Coeur D Alene Press Reporter Keith Erickson was arrested at his home on January 7, 2020. According to a local Coeur D Alene Police Spokesman, Erickson was arrested by the North Idaho Police Media Exploitation Task Force (NIP-ME-TUFF) for violating “The 9 Do’s and Dont’s of Being Media in North Idaho.” The 9 Do’s and Don’t’s is a list of lawful orders that the Coeur D Alene Police, Kootenai County Sheriff, and Idaho State Police presented to Inland Northwest media outlets at their annual “Drunksgiving” extravaganza. According to the charges, Erickson allegedly violated rules number 1, 2, and 9 by conducting his own investigation of a police incident rather than simply publishing the press release verbatim.

“We’re very disappointed that Mr. Erickson ignored our lawful orders to only publish positive news stories about local law enforcement,” said Chief Lee White of the Coeur D Alene Police Department. “By publishing stories that negatively reflect on law enforcement, the public may begin to question our motives. This can threaten officer safety and impede our ability to keep the citizens of Coeur D Alene safe.”

Although it is unclear which story prompted Erickson’s arrest, many believe that NIP-ME-TUFF has had their eyes on Erickson every since he was a spokesman for the City of Coeur D Alene in 2015. At that time, Erickson failed to follow NIP-ME-TUFF’s pre-written statement regarding Officer David Kelley‘s shooting of the dog Arfee. Instead, Erickson made his own statement which included “It’s just an unfortunate incident that happened, and what we want to do is put it behind us.”

According to an anonymous source at the Coeur D Alene Police Department, this really raised the hackles of the brass and they’ve been after him ever since. “Erickson was expected to make a statement in which Arfee was blamed for the attack and David Kelley was hailed a hero. That didn’t happen and that is a crime.”

Lee White agreed, “Erickson has been writing truthful articles for too long. Through NIP-ME-TUFF’s thorough investigation and heroic actions we’ve been able to take this dangerous reporter off the street.”

Although the Coeur D Alene Press did not return calls for comment, it’s clear that they’ve fallen back into compliance with the “9 Do’s and Dont’s.” The same day that Erickson’s arrest was announced, they published a fully compliant article entitled “In CDA, Crime Doesn’t Pay” which details the heroic action of Coeur D Alene Police Officers reducing the crime rate in the City of Coeur D Alene.

“These are really the types of articles we’re looking for,” A spokesman for NIP-ME-TUFF said. “It contains all the components of a compliant news article. First, it tells a catchy story of a heroic CDA Police Officer swooping in to nab a car robber. Next, it reinforces that the people of Coeur D Alene have a great relationship with their police even though the evidence says otherwise. Finally, it concludes with a lot of stats about how we’re amazing at our job and crime is going down because of it. This is truly a piece of art and NIP-ME-TUFF thanks the CDA Press for publishing it.”

In addition to publishing a compliant article, the CDA Press has also reached out to the law enforcement community by hiring outgoing Sheriff Ben Wolfinger to take the place of Erickson.

“This is a perfect fit,” Wolfinger said. “I’m an old and washed up Sheriff and the CDA Press is an old and washed up newspaper. By merging our talents it’s going to strengthen both of us. It’s like when Kmart and Sears merged. It made them both better.”

Wolfinger will be publishing excerpts from his new true crime novel “Who threw me off a boat in February?” in a regular column titled “The Sheriff’s Blotter.”

“Oh, it just contains a lot of bullshit stories I’ve made up over my law enforcement career. I boil them down into 1 or 2 paragraph anecdotes, skew the story to make law enforcement look like the hero, and use lots of exclamation points. Idaho loves that shit because it reminds them of Trump tweets.”

“Oh yeah, and it’s NIP-ME-TUFF compliant.”