Garland, tribal officials discuss crime, drugs and missing people in Indian Country

On the day that the U.S. Departments of Justice and Interior released their response to violence and missing persons in Indian Country, the Attorney General of the United States visited the Crow reservation and met with law enforcement officials in Billings to announce more resources for tribal justice as well as to talk about drug trafficking.

Merrick B. Garland, U.S. Attorney General, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Montana Jesse Laslovich made brief remarks at the opening of a law enforcement roundtable meant to better coordinate law enforcement response to crime on the state’s reservations.

Garland spent much of the day in southcentral Montana talking with Crow tribal leaders and law enforcement. He also announced additional staffing being added to help prosecute crimes on tribal reservations, and spoke about the scourge of drug trafficking there.

He praised Department of Justice officials in Montana and their partnerships with local law enforcement, which has resulted in a string of successful prosecutions and convictions, including those in Missoula, Billings and Bozeman.

For example, the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted a man from Hill County who had been dealing meth and fentanyl on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation. Last week, attorneys prosecuted a meth trafficking ring in Park County that had ties to Idaho.

“This is the kind of work this office does every single day,” Garland said. “In the coming year, we’ll see more resources move into the hands of law enforcement.”

Garland also spoke about the joint response of the two large federal agencies as they act on the Not Invisible Act Commission’s recommendations on how to combat missing and murdered people in Indian Country, and its ties to drug trafficking. That report, 231-pages long, was part of Congress’ efforts to understand the violence on reservations, and included tribal leaders, federal agencies, service providers and friends of those missing and murdered.

The report highlights the need for law enforcement and investigative resources and a need to collect more information from Indian Country to better understand the problems in real-time. The report also shows a lack of resources for supporting victims and their families. It recommends more partnerships across jurisdictions as well.

“The Justice Department is committed to working with our partners at the Department of the Interior to put an end to the missing or murdered Indigenous persons and human trafficking crisis,” Garland said.

However, not everyone in Montana’s expansive Indian Country shared the enthusiasm of Garland’s visit.

The Coalitions of Large Tribes, which includes the Blackfeet Nation, the Crow Nation, and the Fort Belknap Indian Community, as well as the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, remained sharply critical of the Department of Justice and accountability of its own law enforcement officers.

They pointed to the ongoing federal case of Dana Bullcoming, a former BIA officer, who raped and impregnated a Northern Cheyenne woman while on duty. The case will be heard this summer at the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but the groups criticized Garland’s department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Montana for what they say is “dodging” responsibility for its own officers.

“COLT and NIWRC support federal law enforcement accountability in Indian Country. Does Attorney General Garland?” the statement said.

Another case is pending in federal court in Montana in which BIA officers shot a man twice in the back after tasing him.

Neither Garland nor Laslovich took questions from the media on Tuesday.

“The U.S. Department of Justice wears two hats — one that tells tribes, ‘the United States will protect you because we have a treaty and trust responsibility,’ and when wearing the second hat, tells tribes, ‘but that’s not an enforceable duty of the United States.’ The tribal interest always loses out in favor of some other interest,” said Marvin Weatherwax, the chairman of COLT, who is part of the Blackfeet Nation. “The reality we face — a handful of officers patrolling areas the size of the states of Delaware or West Virginia — at any given time is shocking to people who don’t live on Indian reservations. The Biden-Harris Administration promised to do better. We’re not seeing it, and we’re calling it out.”

Meanwhile, Garland noted that he enjoyed coming back to Montana — a state he was very familiar with, being active in the investigations of the Freemen as well as the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. He told the media that the first case he tried was in Helena, with temperatures dipping far below zero.

“But don’t think I come here just to work,” he said, rattling off skiing in places like Big Sky and West Yellowstone, as well as enjoying hiking in Glacier National Park.

Darrell Ehrlick is the editor-in-chief of the Daily Montanan, a nonprofit newsroom.