Respected state police veteran retires

TWIN FALLS, Idaho – He was at Sugar City in 1976 when the Teton Dam broke, releasing a wall of water that killed 14 people. He brought the body of a federal marshal off the mountain in 1992 during the Ruby Ridge incident. And he testified as an expert witness during the sentencing of Claude Dallas, convicted of the 1981 killing of two Idaho Fish and Game agents in Owyhee County.

Idaho State Police Capt. David Neal will now be chasing grandkids instead of lawbreakers and teaching lessons learned from a long, successful career in law enforcement. After 33 years with ISP, Neal is looking forward to finding a new routine. He officially retired recently from ISP Region 4 in Jerome.

“It was time to go,” said Neal from his home recently. “I’ll find a new routine and keep busy, especially with five grandboys I’ll be spending a lot of time at sporting events.”

“I graduated from the CSI (College of Southern Idaho) law enforcement program in 1969,” said Neal, a 1966 graduate of Gooding High School. After a stint as a cadet with the Washington State Patrol and a year with the Twin Falls police, Neal went to work for the Idaho State Police in 1973.

“When I first started, we were using ticker tape and we were our own dispatchers,” Neal said. “Now we have civilian dispatchers and are starting to equip our cars with computers.”

“He’s a no-nonsense, very pro-officer safety oriented (person),” said Sgt. Doug McFall of ISP Region 4. “He taught at the CSI law enforcement program and at the ISP and also put together a training manual on officer safety in the early 1980s.”

In the early 1990s, Neal was commander of the Crisis Response Team, the same team that recovered the body of U.S. Marshal William Degan from North Idaho’s Ruby Ridge mountain during the infamous Randy Weaver shootout. Neal also testified as an expert witness at the sentencing of Claude Dallas, who was convicted in 1982 of killing Idaho Fish and Game agents Bill Pogue and Conley Elms during a poaching investigation at Dallas’ camp on the Owyhee River.

“He always held his people to a very high standard,” McFall said. “He enjoyed training and instructing officer safety maybe more than anything else.”