James "Toby" Big Boy
RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA -- The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council approved a resolution endorsing the Oglala Lakota College’s efforts in developing a police academy to be located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The Council voted to support and endorses the Oglala Lakota College in spearheading the development of a 3-5 year Oglala Lakota College Police Academy demonstration project in association with the Oglala Lakota Department of Public Safety. The goal of this endeavor is to produce public safety officers that meet the federal, tribal and South Dakota training standards. Recruitment and retention of trained officers is expected to increase as the training, which currently requires the tribe to send their officer recruits to Artesia, New Mexico. According to Judiciary Committed Coordinator, Bruce Whalen, the cost of the training is picked up by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the only cost to the tribe is the mileage to and from Artesia. “The Tribe approached the college about developing a pre-academy to prepare our tribal members for the training down in Artesia, and the idea for the academy grew from there,” Whalen said. To date, there has been around three hundred hours of work put into the project by Oglala Lakota College. OLC President Tom Shortbull, along with Director of Applied Science, Doug Noyes are spearheading this project in association with council representative James “Toby” Big Boy, Chairman of the OST Judiciary Committee. According to Short Bull, the current situation with the recruits attending academies at either Artesia or in Pierre puts a strain on recruitment considering the length of time that the recruits are required to separate from their families for. Twelve weeks is the current length of training. “Having our own academy will allow us to add four weeks of pre-academy giving us the time to provide the mentoring needed to get them prepared for the actual training, specifically in reading and writing skills. We will be able to produce more graduates than are currently being produced in Artesia and in Pierre,” he added. “The Judiciary Committee led this effort in response to community concerns in wanting a culturally relevant Public Safety presence and also to encourage the recruitment and retention of qualified officers seeking a community service career with Public Safety,” Big Boy said. In the early 1960’s Big Boy remembers going to a basketball tournament in Window Rock, Arizona on the Navajo Reservation. “They put us up in their police academy dorms. I came home and asked: Why don’t we have our own police academy? So for the next forty years, I asked over and over why we never had our own academy. I finally got voted in and so I started to push for it right away.” Big Boy plans to visit every high school on the reservation beginning this spring, to talk to the students about the proposed police academy in an effort to generate interest and excitement among the youth of the reservation. “We don’t always have a voice out in our tiyospayes. There are a lot of really good ideas floating around out there. Our elders have ideas and our young people have good ideas, really, really, good ideas. That’s why I tell them to give them to me and I’ll push for all of these positive things to come about,” Big Boy said. Big Boy was elected to represent the Medicine Root District during the last elections. At this point, the proposed academy is in its earliest preliminary stages. The approval of the BIA is required before the academy can be established. (Contact Karin Eagle at HYPERLINK "mailto:staffwriter2@nsweekly.com" staffwriter2@nsweekly.com)
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