“An initial investigation by the KCSO after the incident revealed that alcohol did not appear to be a factor in the death. However, reports in the community began to swirl that alcohol was indeed involved. The coroner’s findings confirms those reports.”

That paragraph from today’s Coeur d’Alene Press skews paper article headlined Report:  Alcohol related to teen’s death completely and convincingly validates the Reggie Nault family’s reasoning for engaging professional, objective, qualified legal counsel to evaluate the results of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) investigation into the young man’s unattended death.

That paragraph from reporter Brian Walker’s article sent chills up our spine.   Please read it again.  Carefully. (more…)

According to Tuesday’s Coeur d’Alene Press skews paper article headlined Nault’s family still seeks answers, some family members of deceased Coeur d’Alene High School student Reggie Nault have engaged an attorney to monitor the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department investigation into his death.

OpenCdA sympathetically but loudly commends the young man’s family for engaging an attorney to represent them in their efforts to learn the facts leading or contributing to his death.

When someone dies as this young man did and the facts of his death are slow in coming, family and friends are deeply emotionally involved.  That very understandable emotional involvement can sometimes lead to clouded judgements.  In this instance, the young man’s family seems to have recognized that they would be comforted by having a professional and competent advocate evaluate the information unemotionally and objectively as it comes in.   The family properly and wisely engaged an attorney to represent them in seeking and evaluating the results of the investigation.

To some, the family’s engaging an attorney looks like the prelude to a wrongful death action.

To others, engaging an attorney looks like the family is dissatisfied with the progress of the investigation.

Both perspectives have some merit, and both validate the family’s taking exactly the action it did.

As OpenCdA has often said, the Kootenai County justice rug has become lumpier and lumpier as incidents have been swept under it.  By engaging an attorney to monitor the investigation of Reggie Nault’s death and evaluate the results of that investigation, the young man’s family is honoring his life by using his death to keep a trained and watchful eye on those who might be tempted to lift the rug’s edge and sweep again.  The facts are the facts, and they will not change.

There can be no genuinely good outcome when a young person dies prematurely.  The closest thing to a comforting outcome is that the person’s family hopes others will learn from the facts of his death and use what they learn to help themselves and others avoid similar outcomes.

We think the Nault family’s action toward that end is honorable and commendable.