Alissa Pili #35 and Jenna Johnson #22 of the Utah Utes react after a basket against the Gonzaga Bulldogs in the second round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament in Spokane, Wash. on March 25, 2024. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images )
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Steph Chambers/Getty Images
Alissa Pili #35 and Jenna Johnson #22 of the Utah Utes react after a basket against the Gonzaga Bulldogs in the second round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament in Spokane, Wash. on March 25, 2024. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images )
Steph Chambers/Getty Images
BOISE, Idaho — Prosecutors in Idaho say they will not prosecute a man accused of yelling racial slurs at players on the University of Utah women’s basketball team.
The incident outside the team hotel during the NCAA women’s basketball tournament in March drew national attention because it also happened in an area long associated with white supremacist groups.
The harassment first emerged during a press conference about the tournament, where University of Utah women’s head coach Lynne Rogers said men driving pickup trucks with their engines running shouted the N-word at the players. her players outside the team dinner where they were in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho – about a thirty-minute drive from Spokane, Washington, where the team played Gonzaga in the tournament.
Members of the team told police that someone in a truck flying a Confederate flag shouted racial slurs as they and employees walked to dinner. They said the truck and a second vehicle were waiting when the group returned from dinner and followed them back to the hotel.
“It’s really frustrating,” Rogers said at a press conference in March. “And for our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA Tournament environment, that’s just wrong.”
Now, after two months of investigation with the assistance of the FBI and review of CCTV footage, authorities say they have interviewed a local high school student who admitted to shouting racial slurs. Police said they have contacted up to 100 people who they believe may have witnessed the incident.
But in a charging document, the Coeur d’Alene city attorney concluded that there was insufficient evidence and that the student’s use of the nickname “cannot satisfy the legal requirements for any narrow category of unprotected speech.”
The NCAA said it has worked with the Utah team and tournament site Gonzaga University to increase security, as well as the University of California-Irvine women’s team, which is also in Coeur d’Alene. Utah’s team was moved to a hotel in Spokane the next day. The UC-Irvine team returned home after being eliminated from the competition.
“I strongly condemn the appalling treatment of female college athletes who were visiting Coeur d’Alene before the started a basketball tournament in Spokane.”
Coeur D’Alene and northern Idaho became known as a haven for extremist and racist groups in the 1970s and 1980s when the Aryan Nations moved their headquarters there. Skinheads organized parades in the 1990s. The activity declined after a lawsuit largely dissolved the organization. But two summers ago, 31 members of the white nationalist Patriotic Front group were arrested there, planning to sabotage a gay pride event.
Troy Oppie, Boise State Public Radio
