If you want things to change, you must actually want things to change.
Expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo without supporting change is called whining. That's why I'm writing my first ever political endorsement.
This week, the Idaho Attorney General’s Office announced that no criminal charges will be filed against four Pocatello police officers who fatally shot 17-year-old Victor Perez last April, concluding a five-month investigation into a case that prompted heated protests and commanded national attention. I have previously covered this tragedy for my national and international readers here, here and here.
On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Jeff Nye issued the following statement.
"The death of 17-year-old Victor Perez was a tragedy. The State would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the four officers who discharged their weapons were not justified in using deadly force. We will thus not file criminal charges against the officers."
I cannot fault this conclusion. The Deputy AG is right in that Idaho law simply does not support most of the serious criminal charges that might have been levied in this case (I’m pretty sure that dereliction of duty inspired by incompetence isn’t sanctioned under Idaho statutes). I may not like or even completely agree with the AG’s conclusion, but it’s not without justification. If you believe in the rule of law, you must support its conclusions even if you disagree with the outcome. That’s me, right now.
I am generally supportive of law enforcement. The cops have just about the toughest jobs imaginable in our society. The pay is low, the odds of career-wrecking incidents are high, and opportunities for personal satisfaction are small and infrequent. A few years ago, local LE responded to a call where they encountered a one-year-old nearly drowned in a bathtub because his drug-addled father had forgotten about him and passed out in the next room. I’m not really big on calling people out over their conduct in a job that I couldn’t do. Cops aren’t perfect, but they generally do a difficult job pretty well. That being the case, I’m down with the concept of a generous strike zone.
Nonetheless, this is a case that warrants criticism. The question is, what to do about it?
Not every interaction between human beings, even serious, consequential ones, may be remediated by criminal statutes. That would require a Hammurabi-like code stretching from here to the edge of the universe with the unwieldy mass of TON 618. Some things you simply have to address via other methods than criminal law.
The decision to not pursue criminal charges in this case does not necessarily imply that nothing untoward occurred. Something untoward did occur, and a young man lost his life because of it. The fact that criminal charges have been deemed inappropriate doesn’t mean that those involved should still be in good standing with the City of Pocatello.
The family of Victor Perez is pursuing a civil suit against the city. But despite the devil went down to Georgia aspirations of the law firms involved, I think that this accomplishes little outside of racking up billable hours. The discovery will prove interesting. I’m not so sure this will pan out the way plaintiffs anticipate.
Fortunately, there is another way to achieve widespread accountability over this. The Victor Perez saga is much more than an isolated incident; it’s part of a broader pattern of incompetence (at best) and malfeasance (at worst) by local officials—all of whom are either elected or work for people who are elected. This strikes me as a problem with an obvious solution.
Since the turn of the century, through various incarnations of city government, Pocatello has become known for debacles: loaning taxpayer-funded equipment and services to other communities without compensation, ignoring merchants (when not actively trying to run them out of business with botched infrastructure projects), failing to attract new businesses to the area, cheating landowners in dubious real estate transactions, pursuing an expensive and questionable rebranding of the same old because some organization that no one ever heard of didn’t like our city flag, and disregarding treaty obligations with the Shoshone Bannock Tribe in promoting a sketchy airport development, to name a few.
The only things that our local leaders have been consistently good at during this time were ignoring a proliferation of illegal drugs and untreated mental illness, watching businesses flee while watching a homeless population grow, and generating national headlines for all of the wrong reasons. Our pitch to attract new businesses is, essentially, “We’re idiots; please come save us.” And “We were almost the Gallium Valley of the west.”
If you want all of this to change, you must want change. That means doing something about it. That’s what elections are for, and we just happen to have one coming up.
The thing that most struck me about the Victor Perez tragedy was the absence of local leaders in the immediate aftermath. Pocatello was in international headlines for days, not in a good way. I thought that we might have to resort to photos of our mayor and city council on milk cartons to figure out where they’d gotten off to.
I’m sure that they were being told to not say anything, but that’s advice for followers, not leaders. Finally, two days ago, nearly five months after the Perez shooting, Blad issued the following statement.
“Today, September 3, 2025, the Idaho Attorney General’s Office announced that criminal charges will not be filed against the officers involved in the shooting of Victor Perez. The City of Pocatello has been committed to fully cooperating with the independent investigation and review, and respects the Attorney General’s determination. This decision does not lessen the pain of losing Victor, nor does it erase the grief felt in our community. We recognize the weight of this moment for everyone affected.
“My heart goes out to the Perez family over the loss of Victor. This incident has been difficult for our entire community. In Pocatello we stand together in challenging times. I am confident we will continue to support one another as we move forward.”
Most of that statement could have and should have been issued the day after the shooting. That’s what a leader would do. If, as a leader, you are incapable of doing this without permission and a script, you are in over your head.
There are six serious candidates running for Pocatello mayor this fall. Four of them represent, a few twists and turns aside, generally the same future trajectory for our community as the past 16 years under Brian Blad. One of them, Blad, represents exactly the same trajectory—unless you think that a run-of-the-mill middle-aged politician can suddenly and spontaneously discover wisdom and courage without any incentive whatsoever for doing so.
The remaining candidate out of the six, Greg Cates, represents change.
Some Pocatello voters won't consider voting for Cates because they believe he leans heavily to the political right. Since those voters are generally unpersuadable, I will not waste time appealing to them except to suggest that, while that judgment is ultimately theirs, a D or an R next to a candidate’s name in a local race is probably far less important than the candidate’s ideas for running the community (I feel the same way about Ann Swanson).
Because it spins up those for whom simile and metaphor are as obtuse as quantum mechanics, I’m reluctant to compare Cates to other candidates, especially one as polarizing as Donald Trump. But Cates, who is much nicer and more forthcoming than Trump or his associates, is, like Trump, an indisputable agent of change. If Cates is elected, it will not be business as usual.
On that I am willing to bet more than I can afford to lose. If your biggest issue is the need for change, Cates is your candidate.
Cates is the only candidate in the mayoral field who’s already been campaigning for months. He is a sincere, hard worker who clearly understands the important thing that the job of mayor entails—leadership. Cates is an authentic candidate who makes no attempt to pretend to be anyone other than who he is. He has some rough edges, but that's a hallmark of his authenticity that I find refreshing. You should not write Cates off until you’ve had a chance to meet him in person. You just may come away impressed. I’m not alone either; his growing support is impressive.
Cates has some of the best ideas that I’ve heard about using leadership to forge new paths forward. Most of the criticism I’ve heard levied against him comes down to, essentially, he’s not part of the current club. Given their track record, that’s probably his strongest asset. Especially considering the competition.
It’s not like residents of Pocatello get to design an ideal candidate. There are six options available that do not represent an outright waste of a vote. That’s it. And you must judge based on what you think they will do.
When you ask a candidate running for mayor in a dysfunctional, dying town what they represent and they answer with affordable housing or the like, they may be wonderful and compassionate, but they are not a serious answer. When you ask candidates to speak to their successes as current or past city officials, and all you can hear are crickets, it’s an indication that change, or any of its 182 synonyms, is to them as sunshine is to a vampire.
The criticism that Cates sometimes gets out over his skis on financial details would carry more weight if it were coming from a cadre other than those responsible for the current preposterous levels of mismanagement. One very recent criticism of Cates along this line concerns his video about waste in city government related to the recent rebranding. Although his general criticism was valid, he did bollix up the numbers.
But I nonetheless think that it’s a winning issue for Cates simply because his critics are missing the forest for the trees. It reminds me of the criticism directed at DOGE when it was discovered that USAID funds were being used to support drag shows in Central America. The salient point wasn’t whether it was $45K or $4.5K; it’s that it was above zero. If you asked American citizens to check boxes on their tax forms for where they’d like to see their money go, how many do you think would check the “Drag shows in Columbia” box? That’s Cate’s point. There are places in city government to save money or at least repurpose it more productively.
I could not agree with him more. I’m 3/4 of a mile away from being able to vote for Cates, but can I still get a yard sign?
Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on X at @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com.