On the evening of January 28, Spokane health care workers and activists marched from Riverfront Park to the county courthouse to honor Alex Pretti, the nurse Border Patrol agents executed on a Minneapolis street last month.
Once the march reached the courthouse, the crowd fanned out on the lawn in front of the large wooden doors on the south end of the building. A pair of men stood on the lawn by the western edge of the crowd. Local open government activist Jim Leighty heard the men before he saw them. They spoke in a lingo and cadence he was familiar with from years of police accountability work. “Even when they’re out of uniform,” Leighty said, “cops sound like cops.”
He turned to see if he knew them.
Leighty said the first thing he noticed were the gaiter masks covering the men’s faces. They were wearing generic-looking tactical clothing with no insignia or other visible law enforcement markings. This kind of gear has been common in civilian gun culture for years. More recently it has emerged as an emblem of federal agents deployed to American cities as part of President Donald Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on immigration.
Because their faces were covered and they were not wearing uniforms, there was no way to tell who they were: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents? Vigilantes?
When Leighty saw the men, he told RANGE, “I thought they were ICE.”
So he called the SPD dialogue team, a unit Hall created that tries to keep protest environments safe by communicating with protest organizers and deescalating tense situations. The team gave him some information he was not expecting: they were not ICE agents. Neither were they vigilantes.
They were Spokane city police officers. This was suspicious: the Spokane Police Department (SPD) prohibits its officers from wearing face coverings when doing normal police work.
The dialogue team “said they would take care of it, and they did,” Leighty said. “They didn’t waste any time.”
Just after the team responded to him, the men were gone.
RANGE has yet to hear from Chief Hall or SPD spokesperson Daniel Strassenberg about why the men were at the event or if they will discipline the officers, but it’s unequivocally clear they were violating a policy put in place more than six months ago.
In the wake of the June 11 protests at the ICE facility on Cataldo Avenue that became one of the biggest Spokane stories of 2025, Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall gave an exclusive interview to RANGE, during which he stated, unequivocally, “My officers will not wear masks. They will not.”
Hall did not return requests for comment by press time for this story, but he characterized the incident as a mistake and said “it won’t happen again” in remarks to the Spokane Public Safety & Community Health Committee on February 2.
“They were seen, they were identified. I'll take full accountability for that. I didn't know the officers were there. The incident commander didn't know the officers were there. That communication gap is my responsibility,” Hall continued. “We made it very clear to every single member of the police department — all 454 of them — what the expectations are when it comes to wearing face coverings.”
The incident was disturbing enough to Hall that he felt the need to clarify the department’s mask policy. The next day, on January 30, he sent an email to the entire department saying “To be unequivocally clear:
face coverings or masks of any kind are prohibited for on-duty Spokane Police Department personnel, regardless of assignment or duties(underline Hall’s).”
There are some legitimate uses of face coverings in police work, such as when police might encounter dangerous fumes and need a gas mask. But Hall wrote in his email to his employees that even in these circumstances, officers must get written permission to cover their faces.
Neither are SPD officers supposed to be in plain clothes during demonstrations. In our July conversation, Hall outlined the reason why: it undercuts the dialogue team. “[We’re] embedding uniformed police officers — not undercover officers — into these crowds at these protests,” Hall said, not to intimidate or to gather intel on possible wrong-doing, but “to create dialogue, to have a chat, and get the vibe of the crowd. It starts before the protest even begins. They contact the organizers and they say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna be there. We’d like to help facilitate this and make sure it’s safe for everybody.’”
Based on Hall’s comments to council and the way the officers seemed to be monitoring radio communications, it’s likely they were on duty and in violation of these policies. If they were off-duty, and attending as civilians, it’s less clear if that would violate the new policy.
From Leighty’s perspective, though, “If they were off-duty, I think that’s worse,” and could be interpreted as intimidation.
At the very least, Leighty said, showing up in tactical gear and gaiters to a protest demonstrates bad judgement.
“At a vigil where the big concern is masked individuals working for the government who executed a person,” Leighty said, “it’s in very poor taste to show up as a person working for the government wearing a mask.”
Chief Hall’s email to SPD staff
From: "Hall, Kevin" <khall@spokanepolice.org>
Date: January 30, 2026 at 7:27:05 PM PST
To: All Police <AllPolice@spokanecity.org>
Cc: "Yates, Maggie" <myates@spokanecity.org>, "Duggan, Andi" <aduggan@spokanecity.org>
Subject: Clarification on Face Covering Policy
Team,
I want to clarify our expectations regarding face coverings and acknowledge that prior guidance on this issue was not communicated as clearly or consistently as it should have been. That responsibility rests with me.
To be unequivocally clear: face coverings or masks of any kind are prohibited for on-duty Spokane Police Department personnel, regardless of assignment or duties, with the sole exception of surgical or N95 masks worn for legitimate medical reasons, such as illness or immune-compromised conditions.
Any deviation from this policy must be approved in advance, in writing, by an Assistant Chief and include documented justification. No other exceptions are authorized. This policy does not apply to the appropriate use of gas masks or respirators when operationally required.
This message is intended to remove any ambiguity and ensure consistent understanding across the organization. I take full responsibility for ensuring this expectation is clearly set and uniformly enforced going forward, and it will be.
Thank you for your professionalism and attention to this matter.
Kevin Hall
Kevin Hall | Chief of Police | Spokane Police Department
