Five employees of a private security company in Northern California, known for having used controversial tactics, were charged in connection with a February incident in Idaho where a public member in a republican town hall was forcibly withdrawn.
The men, wearing civilian clothes, pulled the woman from her seat and prevented her from the building by her arms and his feet as she resist and asked her several times who they were.
“Who are these guys?” She screams in the video while unidentified men catch her to eject him from the building.
On Wednesday, managers of the city of Idaho de Coeur d’Alene said that these men came from the security company Lear Asset Management and faced several charges of offense within the framework of the incident, in particular by not carrying a uniform or visible security identification. The director general of the company, Paul Trouette, was listed among the defendants and is also accused of four battery leaders, two chiefs of false imprisonment and a uniform leader of the security agent, according to the city prosecutor’s office.
The other four employees, identified as Alex Trouette IV, Russell Dunne, Christofer Berg and Jesse Jones, are also faced with additional accusations, including battery and false imprisonment.
A sixth man, Michael Keller, whom the authorities say is not affiliated with the company, is also responsible for Battery in connection with the incident.
Neither Paul Trouet nor his business responded to requests for comments.
Founded and based in the small town of Willit, in the county of Mendocin, the management of Lear assets was founded by Trouette in 2012, according to the state archives.
The company has attracted customers to the logging industry, as well as marijuana producers and private landowners who seek to eradicate license without license.
In operations, its employees were often seen strongly armed and carried camouflage.
The company has sometimes been contracted by companies that clashed with environmentalists.
An activist told SFGATE that they had faced Lear employees while protesting on the operations of Humboldt Redwood Co.
Sarah Luttio told the publication that during demonstrations from 2019 to 2022, where they sat in trees to prevent them from removing them, Lear employees used intimidation tactics, in particular harassing them with spotlights and playing strong music, sounds of screaming animals and radio on the right.
According to his website, Lear Asset Management works mainly in the Northwest Pacific. The company has worked with customers with “major land assets” such as wood companies, but also worked with schools, companies and private assets.
The company also boasts that it works with the federal, state and local law agencies of the law, in particular the local police and the Sheriff departments, the California State parks, the Bureau of Land Management, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In a 2014 article in Time, the magazine reported that Lear employed fifteen people, including former soldiers, who were hired by large owners to eliminate illegal pot shoots, while wearing camouflaged equipment and wearing AR-15 rifles.
When the video of the February 22 incident in Idaho surfaced, it quickly became viral online, many wondering who were men because they had no type of uniform.
Teresa Borrenpohl, the demonstrator who was removed by the employees, then commented the incident on Instagram.
“I could never have imagined my right to freedom of expression and my right to come together could be stripped so violent,” she wrote.
Two days after the violent confrontation, the city identified men as employees of Lear Asset Management.
Borrenpohl had been initially quoted for allegedly bitten one of the men, but the city officials said that the quotation had been rejected. City officials also revoked the commercial license for the management of Lear assets for having raped the city’s order concerning private security companies.
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