OST seeks adequate funding for law enforcement

PINE RIDGE—Citing a failure to “provide and adequately equip a sufficient number of law enforcement officers,” the Oglala Sioux Tribe filed suit on October 4 against the United States. The suit levels seven claims against the government, alleging they inadequately funded tribal law enforcement in violation of three treaties and four acts of Congress. “As a result,” the complaint reads, “there is a complete lack of competent and effective law enforcement within the tribe’s reservation, and the impacts have been and continue to be catastrophic.”

The tribe pointed out that a 2006 BIA Gap Analysis concluded that 3.3 officers per 1,000 inhabitants of rural areas under 10,000 is the minimum required to meet federal law enforcement obligations.

“At roughly 3.1 million acres, the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Pine Ridge Reservation is larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined,” the tribe wrote. “More than 40,000 people reside on or conduct business on the reservation, all of whom are dependent on federally funded BIA law enforcement officers to protect them and their on-reservation property.”

The tribe contends that the government has undercounted those served by tribal law enforcement because it did not include non-members and non-Indians who “reside on or enter the reservation on a regular basis.”

The tribe asserts the BIA’s standard of providing 2.8 officers per 1,00 people “is the minimum required” by federal law. “Even this 2.8 officers per 1,000 persons BIA calculation is flawed,” the tribe stated, “due to the excessive size of the reservation, the distance between tribal on-reservation communities, the level of crime on the reservation, and due to the fact that it is based on a dated 2013 Indian Population and Labor Force count which is no longer accurate.”

The tribe then gets to the heart of their complaint: “Applying the BIA’s 2.8 officers per 1,000 persons standard to the actual Pine Ridge Service Population requires that the tribe, with a law enforcement service population of over 40,000 individuals, have a minimum of 112 police officers.”

The tribe states that the “United States currently only provides enough funding to employ 33 police officers and 7 criminal investigators to cover the 40,000-person law-enforcement service population.” They add that, “The lack of law enforcement officers causes extraordinary danger to the law enforcement officers who are working unreasonable amounts of overtime, patrolling alone, and responding to dangerous calls for service without proper backup.”

One often overlooked aspect is how a high crime environment impacts the tribal economy. The tribe stated, “The Tribal economy is negatively impacted as new businesses are not attracted to high crime areas. The businesses that are located on the reservation must spend additional funds to protect their employees and property. Some have even chosen not to remain open at night.”

According to the numbers provided by the tribe, they only have 29 percent of the number of law enforcement officers required to properly service the reservation, and they assert the remaining unprovided 71 percent constitutes the violations of the three treaties and the four Congressional Acts.

By contrast, the tribe points out that the Rapid City Police Department has 176 officers and responded to fewer calls in 2021 than the Pine Ridge tribal police. If we divide 70,000 by 176, we find that Rapid City has one officer for every 398 people. However, the tribe did not factor how many non-residents the police in Rapid City must police every day, but by any statistical measure, one officer for 398 people is a far cry from one officer for every 1,212 people, which is how the tribal numbers work out. To reach the Rapid City level the tribe would require over three times as many officers as they currently have, and even then, that force would have to cover greater distances, over rougher, more isolated country, and answer more calls due to a much higher crime rate.

According to the complaint, Tribal President Kevin Killer “issued formal written notice to Gina Douville, Superintendent of the Pine Ridge Agency, that the ‘United States is in flagrant violation of Articles 1 and 5 of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie in that it has refused to engage in reasonable efforts to preserve the peace on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation by assuring the proper level of law enforcement and criminal investigations services required to protect the people and property of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and its members.’”

The tribe concludes that, “the Defendants have breached and continue to breach their treaty obligations under the 1825, 1851, and 1868 Treaties and their trust duty to the Tribe and its members by providing law enforcement services to the tribe at levels that fall substantially below the levels necessary for the effective law enforcement that is required by Articles I and V of the 1868 Treaty and the BIA’s minimum law enforcement standards.”

The tribe then asks that “this Court to declare that the proper interpretation and construction of the obligations undertaken by and through the 1825 Treaty, the 1851 Treaty, the 1868 Treaty, the 1877 Act, the 1921 Snyder Act, the Indian Law Education Reform Act of 1990 and the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010, and the trust relationship between the United States and the tribe thereunder, is that the United States is legally obligated to provide for and to ensure competent and effective law enforcement to the tribe within the Pine Ridge Reservation.”

(Contact James Giago Davies at skindiesel@msn.com)

 

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