This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Rural Utah legislators and some members of the state's congressional delegation have waged a campaign against federal agents in charge of patrolling Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands, claiming county sheriffs should be the law enforcement authority.
But recent incidents around Utah's outback might make residents and tourists a little squeamish about putting more power into the hands of sheriffs.
Former BLM ranger Jeff Ellison ran into trouble with the Garfield County Sheriff's Office after he had a confrontation with a pistol-packing camper at the Calf Creek Campground in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, where he had been talking to visitors about the campfire program he was going to give that evening.
The man told Ellison that the feds did not have jurisdiction on the land and if he stepped into his campsite again he was going to shoot him.
When Ellison called the Sheriff's Office, the man packed up and drove away, but Ellison got the license-plate number. Deputies tracked the plate to a man in Beaver, but nothing came of it.
A few months later, Ellison had a water-cooler discussion with a secretary in the BLM offices about Middle East politics, and he explained the meaning of IED (improvised explosive device). She apparently was unfamiliar with the term.
The next day, sheriff's deputies came to Ellison's home, cuffed him and arrested him for making terroristic threats.
Salt Lake City attorney and former national BLM Director Pat Shea got involved on Ellison's behalf. No charges ever were filed.
Shea believes it was a move by rural law enforcement to intimidate a federal agent. But Garfield County Sheriff Danny Perkins told Salt Lake Tribune reporter Brian Maffly he personally had nothing to do with the arrest and that the complaint had come from the agent in charge of the BLM's Utah-Nevada district.
Another questionable Garfield County incident was last year's arrest of former Escalante Police Chief Kevin Worlton on allegations he made false statements in reports he submitted involving the arrest in a drug investigation of 10 residents — some of whom reportedly had political connections in town.
The drug charges were dismissed, and the Worlton prosecution was handed to the Utah attorney general's office.
That was more than a year ago and court action keeps getting delayed. A 6th District Court hearing scheduled for last week was pushed to May.
Then there is retired biology professor Dennis Bramble, who moved to Escalante and began going to City Council meetings with his wife, Jean, to protest a proposed oil and gas drilling project in Garfield County.
Bramble contacted Shea in 2014 after, he said, a sheriff's deputy pulled up to his home when he was sitting on his porch and warned him that if he and his wife didn't stop their public protests, they would face trouble.
Shea again contacted local officials and nothing more happened with the Brambles. That hasn't stopped Shea from referring to the Garfield sheriff and other rural cops as "bullies with a badge."