Justice disparities on reservations must be addressed, US attorney general says

Joshua Haiar, MaKenzie Huber and Seth Tupper
South Dakota Searchlight

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday during a visit to South Dakota that nationwide crime rates have dropped, but challenges remain on tribal reservations in the state.

“We know that progress in some communities has not been the same,” Garland said. “Progress across the country is still uneven. Of course, there is no level of violent crime that is acceptable.”

He said the Justice Department has awarded $19.1 million in grants since 2021 to support tribal justice initiatives in South Dakota.

“Tribal communities deserve security and justice,” he said.

Garland’s visit included a morning meeting in Sioux Falls with Alison Ramsdell, the U.S. Attorney for the District of South Dakota, and federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement leaders. On Wednesday afternoon, he participated in a roundtable discussion in Wagner with representatives of the state’s nine tribal nations and U.S. Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota.

Agreement on insufficient funding

During a question-and-answer session with the media in Wagner, Rounds, a Republican, stressed the importance of working with Garland, who is part of Biden’s Democratic administration.

“Sometimes he and I disagree on policy, but we do agree that law enforcement and public safety is something that transcends politics,” Rounds said.

One area of ​​agreement is the inadequacy of federal funding for tribal law enforcement. Rounds said that “the current system is broken” and “the funding formulas are not fair.”

In his speech after the roundtable, Garland pledged to support increased funding for the Department of the Interior, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

“I fully realize that our department cannot provide the full level of law enforcement assistance and agents that you need on the reservations, and that BIA needs more funding for that purpose,” Garland said.

Rounds said the roundtable discussion, which was closed to the media, included officer training, possible reforms to the formulas the federal government uses to fund tribal law enforcement and whether block grants to tribes might be a better way to fund public safety than existing methods.

Concerns raised over training and recruitment

John Pettigrew, acting police chief of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, recently told a congressional committee that federal funding for tribal law enforcement — which is required by treaties dating back to the 19th century — is “a joke.” He said the tribe’s Department of Public Safety is funded at 15 percent of its needs, a shortfall that has led to inadequate staffing levels, longer response times and officer burnout.

Yankton Sioux Tribe Police Chief Edwin Young told South Dakota Searchlight before Wednesday’s meeting in Sioux Falls that the tribe is having trouble recruiting and retaining officers.

“We need to have a competitive salary with local law enforcement. We don’t have a real retirement system. Those kinds of things are pretty much nonexistent in most tribal programs,” Young said.

His department currently has three officers, but needs at least 12 to effectively police the area, he said.

Logistical obstacles in training and recruitment compound financing problems.

Traditionally, tribal officers have had to complete their training at a Bureau of Indian Affairs facility in New Mexico, a requirement that has been a barrier to recruiting new officers. But the agency recently endorsed a new state-run summer training facility in Pierre that would provide training closer to home for future tribal officers. Rounds has called for the creation of a federal training facility for tribal law enforcement in the Great Plains region.

Do not mention present

Before Garland’s visit, public safety on reservations in South Dakota had long been a topic of public debate.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem gave a speech in January claiming that Mexican drug cartels operate on reservations, and she has repeated those claims numerous times since. That and other comments led leaders from all nine tribes in the state to vote to ban her from their reservations. Noem was not present at the rallies on Wednesday.

Standing Rock Chair Janet Alkire (center) listens to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland following a roundtable discussion on public safety on tribal lands in Wagner on Aug. 14, 2024 (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight).

South Dakota Searchlight asked Rounds why Noem wasn’t there, and he said Garland’s staff wanted a “sovereign nation to sovereign nation” meeting.

“They wanted a direct connection between the federal government and the tribes,” Rounds said.

Chiefs respond

The Oglala Sioux Tribe is suing the federal government, alleging it is failing to properly fulfill its treaty obligation to fund public safety. Concerns about public safety on the tribe’s Pine Ridge Reservation have been heightened recently after a 56-year-old man, Tom Thunder Hawk, was fatally shot during a powwow earlier this month.

“It just goes to show you how much gun violence there still is in Indian Country,” said Frank Star Come Out, chairman of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, who had to skip several Thunder Hawk memorial services to attend the event with Garland and Rounds. “How do we control it? How do we control the violence, the crime, the gangs, the meth, the fentanyl, the overcrowding in prisons, all of it? Those are a lot of the issues that the chairmen expressed concern about today.”

Janet Alkire, chairwoman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said reservations deal with these and other public safety issues every day.

“Until there is adequate law enforcement and public safety, our people will always live in fear,” Alkire said.

This article was first published by South Dakota Searchlight.