A federal judge has heard closing arguments from both sides in a lawsuit brought by the Oglala Sioux Tribe arguing that the federal government has failed to live up to treaty requirements for funding law enforcement.
Judge Roberto Lange took the suit under advisement and is considering a verdict, but gave no indication when he’ll issue a decision.
The tribe argues the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty requires the government to either provide law enforcement or to give the tribes enough money to police themselves.
Oglala Sioux Tribe Police Chief Algin Young testified that a lack of federal funding has led to a major decline in the number of officers on the Pine Ridge Reservation since 2006, leading to an increase in crime.
Guidelines from the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services call for 2.8 officers for every 1,000 residents on reservations. There are currently only about 35 officers on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which has more than 30,000 people living within its borders.
Guidelines from the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services call for 2.8 officers for every 1,000 residents on reservations. There are currently only about 35 officers on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which has more than 30,000 people living within its borders.
The tribe would need over 140 more police officers on the reservation to fight the rampant crime, according to court documents.
The federal government countered in court documents that the tribe can’t prove treaties force the U.S. to provide the tribe with its “preferred level of staffing or funding for law
“We need change. Everybody’s tired of the same old talk. It’s all talk, talk, talk every year after year, and our people have suffered for decades,” Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out told The Associated Press. “We believe now is the time to take that stand.”
The federal government has a trust duty to Indigenous nations and has made promises to tribes under treaty agreements, which should be read liberally and in favor of Native American tribes, explains Robert Miller, law professor at Arizona State University and an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe in Oklahoma.
“If federal law enforcement is woefully weak, which it is on most reservations, it’s not carrying out its duty as the trustee, as the guardian of Indian nations,” he said.
Indigenous nations have increasingly advocated for treaty rights, including hunting, fishing and education, in the courtroom, with some success.
In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court made its landmark McGirt decision, ruling that a large portion of eastern Oklahoma, promised in treaties to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, would remain a reservation.
In this case, the Oglala Sioux Tribe points to treaties which state that if someone commits a crime against Native Americans, the U.S. will “proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also reimburse the injured person for the loss sustained.”
President Star Comes Out said he hopes the lawsuit, which was filed just days after the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana filed a similar one, will help to serve as an example for other tribes in the Great Plains and beyond who are facing similar situations.
The Pine Ridge Reservation’s location between the Nebraska border and the Bakken oil fields makes it convenient for both human and drug trafficking while its lack of police has meant it’s known as a “lawless area,” explains Patricia Marks, an attorney with the OST.
“We’ve had a radical increase in guns, gun violence,” says Marks. “We’ve had a radical increase in hard narcotics. It is heroin. It’s fentanyl. It’s meth. It’s things that are life-threatening.”
Between January and June 2022, OST law enforcement received 285 reports of missing persons, 308 gun-related calls, and 49 reports of rape, but there are typically only five tribal officers on any given shift, and response time for weapon-related calls can be anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour, says Marks.
In 2020, there were 155 more violent crimes reported by OST law enforcement than in 2017, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country is complicated and depends on whether the suspect, victim or both are Native American, and where the crime occurs. In some locations, Native women are killed at a rate more than 10 times the national average.
The federal government, tribes and counties have tried to bolster public safety on all reservations with approaches such as cross-commissioning agreements, expanding sentencing authority for tribes, and programs that allow tribal prosecutors to try cases in federal court.
The landmark Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010, for example, expanded sentencing authority of tribal courts under certain conditions.
The Justice Department has also worked to increase funding given to tribes to address crime, including last year when officials announced it would award over $246 million in grants to Native communities to improve public safety and help crime victims, but the Oglala Sioux Tribe says none of this has been enough.
On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the FBI has jurisdiction over a set of major crimes, but its closest office is in Rapid City, so it can take more than two hours for agents to arrive, explains Marks.
“For all practical purposes, it is the tribal police who are the first responders regardless of the type of crime,” she says. “They’re the ones that have to get out there and answer the call.”
79-year old JoAnn Sierra, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, says two of her sons and two of her grandsons were killed on or near the reservation. The most recent case involved her 40-year old grandson, Justin Little Hawk, who in November 2020 was ambushed by a man he did not recognize while driving two of Sierra’s teenage grandchildren, she says.
The man got in the backseat of Sierra’s car and shot Little Hawk after the other grandchildren ran out. He died shortly before Christmas, and the person responsible was never convicted. “It just makes me feel like I’m lost … Why does this have to happen here?” Sierra asks. “Why didn’t I move?”
Since the death of Logan, who was given the Lakota name Petá Zi Hoksila or Yellow Fire Boy, Wilson has plastered the reservation with signs that say things like, “Justice for Logan” and “Who killed grandma’s baby?” in hopes of bringing attention to his death.
She says that after Logan was shot, she waited months to hear from the FBI, and when she tried to talk with tribal law enforcement, they were limited in what they could say due to jurisdictional issues.
Wilson believes if there had been more law enforcement responding quickly, her grandson’s case could have been solved. “It’s sad that we had to take those measures as a tribe to get the help that should have been there,” she said through tears. “It should have been there according to the treaties. And yet we all had to live like this. Lose people; lose loved ones.”