Chelan Douglas Health Board Member Allegedly Assaults YouTuber In Wenatchee
Anti-vaccine activist and CDHD board member Bill Sullivan was recorded apparently pushing a local YouTuber on Wenatchee Avenue Aug. 5
*Trigger warning: This article contains language that some may find offensive.
Anti-vaccine activist and Chelan Douglas Health District Board member Bill Sullivan was recorded apparently assaulting a man on Aug. 5 in Wenatchee.
The man, a YouTuber and “First Amendment Auditor” who goes by the title “El Dope Dogg,” has more than 1000 subscribers and in his bio he writes that his channel “is dedicated to recording our Public employees, during the course of their duty, on Public property and specifically, to disseminate the Public interest to the Public.”
First amendment auditing is a practice loosely affiliated with the sovereign citizen movement, and El Dope Dogg has become well-known to public employees in Chelan and Douglas counties over the last few years.
While it’s not uncommon for the YouTuber to get in verbal altercations with public employees and average citizens as he films, it is unusual to see physical violence as a response.
The alleged assault took place on the sidewalk outside the Lyle’s Motel parking lot, near the corner of Ninth and Wenatchee Avenue.
As you can see in the clip above, as El Dope Dogg was walking north on Wenatchee Ave Sullivan turns the corner with a cell phone in his hands, apparently recording or photographing the YouTuber. The two get extremely close but do not exchange a word until after the altercation, which caused the YouTuber to drop his phone.
“Hey, don’t touch me!” El Dope Dogg yelled. “That’s assault motherfucker! The hell are you doing touching me and my shit?”
The man clearly did not recognize Sullivan even though the two had another interaction just a week prior, on July 31, outside Sullivan’s office on Columbia Street in Wenatchee. That exchange did not include any apparent hostility, and you can see that in the video below.
However their altercation on August left the YouTuber with damaged property.
“He tried to grab my tripod, and instead he grabbed my charging cord and yanked on it, causing my camera to be pulled out of its holder and the camera fell to the cement and broke the screen,” Dope Dogg wrote.
The YouTuber published another video that day showing Sullivan talking to a woman in the Lyle’s Motel parking lot before getting in a black SUV and driving away.
After that he canvassed the area looking for Sullivan and the SUV, to no avail.
Questions for Sullivan, and those who appointed him
After watching the video I immediately reached out to Sullivan, sending him the following email:
“Hello Mr. Sullivan,
My name is Dominick Bonny. We met a few weeks ago outside the last CDHD meeting.
I wanted to see if you'd like to comment on this altercation you had with a YouTuber who goes by the name ‘El Dope Dogg’ recently.
He says you assaulted him. What motivated you to confront him on the sidewalk that day? Do you have a history with him?”
Sullivan is a hydrologist by trade, and owns American Land and Water Consulting in Wenatchee. He’s also a rightwing activist and COVID conspiracy theorist who is a member of a anti-vaccine organization called “Truth and Accountability Project Washington” also known as “TAPWA.”
TAPWA is affiliated with a national group called “Children’s Health Defense,” championed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It’s an organization that not only spreads misinformation about vaccines but also promotes 5G conspiracy theories.
As RFK' Jr’s organization gets ready to premiere it’s new anti-vaccine film “Vaxxed” this month, Sullivan’s TAPWA is counting down the days to their next anti-vax event at the Wenatchee Convention Center on Sept. 21.
It’s the second annual “Pandemic Response Harms Event” TAPWA is holding at the convention center. Sullivan emceed the first one. The inaugural year featured keynote speaker and NBA Hall of Fame player John Stockton, as well as a slew of conspiracy theories and some rhetoric that came close to overt anti-semitism.
I covered that event last year and you can read that here. It was closed with a prayer by Grace City Church Pastor Brian Blair and featured a lecture by prominent GCC member Karl Lambert.
According to TAPWA’s website, Stockton will be returning for this year’s event and he will join the co-host of the Dr. Drew Show, Dr. Kelly Victory and “other dot-connecting speakers” on stage.
I’ve been trying to connect the dots myself, to understand how Sullivan got appointed to the CDHD board of directors.
He was appointed unanimously by Chelan and Douglas County Commissioners back in March 2022 – after a lengthy selection process to add more members to the health district board.
And according to NCWlife, he was a vocal anti-vaccine activist even before his appointment. Since that appointment, Sullivan has spent most of his time focused on getting the health district to recant its scientifically-backed position that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective.
It has become such a persistent issue, and Sullivan’s “conflict of interest” so pronounced, that he was expelled from the last board of directors meeting so the other members could discuss potential litigation with TAPWA after the organization sent the health district a certified “Notice of Liability” letter regarding vaccines recently.
You can read my piece and watch video of Sullivan getting the boot from that meeting here:
Chelan Douglas Health Board Expels Member From Meeting To Discuss Potential Litigation
Chelan Douglas Health Board member Bill Sullivan spent about 20 minutes of the board’s August meeting on the sidewalk outside the building after his fellow board members voted to expel him from an executive session Monday.
So why would the most powerful elected officials in Chelan and Douglas counties vote to put an anti-vaccine activist on the regional health board? It’s a question that I have asked them before. But I have never gotten an answer.
Yet in the spirit of doing the due diligence, I decided to reach out again and ask about this most recent matter.
Here’s the email I sent Chelan County Commissioners Kevin Overbay, Shon Smith and Tiffany Gering and Douglas County Commissioners Dan Sutton, Kyle Steinberg and Marc Straub about the matter:
“Hello commissioners,
I am working on a story about Bill Sullivan's apparent assault of a local YouTuber recently (which you can view here.)
As I understand it Sullivan received unanimous approval by both Douglas and Chelan county commissioners in his appointment to the Chelan Douglas Health District board of directors, so I wanted to see if you had a comment on the matter.
Do you as elected officials condone or support Sullivan's actions in this altercation?
If not, will any action be taken in this matter?
What is the process for removing a CDHD BOD member from the board?
Thanks and best regards,”
I also reached out to the CDHD board of directors, including board president and East Wenatchee Mayor Jerrilea Crawford, and asked similar questions.
“The event in which you mention is not a health district related matter and therefor the Chelan Douglas Health District Board does not have a response to your questions regarding it,” she wrote. “The Chelan-Douglas Health District is governed by a 12 member Board of Health consisting of local county and city elected officials and appointed community members by Chelan and Douglas County Commissioners. The Board sets county-wide policies and regulations to protect and promote the health of residents of Chelan and Douglas Counties. There is not a code of conduct policy for board members.”
I have already reached out to El Dope Dogg to see if he filed a police report, and/or would like to comment any further on the matter.
On the anti-vax folks infiltrating local politics- republican strategists and influencers like Charlie Kirk and the late Paul Weyrick said the best way for their unpopular agendas to be put in place was for the local races, like school boards and health districts, was to aggressively run their own local people for those seats, rather than move political mountains by just running candidates in federal offices. The mindset is that the tactic will be an easier thing to accomplish in moderate or deep blue areas.
And on "first amendment auditors"- as a public employee, they get in our way, which is their whole goal. In some locations, they have put their own safety at risk while employees are performing a task (like heavy equipment operation in our yards). Putting up signs indicating it is unlawful for them to be in a specific area isn't a warning to them; it's a challenge. And the behavior of FAA's in courthouses and public health facilities where there are vulnerable and innocent third parties is especially upsetting. In one instance, an "auditor" was on an upper floor where detectives, counselors and child abuse victims meet, and the likely hood of crossing path who absolutely should not be in a Youtube video is high. A father was with a 5 year old boy for an interview, and the FAA insisting on getting video of all parties as the transited down a hall (a counselor, and DCYF investigator included). As the counselor struggled to get an interview room open, the FAA attempted close-ups on the child and the parent, even after the man told him to get away from his son. The Youtuber persisted, there was shoving, the father telling his boy to go with the investigator as he pinned the FAA to the floor.
If it were me, I would without hesitation have done the same thing.
On a side note, these people calling themselves "journalists" insults the intelligence of anyone who follows actual news.
Great reporting, Dom. Thanks for investigating and bringing us these stories!