Montana Highway Patrol in turmoil under Attorney General Austin Knudsen, officers say

(Provided by the Montana Highway Patrol social media feed on Facebook.)

Former Col. Steve Lavin and some of his colleagues at the Montana Highway Patrol were optimistic when Austin Knudsen was elected as attorney general in 2020.

Knudsen is a former prosecutor himself, he campaigned to “Back the Blue,” and he’d quickly risen to leadership when he served in the Montana Legislature.

Lavin, in fact, had served with him as a Republican legislator from Kalispell from 2011 to 2017.

“I had high hopes,” Lavin said of Knudsen in an interview last week. “I thought this would be good. He talks the talk.”

Col. Steve Lavin, former head of the Montana Highway Patrol, stands with other officers in 2021 prior to alleging wrongful discharge. (Provided by the Montana Highway Patrol and Facebook)

But Lavin and other career officers who recently left the Montana Highway Patrol said their sense of optimism vanished, in short order for some.

The Montana Highway Patrol is a division under the Department of Justice, and it has new leadership every time a new attorney general is elected.

A lot of times, a new AG can mean subtle changes, at least for those in upper management.

But not last time.

Nearly four years ago, when Knudsen and his administration took the helm, the result was chaos, poor communication, and a lack of trust felt at every level of the agency, according to six officers with a combined 140 years at the Montana Highway Patrol.

“Within the first month, I knew we were in trouble,” said former Lt. Col. Jason Hildenstab, who served more than 23 years with the agency.

Under the Knudsen administration, the officers recalled petty acts staff viewed as disrespectful and sharp reprimands from the AG himself.

They point to an exodus of troopers and inability to retain MHP officers.

This summer, the Department of Justice had 51 vacant positions of 320 total in the Montana Highway Patrol compared to 39 vacancies in February, according to a legislative report of the 2024 fiscal year.

The report said MHP accounts for 57% of all DOJ vacancies.

Many industries have struggled with retention since the COVID-19 pandemic, but officers said the situation with the Highway Patrol is acute, and Knudsen failed to deliver on a plan to bring on more troopers.

He got sideways with top leaders and MHP union members.

At least two formal complaints allege wrongful discharge and retaliation, a recent one filed by Lavin in district court against Knudsen, and another filed by the union against the Department of Justice on behalf of a trooper.

In an earlier email about the Lavin lawsuit from a spokesperson, Knudsen argued the patrol had lost trust in Lavin, and Lavin agreed to retire, contrary to allegations in his lawsuit that he was forced out.

Knudsen declined an interview for this story through a spokesperson.

The complaint filed this spring by the Montana Federation of Public Employees is pending.

The Department of Justice argued its Highway Patrol division had cause to fire the trooper because she disobeyed an order.

However, an investigator with the Department of Labor and Industry said the DOJ likely committed an unfair labor practice. A final decision is pending.

In interviews with the Daily Montanan, the longtime MHP officers said Knudsen allowed a lack of respect for the chain of command, which led to turmoil and distrust.

They raised concerns the Attorney General’s Office was improperly using human resources to micromanage the patrol, allegations outlined in a recent workplace climate survey, too.

They also allege the way the Highway Patrol handled the climate survey, part of a program designed to uplift and improve leadership at the agency, backfired so profoundly that it created even more harm.

One former officer described the assembly of problems as “a cancer that was allowed to grow within the agency.”

Knudsen is running for re-election this year, and he faces a challenge separate from the Highway Patrol, 41 counts of professional misconduct including an allegation he sought to undermine confidence in the Montana Supreme Court.

Through his lawyer, Knudsen has argued he was upholding the rules of professional conduct, contrary to the allegations, and he was “zealously” representing the Montana Legislature.

Democrat Ben Alke, a lawyer from Bozeman, is taking on Knudsen, but Alke’s name is new in politics, and Montana remains deeply red.

If Knudsen keeps his seat, he’ll need to restore relationships with the Montana Highway Patrol, said Jay Nelson, former MHP sergeant and public information officer.

“The people elected him, and I squarely stand behind our democracy,” Nelson said. “But I do think that Austin has to look in the mirror and realize the damage that has been done.”

Conner Smith, who retired after 20 years with the agency, said he believes the Montana Highway Patrol has lost faith in Knudsen’s decisions, and he will have a challenge regaining it.

“I don’t think he’ll ever fully get the trust back, no,” Smith said. “Especially if they keep using HR the way they have been.”

Knudsen had his detractors early on, but they may have been in the minority.

A retired trooper who spoke on condition of anonymity said he had witnessed Knudsen treat others disrespectfully, and he disliked him from the start, although he acknowledged others at the agency felt differently.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen testifies before the U.S. House in an impeachment hearing for Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Jan. 10, 2024. (Committee webcast)

“Very consistently across the board, in my multiple interactions with Knudsen, he comes off as very disingenuous,” said the former trooper, who still fears retaliation to his livelihood because of the DOJ’s connections outside the agency.

Most of the former MHP officers who talked with the Daily Montanan said at first, they supported Knudsen as attorney general, and they believed he supported them, too.

“You could feel the positivity when he first came into office,” Nelson said.

Law enforcement officers are generally “a fun bunch,” Lavin said. They’re typically not happy if things stay the same, but they don’t like change, and a small group always complains about something.

“And it didn’t change much with each administration from what I saw,” Lavin said.

Generally, Hildenstab said a new AG trusts the chief of the Highway Patrol with this attitude: “You just keep it running and let me know if there’s a problem.”

Even if the change meant the AG was going from a Democrat to a Republican, or vice versa, one thing traditionally remained constant, Nelson said: “It was still about protecting the citizens of Montana.”

Shawn Smalley, a sergeant when he left MHP after 20 years, said AG Tim Fox, a Republican who preceded Knudsen, was his favorite, but he believed Knudsen would back law enforcement, too.

“I had hopes that he (Knudsen) was going to be good,” Smalley said. “And that completely dissipated.”

The changes came in big and small ways, according to the officers.

For example, Fox was a popular leader, and a new member of the Knudsen administration ripped his portrait off the wall, which upset civilian staff, who marched into Hildenstab’s office to express frustration, he recalled.

Additionally, Knudsen appointed multiple second-in-command deputies or chiefs, who tripped over each other and gave conflicting direction to MHP, Hildenstab said: “They were almost competing against each other. Nobody knew who to talk to.”

The retired trooper said previous Attorneys General Steve Bullock, a Democrat, and Fox, a Republican, both made decisions he didn’t support, but he said his frustration under Knudsen led him to retire earlier than he’d planned.

“It seemed very obvious to me that Bullock was allowing our colonel to run the agency,” he said. “Fox was allowing our colonel at the time to run the agency.”

But he said Knudsen micromanaged instead, even after he handpicked Lavin as his chief.

“How do you then not have the trust for him to actually do the job?” the officer said.

Early on in the AG’s tenure, Hildenstab said Knudsen would call and grill Lavin about any number of issues, such as a policy or a board appointment. Then, he said, Knudsen would hang up on Lavin and be unreachable for days.

But he said not once were Knudsen’s concerns ever based on the facts. He said the AG never apologized for a kneejerk reaction once he received accurate information either.

“It was just mental exhaustion. I just can’t describe it,” Hildenstab said.

Hildenstab had served as lieutenant colonel, or second-in-command at the Highway Patrol, for roughly 10 years, and the big shift came when he announced he would retire.

Lavin was colonel and chief of the agency at the time. Lavin said he had a teammate in mind whom he trusted to serve as his assistant chief, and he was open about it.

But he and others said Kurt Sager, then a major, jockeyed for the job.

Sager declined an interview with the Daily Montanan through a spokesperson.

Across the country, heads of a highway patrol choose their own right-hand person, and there’s a reason for the tradition, Nelson said.

“These two people have to work in unison. They have to be a team. They have to have a common goal. And that’s why this happens,” Nelson said. “ … And that did not happen when Kurt Sager became the (assistant chief) of the Highway Patrol.”

Nelson said in his 26 years, he’d never seen a colonel not be allowed to choose his own lieutenant colonel.

Smith, who served 20 years with the Highway Patrol, said agency policy states the colonel makes the pick, and the AG approves it, and he said Lavin told him Knudsen promised he’d allow Lavin to lead, too; Lavin believed the same.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, left, and Col. Steve Lavin in early 2021 when Lavin was sworn into office as head of the Montana Highway Patrol, according to a social media post from MHP. Lavin is now suing Knudsen for wrongful discharge. (Provided by MHP and X)

“And of course, that didn’t happen,” Smith said.

From then on, Smith said, the climate at the Highway Patrol “began spiraling worse and worse.”

“When the field starts learning that the colonel can’t even choose his second-in-command, then the field stops trusting the whole administration, not knowing who is in charge,” Smith said.

Nelson described the climate when he left after 26 years.

“Tense with a capital ‘T’,” Nelson said. “It was very, very tense. It was not the Highway Patrol that I started with 26 years ago.

“You very much didn’t know each day if things had shifted and you were now going to be the target when you came to work in the last couple years that I was there.”

Lavin, though, said he held out hope that a climate survey and leadership program might help.

From 2011 to 2017, Lavin and Knudsen served in the Montana Legislature together, and Lavin said he believes Knudsen appointed him to lead the Montana Highway Patrol partly because of their time at the Capitol.

Lavin himself had gone into law enforcement at the encouragement of a family friend when he was young, he said. He planned to retire at 20 years, but he felt motivated as he moved up the ranks.

“I had new challenges, and so it kept the job really fresh,” Lavin said.

When he was appointed colonel, he said he told the administration he’d give them five years. He completed all but the last year, but it was Knudsen’s leadership style that spoiled his last stretch.

“I loved every minute of it until the last three years,” Lavin said.

Early on when Lavin was chief, Sager and another officer presented a leadership program to him and Hildenstab, Lavin said.

Lavin said it wasn’t cheap, but he liked the idea to elicit feedback from the Highway Patrol and start a program on leadership: “I wanted to find out what the troops were thinking, and I wanted to try and help.”

He said he received approval from then-chief deputy Kris Hansen, now deceased, in 2021 — “she was a leadership-type person, and so she loved this idea. So I told the guys to push forward with it.”

The leadership consultant had worked with other law enforcement agencies around the country, Lavin said, and he intended the Montana Highway Patrol to establish a relationship with the company that would have lasting impacts.

“This is going to be a long-term solution for the Highway Patrol,” Lavin said of the idea.

The project didn’t start in earnest until late 2023 and early 2024, according to Lavin and other officers.

Morale was worse than usual, likely because of a bid to bring on more troopers that never got off the ground in the 2023 legislative session, Lavin said. He said troopers already faced a crushing workload.

In recent years, he said, the state’s population increase has exacerbated it, and he and Hildenstab had a goal to increase staffing, but it didn’t materialize.

Nelson said the plan to ask the legislature for 100 more troopers — based on an academic analysis of need in Montana — went to zero.

“And the buck stops at Austin Knudsen,” Nelson said.

Nelson said he felt the blame fell squarely on Knudsen: “That is who is responsible for zero increase in the Montana Highway Patrol when our crime rate is through the roof, our calls for service are through the roof, our population is through the roof.”

He said even 100 more wouldn’t bring the agency to where it needs to be, but Knudsen didn’t advocate for one more: “A lot of respect was lost when that happened.”

Hildenstab put it this way: “It’s pretty frustrating when you’re just running from one crash to another in Billings, Montana, by yourself. And nobody is giving you any help through the legislative process.”

Nonetheless, the work to increase morale began. Lavin said the consultant, Eric Murray of Team Training Associates, put together “leadership groups” within the agency, and they started meeting.

Lavin said he was somewhat out of his comfort zone with the “touchy feely” approach, but he felt it led to an understanding: “I felt that the troopers trusted that we were trying to help morale within the outfit.”

A workplace climate survey was part of the project, a way to gather baseline information, but there was no guarantee enough staff of the Montana Highway Patrol would participate.

Sager was the point person on the project.

The retired trooper said law enforcement officers are generally less trusting of people anyway, and the culture of low trust had deepened under Knudsen.

He said he witnessed an effort from Sager to try to engage troopers as those in the field started receiving emails encouraging them to participate and share their honest feedback.

In late January and early February 2024, employees filled out the survey.

Smalley, then a sergeant, said he appreciated the directive from Murray, the consultant, that “there cannot be retaliation,” and that the full results had to be provided to all troopers in the Montana Highway Patrol, not just command staff.

“I was excited, and we’re always nervous,” Smalley said.

Smalley said he was excited because it felt like the colonel was having a hard time doing his job and was experiencing interference, and he hoped the results would break the logjam.

But he was nervous too: “We’ve seen people get jammed up off of surveys before.”

The sense of skepticism may have been prescient, given the harm that ensued.

The report from the consultant outlined recommendations to the Highway Patrol, and in the first 90 days, the leadership was to “share the findings with all participants for transparency.”

“It just didn’t happen,” Nelson said.

Lavin said as soon as Human Resources and the Attorney General’s Office read the results, the captains and higher ranking officers who had received copies were ordered to return them.

The survey found 45% of MHP employees were not optimistic about leadership. In written comments, respondents said the AG’s Office was micromanaging the Highway Patrol and allowed HR to have an outsized and negative influence on the division.

“This organization is a sinking ship caused by the Attorney General micromanaging the MHP,” said one comment, which reflected the sentiment of many others.

But the report also pointed to some possible positive areas, just ones clouded by a lack of priority on people.

“While many aspects of the organization are likely meeting expectations as identified through an array of measurable criteria, the lack of previous emphasis on the human factor in the organization is now impacting perceptions of confidence in leadership,” said part of the report.

The report was supposed to help sow seeds of a new era of leadership with the Montana Highway Patrol. Instead, once it started to hit the light of day, an order came down from the AG’s Office to re-collect all copies, according to the officers.

Three of the officers who talked with the Daily Montanan described a couple of incidents that followed the order as “horrendous” and “one of the most nasty” ever seen in the Montana Highway Patrol.

A fourth officer, former MHP Trooper Alicia Bragg, was fired after she shared the results of the survey with union staff. Bragg earlier told the Daily Montanan many troopers confided to her that they feared retaliation because of the comments they made in the survey.

She shared the results with her union to try to help, she said, and she believed the workplace conditions it detailed were important to address. The union alleged retaliation, the DOJ argued she released the information contrary to direct orders, and the complaint is pending.

In a text, Bragg said in December, she’ll be fighting for her job, wages and benefits that were illegally taken from her, but that’s not all.

“More than that, I want to make sure retaliatory terminations never happen again to any union law enforcement officer trying to make a positive change,” Bragg said. “I’m committed to keeping my community safe, putting food on my family’s table, and getting back up after getting knocked down.”

She said that’s why she’s taken a job with the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office.

The Montana Federation of Public Employees, which filed the complaint alleging retaliation, said upper management “stonewalled efforts to improve working conditions keeping Montanans safe.”

“The unfolding situation at DOJ and MHP is an important reminder that everyone deserves the right to just cause and due process regardless of rank or position,” said MFPE President Amanda Curtis in a statement.

Lavin said he was falsely accused of a leak to the media and forced to resign soon after. He filed a wrongful termination lawsuit last week, but Knudsen argues Lavin agreed to retire, and the case is pending.

Smith said the survey and its aftermath were a turning point in his career. He said he warned Sager, then lieutenant colonel, of the consequences as he saw them in the manner in which they were recalling the survey.

“You’re destroying the trust of this agency by doing this,” Smith said he told Sager. “You’re making this look like a witch hunt.”

Despite the alleged retaliation related to release of the survey, the plan all along was to share it internally, Lavin said.

Once results were compiled, he said, he checked with Lt. Col. Sager, point person on the survey and liaison with the AG’s Office, to be sure it would be OK to share the report with the Montana Highway Patrol — initially with captains and above.

“He said, ‘We’re good to go.’ I asked him a few times,” Lavin said.

The full report was nearly 400 pages, and Lavin said he only had the document for about a week before he received the call to return it. Some of the things he had read were painful, he said, but he said “I was happy to hit it head on.”

He said he wasn’t perfect, and he was open to making improvements himself based on the results. In 2022, the union had filed a complaint with the DOJ alleging MHP leadership, then Lavin, had changed standards for workers without following proper procedure.

“I’m going to work on me too as the leader of this agency,” Lavin said. “I want to fix any problems or any perceived problems that are occurring and change.”

But he didn’t get the chance.

Around the same time he was directed to turn in his survey, he received a phone call from Knudsen himself, Lavin said. A media outlet had filed a records request for the climate survey, according to the lawsuit Lavin filed, and Knudsen learned about it.

“Basically, he (Knudsen) implied pretty directly that I had leaked to the press that this report was available,” Lavin said in the interview. “And I told him that’s utterly false. I reviewed the report. There’s unflattering things about me. I wanted it internal as well.”

But Lavin said Knudsen was upset and argued with him: “‘I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we had the AP calling and requesting the report the same week you released it.’”

Lavin said he couldn’t control 250 employees, but he never called anybody, nor would he have called anyone: “That’s just not in my nature.”

“It was a pretty terse phone call,” he said.

Hildenstab, too, said Lavin would never have crossed the AG by releasing a report beyond agreed-upon bounds. He said he and Lavin ran around the state telling troopers that Knudsen wanted to get the Montana Highway Patrol more manpower, and Lavin defended Knudsen to a fault.

“He kissed the AG’s butt,” Hildenstab said. “He would never do it.”

(At the same time, Hildenstab said, taxpayers paid for it, so it belongs to the public regardless.)

Shortly after, he was called into a meeting with Knudsen, a chief of staff, HR, another AG staffer, and a witness, Lavin said. He said he was told he would be leaving his job, either by signing a retirement form or by being fired.

“I was in shock,” Lavin said.

Col. Steve Lavin, former chief of the Montana Highway Patrol, filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Austin Knudsen for wrongful discharge. (Provided by Lavin, the Montana Highway Patrol and LinkedIn)

He said he asked for a reason and asked for the weekend to consider the situation, but he was denied both.

Lavin said he worried about his retirement, about being fired, and about what he would have to tell future employers about why he left the Montana Highway Patrol. He couldn’t get a hold of his wife, he said, so he signed the retirement form.

“It’s tough,” Lavin said. “You feel like, I’ve never been in trouble. Not once. I’ve never done anything wrong. I’ve never lost a case. So being treated like that?”

He was escorted home so the patrol could collect all his gear, he said. Lavin said he was grateful at the time that his wife wasn’t home.

He said he had wanted to organize all of his uniforms and supplies so agency staff didn’t have to do it, but instead, he grabbed all his clothes, guns and other equipment and put them in the car.

He returned his badge.

“It’s not the way you want to go out after 32 good years of service,” Lavin said.

Smith had his own troubling interaction because of the call-back of the climate survey. Early on, he said, he asked Lavin, Sager and Murray, the consultant, if the information it contained would be public to all uniformed troopers.

“They said yes, this is going to be given out fully,” Smith said.

Smith received a hard copy of the report as well as a digital copy, and when the order came to return the surveys, he said a major asked him about his copies. He said he told them he had a hard copy he had turned in, and he had a copy on a thumb drive at home.

“And (supervisor) Chan Barry said, ‘Bring it in tomorrow,” Smith said. “I said, ‘OK.’”

Sgt. Conner Smith (right) was stationed as perimeter security at an event in 2019, according to the Montana Highway Patrol. (Provided by MHP and Facebook)

Half an hour later, Smith said, Barry told him he needed to retrieve the thumb drive immediately, and Smith said he agreed to head home and get it.

“He said, ‘No, I have to drive you,’” Smith said. “ … Of course, that made me rather irate … I felt it was a personal affront to my integrity.

Barry declined an interview through a spokesperson.

Smith said he worked in internal affairs, and he couldn’t rationalize leadership that entrusted him to investigate shootings when people have lost their lives but not give back a thumb drive he willingly admitted he held in his possession.

“For me, that was a huge turn of events in my career because I’ve never been treated so poorly,” Smith said.

Montana Highway Patrol officers can retire with full benefits after 20 years, and Smith said that’s the term he’d planned to serve. He said the political realities ensured he wouldn’t work any more years under Knudsen.

“I realized I should leave at my 20-year retirement date,” Smith said.

Nelson described the treatment of Smith as one of the “most nasty” he’d seen in his entire career at the Montana Highway Patrol. He said Smith was his supervisor at the time.

“That’s how we would treat a criminal,” Nelson said. “Here is a highly decorated supervisor of the Highway Patrol being treated like a criminal because of an unredacted survey that the taxpayers paid for. That’s wrong. That’s wrong.”

After the AG’s Office tried to stop the release of the climate survey, the leadership program appeared to come to a halt. One officer said he does not believe Murray, the consultant, was heard from again; Murray has not responded to previous calls from the Daily Montanan.

(In August, the Daily Montanan received and published a copy of the full report. The Attorney General’s Office threatened a lawsuit against the news outlet in a cease-and-desist letter, which the Daily Montanan has resisted.)

Lavin said the strong reaction to the results in the survey were hard for him to understand. He said he didn’t see anything particularly damaging, and the higher up a person goes, the more people will have criticisms.

Plus, he said Murray informed the agency’s leaders that the results generally contained ordinary complaints.

“That frustrates me because I feel like it’s $40,000 down the drain,” he said.

Smalley said staff agreed to participate in the survey under the premise that the results would be shared, and he suggested the top leaders simply redact comments that named individuals and release the rest.

He said Murray informed them that failing to release the results would take the agency backwards.

“When they took it away, they broke the trust,” Smalley said.

In an email, a spokesperson for Knudsen said the Montana Highway Patrol had lost faith in Lavin’s ability to lead, but in interviews, the other officers shed a different light on the leadership churn.

They said the attorney general never gave him the chance to lead, Human Resources was allowed to abuse its authority, and the agency felt those repercussions all the way down the chain.

They also don’t paint Lavin as the perfect chief.

Some of the other officers said he was a relaxed leader who could have been more assertive as the head of the agency and could have done more to push back against the Knudsen administration.

“He didn’t rule with an iron fist,” Nelson said. “However, you knew what he wanted. His goals were clear.”

And the retired officer granted anonymity said Lavin seemed to identify leadership abilities in those who worked for him or with him.

“Then, he would try to help develop those people to become future leaders of the agency,” he said.

At a certain point, however, Lavin could not make decisions, and he slowly became a figurehead, Nelson said: “Steve was more or less getting more of the keys to the castle taken away from him on a regular basis.”

Smith said Lavin wasn’t the strongest leader, but he had good ideas, and he listened to outside opinions: “Some leaders can be in-your-face and very authoritarian. He definitely was not that.”

But Lavin also had trust in Knudsen, he believed he would be allowed to manage as Knudsen said, and even when Smith believed Sager was undercutting Lavin in the Attorney General’s Office as both major and lieutenant colonel, Lavin gave Knudsen the benefit of the doubt, Smith said.

“He was less confrontational and probably too trusting,” Smith said. “He didn’t think it was as bad as it was. And so they (the Knudsen administration) took advantage of that in my opinion.”

Along the way, the retired officer granted anonymity said it appeared the AG’s Office had for some reason lost trust in Lavin: “And Sager seemed to be smart enough to take advantage of the situation.”

After Lavin’s departure, Knudsen appointed Sager to head the Montana Highway Patrol.

Lavin said he himself noticed he was being cut out, and the AG’s Office was dealing more and more with the lieutenant colonel. He said he decided to focus on the troops.

In hindsight, Lavin said he wishes he had been a better communicator as chief. The appointment to chief started out as a dream job, though, and if he had taken a misstep, he said, it would have been news to him.

Lavin said he never received a bad review in his career: “Not once. Not once. Not once. Nope.”

Hildenstab said Lavin cared about people, he wanted to make positive changes to the Highway Patrol, and he was treated unfairly.

“He sure the hell didn’t do anything to get him in any kind of trouble,” Hildenstab said.

Smith said it was confusing to see that Knudsen had selected his former colleague from the Montana Legislature to lead only to allow him to be undermined. If the AG had in fact lost faith in Lavin somewhere along the way, he said, the right approach would have been to simply replace him.

Smith also recalled a meeting of those holding the rank of captain and above where he asked Knudsen why he had selected Sager to be lieutenant colonel without soliciting input from other leaders, as Hildenstab told them Knudsen planned to do.

“He (Knudsen) told us he forgot. That was the answer he gave. The fact of the matter is he did not want to know what our opinions were,” Smith said.

Nelson said he intended to work 30 years at the Montana Highway Patrol, but he left after 26. Another opportunity arose, and due to the climate at the agency, he felt it best for him to change course.

Sgt. Jay Nelson, left, receives the Hedstrom Award for offering life-saving measures in 2023, according to the Montana Highway Patrol. (Provided by MHP and Facebook)

“I proudly joined the ranks of the Montana Highway Patrol 26 years ago because it was the best law enforcement agency in the state of Montana, if not the Northwest,” Nelson said. “And I left going, ‘What’s the future look like? Because it doesn’t look very bright.’”

Hildenstab also retired earlier than the 25 years he had planned. He had served for two years as Lavin’s first lieutenant colonel and watched Lavin try like mad to communicate with Knudsen, but to no avail.

“I was observing it,” Hildenstab said. “He was having a helluva time even having a meeting with him.”

After already serving eight years as lieutenant colonel before Lavin was appointed, Hildenstab said he knew how to help a colonel run the agency, and he had loved helping troops and helping solve agency problems. But the instability created on Knudsen’s watch destroyed his spirit to come to work.

“I’d been so disheartened and so almost pushed out of being able to do my job, I frankly gave up,” Hildenstab said.

Before he left, he said, he advised Knudsen and his chief of staff that the chain of command was broken and needed to be restored.

“They nodded their head and did just the opposite,” Hildenstab said.

Hildenstab called his last two years at the Highway Patrol under Knudsen the worst of his career.

“When I was leaving, I said, ‘Steve, if I was you, I would leave with me.’ And he stuck around, and he found out.”

Smalley left early as well. Every day, officers risk lives and their careers, he said, and they need to know they have the full support of the authority of the agency behind them.

“Everything is on the line when we’re out there. And if you can’t trust, then you can’t do it,” Smalley said.

Smalley said family responsibilities were at least half the reason he left the patrol, but he couldn’t have continued under the circumstances either.

“The mission is what the patrol is known for,” Smalley said. “We take care of people … Once they lose sight of that, we’re in a heap of trouble, and I think that’s where we’re at.”

Whether the climate at the Montana Highway Patrol can or will improve under another four years of Knudsen is an open question.

Nelson offers the most optimistic view, albeit with an unequivocal assessment of Knudsen’s first tenure.

“There’s been damage done,” Nelson said.

He said change won’t come easy, it will require “big movement” from Knudsen, but Knudsen has a chance to do better, even in the last three months of this term.

“The people of Montana elected him. They elected him to do a job. And I think he has a golden opportunity to do the right thing for the right reason,” Nelson said. “And that’s hit a major reset on the Montana Highway Patrol.”

But Nelson also said regaining lost trust is a tall order and will take time if it happens at all: “Even if he is re-elected, I don’t know if he’ll get there by the end of his tenure.”

He and Smalley point to the people whose lives the officers pledge to safeguard, such as the elderly person who gets a flat tire between Drummond and Deer Lodge.

Nelson said under Knudsen, the Montana Highway Patrol is losing people more quickly than it’s bringing them on – experienced, quality troopers – and the contraction affects public safety.

“We have to have the focus on the mission,” Nelson said.

In his former district, Smalley said he worries about the low staffing levels.

The officers take care of Lookout Pass, 33 miles of a high-crash corridor, he said, and a place where semi trucks wreck, and at times, they might have one officer on duty responsible for 100 miles in wintertime conditions.

They should have seven people this season, he said, but they’ll have four.

“I feel so bad for my guys because they are going to get run into the ground,” Smalley said. “They’re going to run all winter on that (inadequate staffing), and we’re a very, very busy duty station.”

Smalley said the Knudsen administration has made some good calls along with bad calls, but the lack of trust is a factor. He said he doesn’t have any direct insight, but he isn’t sure whether the AG even wants to make amends.

“He has his goals,” Smalley said. “And I don’t know that it’s always good for the Highway Patrol.”