Justice disparities on South Dakota reservations need attention, US attorney general says

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland (left) holds a roundtable about public safety on tribal lands with U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (right) and tribal leaders from the nine tribal nations within South Dakota on Aug. 14, 2024, in Wagner. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota)

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday during a visit to South Dakota that national crime rates have declined , 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’s acceptable.”

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

“Tribal communities deserve safety 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, as well as federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement leaders. On Wednesday afternoon, he participated in a roundtable meeting in Wagner with representatives of the nine tribal nations in the state and U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota.

Agreement on insufficiency of funding

In a Q&A with the media in Wagner, Rounds, a Republican, remarked on the significance of working collaboratively with Garland, who is part of the Democratic Biden administration.

“Sometimes he and I won’t agree on policies, but one thing we do agree on is that law enforcement and taking care of public safety is something that transcends politics,” Rounds said.

One area of agreement is the insufficiency of federal funding for tribal law enforcement. Rounds said “the current system does not work” and “the funding formulas are not fair.”

Garland, in remarks after the roundtable, pledged to support more funding for the Department of Interior, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs, known as the BIA.

“I well recognize that our department cannot provide the full level of law enforcement assistance and officers that you need on the reservations, and that BIA needs more money for that purpose,” Garland said.

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

Training, recruitment concerns aired

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 to the 1800s — is “a joke.” He said the tribe’s Department of Public Safety is funded at 15% of its needs, a shortfall that has led to inadequate staffing levels, longer response times and officer burnout.

Police Chief Edwin Young of the Yankton Sioux Tribe told South Dakota Searchlight prior to Wednesday’s meeting in Sioux Falls that the tribe struggles to recruit and retain officers.

“We need competitive pay with the local law enforcement. We don’t have a real retirement system. That stuff is pretty much nonexistent in most tribal programs,” Young said.

His department currently operates with three officers and needs at least 12 to police the area effectively, he said.

Logistical hurdles in training and recruitment exacerbate the funding challenges.

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 bureau recently lent its support to a new, state-led summer training session in Pierre, which is providing training closer to home for prospective tribal officers. Rounds has asked for the establishment of a federal tribal law enforcement training facility in the Great Plains region.

Noem not in attendance

Prior to Garland’s visit, public safety on reservations in South Dakota had been a longstanding topic of public debate.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem gave a speech in January claiming that Mexican drug cartels are operating on reservations, and she’s repeated those claims many times since. Those and other comments led leaders of all nine of the tribes in the state to vote in support of banning her from their reservations. Noem did not attend the meetings Wednesday.

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 to do direct government-to-government between the federal government and the tribes,” Rounds said.

Tribal leaders react

The Oglala Sioux Tribe has sued the federal government, alleging it’s failing to adequately uphold 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 at a powwow earlier this month.

“That just goes to show you the gun violence that still continues throughout Indian Country,” said Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Come Out, who had to skip some of Thunder Hawk’s 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, fentanyl, the overcrowded jails, everything? Those are a lot of issues that the chairmen today voiced concerns about.”

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairwoman Janet Alkire said reservations are dealing with those and other public safety problems on a daily basis.

“Until we have adequate law enforcement and public safety, our people are always going to live in fear,” Alkire said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been extensively updated since its initial publication with additional information from Attorney General Garland’s Wagner visit.

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