in April 2023, at least a dozen people have resigned from the small office, which typically has around 20 employees. Four former employees told InvestigateWest that Kendrick’s behavior toward people of color and women was one of the main factors that led them to quit their jobs.

Kendrick is also a member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, an organization that was founded on the belief that county sheriffs hold the highest power of any elected official and have the authority to decide which state or federal laws they can enforce.

Bitz said the constitutional sheriffs movement has deep ties to white supremacy, as it gained traction during the civil rights movement when some sheriffs wanted to oppose federal and state civil rights laws. 

Devin Burghart, president and executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a nonprofit social justice organization, said there is a “well-documented history of racism” within the Constitutional Sheriff and Peace Officers Association.

For example, former Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio was convicted for racial profiling practices like  targeting Latino drivers and detaining them without charges, and later received an award from the constitutional sheriff’s association, Burghart said. And Nathan Johnson, the sheriff of Real County, Texas, who received training from the association was investigated for illegally seizing money from undocumented immigrants during traffic stops in 2022.

“At a time when law enforcement and community relations are already strained, efforts of a far-right group to infiltrate law enforcement pose a grave and growing threat to both officers and department credibility,” Burghart said in an email. 

Local advocates have also raised concerns that Kendrick’s office will target Latinos under a program, known as 287(g), to assist federal authorities with immigration enforcement. The Owyhee County Sheriff’s Office was the first in Idaho to sign up for the enforcement version of the program.

Irene Ruiz is executive director of the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils, a collection of nonprofit groups dedicated to supporting agriculture, farmworkers and the environment. 

Ruiz said increased immigration enforcement under the Trump administration already has many local farmworkers afraid of any interaction with law enforcement. Kendrick’s public comments about immigrants, as well as the allegations by his former employees, should raise concern about how he will enforce federal immigration laws, she said, contending that the sheriff may “target people for their skin color or if they think they are immigrants.” 

Ruiz said the lack of action by both the Idaho Peace Officers and Standards Training, which certifies law enforcement officers statewide, and the Owyhee County commissioners amounts to condoning Kendrick’s behavior. 

“The lack of oversight is pretty much saying that the people who have been harmed aren't being heard, and that this behavior is OK,” said Ruiz. “And we're kind of seeing that trend all over the country, we're normalizing folks to be racist and sexist and by not doing anything about it. It doesn't give people hope, it doesn’t instill trust in law enforcement.”