Oglala Sioux leaders testify at House Subcommittee’s American Indian and Alaska Native Public Witness Day

WASHINGTON—On May 7-8, 2024, more than 75 tribal leaders testified to a House Subcommittee, advocating for funding in education, language revitalization, law enforcement, and healthcare in Indian Country. Oglala Sioux Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out and Oglala Sioux Tribe’s (OST) Chief of Police John Pettigrew both testified on Tuesday, May 7, and Oglala Lakota Nation Education Coalition President Cecilia Firethunder testified on Wednesday, May 8, asking the House Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies for full funding for the Pine Ridge Reservation. 

“We need a surge of equipped police officers immediately,” said OST President Frank Star Comes Out to the House Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies on May 7. “Our public safety situation is untenable, and it is affecting the daily life of our Reservation residents.” 

Star Comes Out also advocated for other important issues before the Subcommittee, including full Indian Health Service (IHS) funding, tribal roads, education, housing, social and child protection services, addiction services, tribal co-management of lands, clean water, environmental need and repatriation while recommending reforming funding to Indian Country.

“Rather than providing long-term funding for our programs, Congress funds Indian Country year to year,” Star Comes Out said. “Under this funding model, it is difficult to provide continuity of government, employment, social services, education, law enforcement, or any other service.” 

OST’s Department of Public Safety shared to the Subcommittee that for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, the Tribe had 165,799 calls for police assistance with 30 patrol officers—compared to 138,000 calls for FY 2021 with 33 patrol officers.

FY 2023’s calls totaled to 1,133 assaults, 449 cases of child abuse, 1,245 domestic violence cases, 589 gun-involved crimes, and 343 cases of serious drugs. Between October 1, 2022 and February 2023, the Pine Ridge Reservation had 8 homicides, 8 violent rapes and another 299 serious cases of child abuse said OST-DPS’s Chief of Police John Pettigrew. Response times on the reservation are at a minimum of 30 minutes, and many times longer regardless of the crime being reported.

“We have over 100 weapons in our evidence locker that were confiscated on school grounds,” said OST’s Department of Public Safety Chief of Police John Pettigrew on Tuesday, May 7 to the House Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee. “As a result of school safety issues, many South Dakota state schools have refused to come onto the Pine Ridge Reservation to compete in sports—state schools consider the lack of law enforcement too dangerous for their students.”

Since the 2011-12 school year, the Little Wound School (a Tribally controlled school in Kyle, South Dakota), has diverted over $5.6 million from education funds to provide safety and security in schools said Oglala Lakota Nation Education Coalition President Cecilia Fire Thunder on Wednesday, May 8. 

“As Oglala Sioux Tribal President and Acting Chief of Police Pettigrew pointed out yesterday, drugs, guns, and violence have plagued our community, and our school system has not been spared,” Fire Thunder said. “Over 500 school incidents were responded to last year on our reservation. Neighboring communities have refused to play sports against our schools in our communities due to public safety concerns.”

The statistics are also cited in OST’s 2022 lawsuit against the United States, where the Tribe argued the U.S. has failed to uphold its treaty obligation to protect the signatories of the 1868 treaty from “bad men.” OST argued that the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) minimum standard of providing law enforcement required 2.8 officers per 1,000 people. Currently, OST is at 0.6 officers per 1,000 people, or 30 officers to patrol 3.1 million acres and Reservation population of more than 40,000. There are approximately 51,460 enrolled members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, according to Oglala Lakota leaders.

Since 1999, BIA ended the Tribal Priority Allocation designation for law enforcement in 1999, under the direction of Congress, to ensure that funding for law enforcement and corrections was used for those purposes. The shift was aimed to allow Tribes to use the Tribal Priority Allocation (TPA) system for funding other programs such as transportation or education. The TPA grant funded 120 officers on the Pine Ridge Reservation, with then a population of 15,521in 1999. When OST stopped receiving the TPA grant for law enforcement in 2006, it received the same amount of funding from the BIA’s Office of Justice Services as it did in 1999—not adjusted for the rise in inflation or population.

Today, the Tribe still receives the same amount of funding it has since 1999. After the tribe lost its grant, it lost half of its police officers and numbers continue to shrink. “We request a budget correction to bring us up to par with our non-Indian law enforcement services,” Pettigrew said. 

In its lawsuit against the U.S., a judge ruled in favor of OST on May 23, 2023, saying the federal government owes a treaty-based duty to fund law enforcement for the tribe and that it must meet with the tribe to amend its contracts. The Tribe wants funding for 120 officers, at least what it was allocated in 1999. In FY2022, an annual salary for a certified law enforcement officer on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was $55,814.40—$74,685.25 with fringe benefits. Mandatory equipment is $97,401.82 per year per officer. There hasn’t been an agreement yet. 

The Oglala Sioux Tribe filed another lawsuit against the United States on January 24, 2024, asking to fund 2.8 tribal law enforcement officers per 1,000 law enforcement service population. According to Chief of Police Pettigrew, that is a minimum of 113 officers for the Reservation. 

The House Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies is made up of members of the 118th Congress, including Subcommittee Chair Mike Simpson (R-ID), Mark Amodei (R-NV), Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), Michael Cloud (R-TX), Ryan Zinke (R-MT), Jake Ellzey (R-TX), Chuck Edwards (R-NC), Ranking Member Chellie Pindgree (D-ME), Betty McCollum (D- MN), Derek Kilmer (D-WA), and Josh Harder (D-CA). Next steps for the Subcommittee are to consider all testimony for consideration for an Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2025.

The post Oglala Sioux leaders testify at House Subcommittee’s American Indian and Alaska Native Public Witness Day first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

Visit Original Source