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Dolezal still making waves

Maureen Dolan Staff Writer | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 8 years, 1 month AGO
by Maureen Dolan Staff Writer
| February 28, 2017 12:00 AM

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Rachel Dolezal chairs the May 5, 2015 meeting of the Spokane Police Ombudsman Commission. This still image is from a video posted in 2015 on the City of Spokane Office of Police Ombudsman’s government Facebook page.

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Rachel Dolezal is pictured here in a photo taken when she was a child growing up in Northwest Montana. A family member provided this photo.

COEUR d’ALENE — Things aren’t going well for Rachel Dolezal.

Last weekend, the Guardian, a British daily newspaper, reported Dolezal, 39, is unemployed, relying on food stamps to feed her family and will soon be homeless.

Dolezal has sought more than 100 jobs, but no one will hire her, the Guardian reported.

“She applied for a position at the university where she used to teach, and says she was interviewed by former colleagues who pretended to have no recollection of having met her. The only work she has been offered is reality TV, and porn,” the British paper reported.

The Guardian reporter interviewed Dolezal in Spokane, where Dolezal was living as a black woman in May 2015 when The Press published the first story questioning Dolezal’s ethnicity. At the time, Dolezal had risen in Spokane to positions of power as a black woman. She was president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, chair of the city’s Police Ombudsman Commission, and she wrote a column for a weekly publication — as a black woman.

The story “Black Like Me?” was published by The Press after reporters gathered mounting evidence that Dolezal was likely being deceptive about her race. The reporters then contacted Dolezal’s parents in Montana. Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal said their daughter is biologically white, and they provided photos showing their daughter as a young girl with blue eyes and blond hair.

“As Rachel’s parents, it is heart-wrenching to see where her choices have led her,” said Ruthanne Dolezal Monday when contacted by The Press. “We sincerely hope that she will be honest, accept reality and find the help she needs.”

Dolezal previously lived and worked in Coeur d’Alene as an instructor at North Idaho College and as the director of education for the Human Rights Education Institute. During that time, she was highly visible in the media and made several claims that she was the target of hate crimes. In 2010, she reported a noose was found hanging in a building on the property where she resided in Coeur d’Alene’s Fort Grounds neighborhood.

She moved to Spokane in 2011 and reported being the target of hate crimes in that city as well.

None of the alleged hate crimes was ever substantiated by police in Coeur d’Alene or Spokane.

Regarding her inability to be hired and the difficulty she had finding a publishing house for her memoir titled “In Full Color,” Dolezal told The Guardian: “The narrative was that I’d offended both communities in an unforgivable way, so anybody who gave me a dime would be contributing to wrong and oppression and bad things. To a liar and a fraud and a con.”

The Guardian story contains information that indicates Dolezal may still be creating her own narrative.

According to the Guardian, Dolezal was at a high point in her life when “the Spokane police chief wearied of his troublesome ombudsman chair, and hired a private investigator to dig around for dirt.

“The PI knocked on Larry and Ruthanne’s door in Montana. All it took was a few words and old family photographs, and the chief was rid of his irritant at a stroke. The press were tipped off, the ‘Rachel Dolezal race faker’ story broke, and within days Dolezal’s whole life lay in ruins.”

But that’s not how it happened.

There was a private investigator sniffing around about Dolezal in early 2015, but that investigator, Ted Pulver, scoffs at the idea that former Spokane Police Chief Frank Straub hired him.

Pulver, who will not disclose who he was working for while investigating Dolezal, said that during the course of his investigation, it began to appear Dolezal was fabricating the hate crimes, so he tried to meet with Straub to discuss possible law enforcement action against her. Pulver said he was never able to set up a meeting with Straub.

“It was my understanding Chief Straub did not want to pursue anything against her,” Pulver said. “If anything, Straub was an obstacle to the investigation.”

Pulver did not knock on Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal’s door. He didn’t “tip off” The Press. Reporters from this newspaper contacted Dolezal’s parents and asked about Rachel’s ethnicity and requested her birth certificate and the photos.

During his investigation of Dolezal, Pulver learned there were others looking into her background, including The Press. He contacted The Press and other members of the media to compare notes, but did not provide investigative information to this newspaper.

For Pulver, a North Idaho resident and former Kootenai County sheriff’s deputy, the Dolezal-involved hate crimes in North Idaho and Spokane remain particularly troubling.

“She was making a lot of claims that turned out to be bogus,” Pulver said Monday.

Coeur d’Alene Police Detective Jared Reneau said Monday there were four incidents reported in Coeur d’Alene involving Dolezal. The oldest goes back seven years, and the others were reported before 2011. Reneau said his department never had enough evidence to cite Dolezal for filing a false report.

“I’m a North Idaho citizen, and I personally find it offensive that she should be able to label us as racists and create false reports,” Pulver said. “I was a sheriff’s deputy during the Aryan Nations period. The people of North Idaho did not put up with Aryans that committed crimes, just like we don’t put up with anyone of any race, creed or color who commits crimes.”

•••

Maureen Dolan can be reached by email at mdolan@cdapress.com.

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