Why Idaho can’t prosecute police officers who killed Victor Perez | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Idaho law blocks prosecution of officers who killed Victor Perez in 2023.
- Stand Your Ground law removes duty to retreat or assess threat before firing.
- Legislative warnings in 2018 predicted legal gaps now shielding officers.
The killing of Victor Perez, a 17-year-old nonverbal child with a developmental disability and cerebral palsy, by police in Pocatello should have been prosecuted. It is a momentous failure that the state of Idaho, having witnessed something so terrible, will do nothing at all about it.
The important question now is: Why have we failed? Answering that question correctly provides the only possible path to making sure something like this failure is not repeated.
Some have blamed Attorney General Raúl Labrador, whose office decided not to prosecute the four officers who killed Perez. I am no fan of Labrador’s. I think under his leadership the office has made numerous legal blunders, and I haven’t hesitated to point them out.
But I don’t think this is one of them.
The determination not to prosecute the officers was made by Deputy Attorney General Jeff Nye, whose tenure with the office extends back into the term of former Attorney General Lawrence Wasden. He is a career prosecutor, not a political hack.
And Nye has also successfully prosecuted law enforcement in the past, notably former Bingham County Sheriff Craig Rowland, who pulled a gun on a youth group who visited his house and held a gun to the head of their adult chaperone.
This is not a case of failure on the part of the AG’s office, but a clear failure of Idaho law.
Police were called because Perez, in the midst of a mental health crisis, was threatening members of his family with a kitchen knife. As officers approached him, he was around 12 feet back from a chain-link fence stumbling on the ground. Police told him to drop the knife, commands he could not understand. He stood up holding it, took one step forward and was gunned down.
It’s unfair to blame the responding officers for not knowing Perez was nonverbal and was in the midst of a behavioral health crisis. They entered a tense situation with an armed person and didn’t have time to gather all the facts. They were told he was intoxicated, and it is reasonable that they would believe that.
But, as is obvious from the video, there was no realistic way Perez could have seriously harmed officers or bystanders when he was killed — not unless he had a 12-foot reach. The officers could easily have stepped back from the fence, ensured their safety and gained more time to deal with the situation.
It is likely that Perez would still be alive if they had taken that simple step instead of opening fire.
Idaho law specifically bars consideration of those facts, however.
“Under Idaho law, the officers did not have a duty to retreat from the fence before using deadly force,” Nye noted correctly. “One of the officers chose to remain at the fence where he was vulnerable to a knife attack from the other side of the fence. He was still in that position when the officers started shooting.”
Describing the events as a “tragedy,” Nye notes that prosecution is impossible because of two points of Idaho law. First, Idaho law bars the requirement that officers (or anyone else) wait to determine whether an apparent threat is real or just a figment of their imagination. Second, Idaho law bars the requirement that officers (or anyone else) attempt to retreat from a threat before shooting.
Idaho Code 19-202A, a law passed in 2018 by the Idaho Legislature which is referred to as the Stand Your Ground Law or the Castle Doctrine, was repeatedly cited by Nye as the reason prosecution would be doomed. Originally pitched as a way to prevent people from being prosecuted if they shoot a home intruder, we can now see clearly that it has a much more sweeping effect.
There was warning beforehand that something like this would happen: “Rep. Ilana Rubel, D-Boise …. said the bill would make it a justifiable homicide to shoot to death a confused, elderly neighbor who’s wandered into the wrong home, or a friend sneaking in with a surprise tray of cookies,” The Spokesman-Review reported at the time. “‘There is no right under the Second Amendment to shoot people,’ she said. ‘The Constitution does not protect your right to kill people.’ ”
But Idaho law does.
It desperately needs to be fixed.
Bryan Clark is an opinion writer for the Idaho Statesman.
This story was originally published September 5, 2025 at 4:00 AM.