New building named after slain deputy


Washington County’s Commissioners approved Sheriff Matt Thomas’s suggestion for naming the newly remodeled county annex in memory of James M. Alexander, a deputy who was slain in the line of duty on Christmas, 1965. The suggested location of the signage is on the east face of the building, shown on the architect’s drawing inset. The building will house Sheriff’s detectives, as well as the new home of the Washington County Assessor’s office. Photo by Nancy Grindstaff
By: 
Dylan Brown
James M. Alexander never saw another Christmas, but his name will not soon be forgotten in Washington County. 
 County commissioners voted unanimously to name the new sheriff’s office building after the deputy slain on Christmas 1965. 
 Sheriff Matt Thomas proposed the honorific for his department’s new space within the under-construction expansion of the former magistrate court building across from the Washington County Courthouse. 
 Alexander, born in Nebraska, graduated from Weiser High School in 1955. After time in the Marines and Boise Police Department, he was 28 when he returned to join the sheriff’s office, moving to Midvale with his wife, who was expecting their second child.
 A month into the job, Alexander walked into the K.C. Club, a former bar in Cambridge, and ordered a Coke at 10:50 p.m. on Christmas night, according to newspaper reports and court records. Alexander was not in uniform, but well known to the handful of people he sat down with at the bar. At the opposite end was bar owner James L. Carey, who started mumbling and cursing at Alexander. Witnesses said Alexander asked if Carey “was talking to him” and threatened to arrest him for disturbing the peace. When Alexander came down the bar, Carey drew a .22 pistol and fired multiple shots into his arm, chest and back. 
 Another deputy, who had just arrived outside, heard the shots and entered to find Alexander dead on the floor. He arrested Carey, who was later convicted of second-degree murder. Carey’s attorney would call the shooting “but a dream” for his client. Carey testified to being a chronic alcoholic and drunk during the shooting at his trial, which had to be moved to Moscow, Idaho, after trouble at the notorious Washington County jail.
 The jail has since been rebuilt and now Alexander’s name will adorn new facilities for his fellow deputies.
 Washington County spent $1.8 million in federal dollars to renovate the building across from where the Sheriff’s Office shares a tight space with the Weiser Police Department. Detectives currently have no bathrooms in their offices.
 The expansion of the existing building will nearly double the size of the county’s Department of Motor Vehicles and provide new offices for the county assessor, currently located in the courthouse.
 Sheriff’s deputies and detectives will move into the new wing next door, which will house detective offices, patrol division work space, locker rooms, a conference room, an emergency operations center and evidence room. 
 “We were able to get a lot in there,” said Jason Martinneau, project superintendent.
 Martinneau said his crew are on track to finish the new wing in late February or early March. The DMV will then temporarily move into that building as their offices are renovated. 
 Project construction and landscaping should be fully complete by the end of April, Martinneau said.

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