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Indian Country cops honored
The risks police officers take daily while serving
Indian Country were highlighted this week at a
ceremony honoring Oglala Lakota Officer
Kelmar One Feather and a radio program featuring
Secretary of Interior Gale Norton.
The two events solidified what is well known about
tribal police officers: they are underfunded,
overworked, and overstressed. Yet while numerous
studies point to the crime which plagues the
nation's reservations, proposed funding at the
Bureau of Indian Affairs for law enforcement
is increasing only slightly while another program
at the Department of Justice faces elimination.
Get the Story:
BIA Cops: Little
funding for big problems (5/2)
Norton listens to
tribal police tragedies (5/3)
Supreme Court makes Indian rulings
The Supreme Court issued two rulings affecting
Indian Country this week.
In a case involving the Citizen Potawatomi Nation of
Oklahoma, the Court ruled the tribe clearly waived
its sovereign immunity from lawsuit by agreeing to
an arbitration clause in a contract. The case will
return to Oklahoma state court, where the tribe is
expected to pay legal fees upwards of $100,000 for
a contract it reneged on several years ago.
The Court also turned down without comment a
land-into-trust case affecting the Mashantucket Pequot
Tribal Nation of Connecticut. The suit, brought
by state officials against the Department of Interior,
will return to federal court for more consideration
after the government won its appeal to the 2nd Circuit
last fall.
Get the Story:
Supreme Court
rules against tribe's immunity (5/1)
Supreme Court
turns down Pequot land case (5/1)
Towns: Pequot
Tribe too rich (5/3)
more stories
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