Law | National

Lakota Country Times: Women protest Rosebud Sioux Tribe police

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

An advocate from the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society holds a poster expressing how the group feels about Marlin Enno, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe's Law Enforcement Administrator. Photo from WBCWS / Facebook

White Buffalo Calf Woman Society Protests Treatment by Police Department
By Vi Waln
Lakota Country Times Correspondent
www.lakotacountrytimes.com

ROSEBUD – Several people gathered in front of the Rosebud Police Department on May 4 to protest the ongoing treatment of domestic violence and rape victims by police officers.

The group displayed their dissatisfaction by chanting “Enno! Get Him Out! Enno! He’s Got To Go!” They were referring to Marlin Enno, who currently serves as Rosebud’s law enforcement administrator. Enno was initially hired by Rosebud’s tribal council to fill a vacant Chief of Police position. However, the Chief of Police title was subsequently downgraded to an administrator.  

A press release was issued by the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, Inc. (WBCWS). Established in 1978, the WBCWS is the Tribe’s Victim Services organization. The release stated the group was “pressed into making public the issues with the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Police Department. We do recognize the hard and often dangerous work the police department does for our community, but we will not stand by and be silent about the blatant abuse and re-victimization of victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.” 

The WBCWS has “received complaint after complaint of victims being arrested by RST officers when they respond to a domestic violence calls, where no mandatory arrests are made when a victim calls the police as she is being threatened or beaten. We have complaints that officers are harassing victims over social media, and both the prosecutor’s office and the police department were made aware of, and yet this officer is still on patrol," the press release stated.

Several people gathered in front of the Rosebud Police Department last week to protest the ongoing treatment of domestic violence and rape victims. Photo from White Buffalo Calf Woman Society / Facebook

“There is no communication between officers and our Special Agents, including a woman being beat with a baseball bat. We have had officers who arrested two rape victims after they reported their assault. We have women in our jails that were visibly beaten and then thrown in jail, because officers are not following our Law and Order Code," the group continued.

 “We have tried time after time for the last 3 years to provide training to the police on protection orders, victim sensitivity and response, and yet we were only allowed to do so twice. We are supposed to work hand in hand with the department, ensure proper response to domestic violence and sexual assault, but with the current leadership we have been cut off from having any relationship with the police department. We are going out to each and every community so that they can have their concerns heard also, we will then take them to our leadership to have them review and respond to our concerns," the group stated.

“WBCWS wants to work hand in hand with the Police Department, we pledge to do quarterly trainings, we pledged to honor and recognize officers publicly who are doing their utmost to keep our communities safe on a monthly basis, we pledge to be there when an officer requests our response on scene to a domestic violence or sexual assault crime, we pledge to support the Police when they need self-care, we pledge to start a domestic violence response team, which includes officers and prosecutors on a monthly basis," the press release read.

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 The WBCWS wants the following demands met by the police department:

 1. Hire a chief of police and not an administrator. 
2. Adopt public policy to give our Police Commission oversight to actually act on founded complaints about officers. 
3. Serve warrants to pick of individuals who have broken tribal laws. 
4. Police officers be held accountable to follow our Law and Order Code, such as mandatory arrests, arresting the individual who is the primary aggressor. 
5. Regular training on our Domestic Abuse/Sexual Assaults and protection order laws, quarterly. 
6. Stop the dual arrests of victims. 
7. Interdepartmental communication, so that patrol officers must report to tribal special agents all crimes of a serious nature. 
8. Change our constitution Article X, Deny to any person in a criminal or civil proceeding the right to a speedy and public trial which shall be initiated no more than six months from the filing of criminal charges or a civil complaint and which shall be decided by the courts within one year, and in a criminal proceeding to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, which has caused no arrest warrants from being issued because our police department does not actively seek persons who have a warrant.
 9. Arrest reports not being submitted in a timely manner, or in cases none at all. 
10. Officer’s must submit a report when they do not make an arrest when responding to a domestic call, those reports and their statistics being made available to the public on a quarterly basis as required by law. 
11. Officer training and self-care being a priority.
 12. Ensure suspects are kept in jail during the 12-hour hold period that is in our tribal Law and Order code.