Tune in this Friday, August 30, 2024 at 12 noon – EDT, as Native News Online editor Levi Rickert interviews Assiniboine (Nakoda) and Gros Ventre (Aaniih) Nations of the Fort Belknap Indian Community President Jeff Stiffarm and Tom Rodgers (Blackfeet), President of Carlyle Consulting about the lack of law enforcement on Indian reservations.
Two weeks ago, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) wrote a letter to the comptroller general at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), to say the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)’s public safety efforts in Montana are unacceptable.
Tester went further. He demanded answers as to why the BIA there is a shortage of law enforcement officers.
“While there are many shortcomings to discuss, none are more clear than the extreme lack of trained law enforcement officers on each reservation,” Tester wrote. “Tribal law enforcement officers are being asked to patrol reservations the size of some U.S. states while consistently understaffed.”
The shortage of tribal law enforcement on reservations has yielded a myriad of problems, such as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) epidemic, large flow of drugs onto tribal lands.
Stiffarm and Rodgers discuss the issue and offer some recommendations on how to arrest the ongoing problems.
Tune in to Native Bidaské LIVE this Friday, August 30, 2024, at 12 Noon ET on Native News Online’s Facebook, X (Twitter), or YouTube channel.