Teachers prefer the blue-uniformed cops from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who took over a year ago amid allegations of corruption in the tribal police department. Store owners prefer the BIA, too. So do nurses and mothers and bartenders and ranchers and the young woman who steams the lattes in the concrete tepee building.
But elected leaders on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation say they will ignore that popular sentiment. Before spring melt soaks the prairie, the Tribal Council hopes to have begun the business of wresting police powers back from the BIA, despite overwhelming public opposition.
Problem is, a whole lot of the folk who live here don't necessarily want the tribal police back.
"I've been very pleased with the BIA taking over," said Arlene Augare, one of several residents who turned out for a community meeting in Heart Butte on a wintry Wednesday the first week of March. The room was unanimous, with everyone firmly behind the agency takeover. "I'll back the BIA 100 percent. The tribe wants the power so bad, but they proved they can't handle it."
A government review of the BIA's presence this past year, conducted in early March, included interviews with dozens of people in several reservation communities. While those interviews did uncover some complaints about the BIA police, they failed to turn up anyone who wanted the tribe to reclaim policing powers.
Likewise, several dozen interviews conducted by the Missoulian in three separate reservation towns failed to find anyone who wanted to see tribal cops back on the beat.
Then there was that community meeting in Heart Butte, likewise unanimous in its support of continued BIA policing.
Only the Tribal Council's own survey of nearly 500 reservation residents turned up any support for tribal cops, and even that survey showed only one-third of the population in favor of returning policing to the tribe.
"People are afraid to give it back to the tribe, because of the past," said Francis Onstad, who helped compile the tribe's survey. Still, she said, the tribal government is fixing the problems, and is increasingly prepared to police itself, even if the people don't realize it.
Those fixes, however, are tough to point to. No actual changes appear to have been made to address the concerns of corruption and political influence that brought the BIA to town in the first place.
"It's pretty clear what people think about this situation," said Ed Naranjo. "People don't necessarily like everything about the BIA, but they sure don't want to go back to the days of tribal police."
Naranjo is in charge of regional law enforcement for the BIA, overseeing a six-state area that includes Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Alaska.
On Feb. 15, 2003, he and 50 other BIA cops descended on Browning, seizing control of the police department. The Tribal Council was outraged at what some of its members called an "invasion," and local government quickly dug in its heels in opposition to the BIA police.
"Maybe they don't appreciate the way we came in," Naranjo said, "but we had spent a year working with them before we took over. I was up here constantly meeting with the chief of police and the tribal council. We tried to work with the tribe, but at some point, I just said, 'Jesus, enough is enough.' "
Enough became enough when the stacks of complaints became so tall they threatened to topple over. There were allegations of tribal employees mismanaging money, Naranjo said, of tribal cops incorrectly reporting cases, of Blackfeet administrators improperly hiring staff.
Three years ago, Naranjo said, the BIA published a report detailing 58 serious allegations, many of which involved Blackfeet tribal politicians meddling in police and court affairs.
"It was nuts," former tribal police officer Kevin Ledeau said just after the takeover. "Every time you turned around, the politicians were in your face."
Naranjo said he had complaints of tribal cops not arresting friends and family, and of tribal politicians springing their relatives from jail. He had complaints about suspicious deaths at the jail and about cops with criminal histories.
At least two tribal police officers had been nabbed in a federal bust of cocaine distribution, he said, and one had been accused of raping a 14-year-old girl while transporting her to the jail.
But enough really became enough, he said, when an inmate was improperly let out of jail to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. He never made the meeting; instead, he went to his former girlfriend's house and assaulted her, kicking her so hard he broke her pelvis.
Less than a month later, a doctor requested police bring a rape kit up to the hospital, where a juvenile had been brought following a sexual assault. The police never arrived.
"It was too much," Naranjo said. "Community members were scared. We couldn't wait another day."
And so the BIA forcibly took over the tribal police department, guns drawn.
The tribal government immediately raised its hackles, threatening to sue. Later, an arrangement was reached, agreeing to a review after one year and a possible resumption of tribal policing after two years.
Now, a year later, the tribe wants to cut that two years short and take over as soon as possible. Their argument is not that the tribe can do a better job, but rather that the BIA has not fulfilled several promises made at the time of the takeover.
"None of the promises came through," said Tribal Councilman Fred Guardipee.
The BIA promised to hire a grant writer, he said, who would find money to repair or replace the crumbling reservation jail. It didn't happen. The agency promised to hire more officers. It didn't happen. The BIA promised to crack down on officers who failed to show up for trials. It didn't happen.
In one week, according to tribal attorney Terryl Matt, 46 cases were dismissed because the arresting officer from BIA either didn't show up in court or didn't write a proper arrest report. None was disciplined, she said.
Of course, everyone admits that tribal police were not much better at showing up for court, and some say they were considerably worse.
But that's not the point, Guardipee said.
The point is, the BIA made promises and didn't keep them.
"We're still seeing the same types of problems," Guardipee said.
BIA police don't always respond to serious calls, he said, don't follow up on investigations, don't produce accident reports quickly enough. Amazingly, bad guys are still slipping out of jail to commit assaults.
Naranjo, for his part, says he now knows what it feels like to put the gumshoe squarely on the other foot. Last year, his agency was sitting back counting up all the complaints. Now, he's on the receiving end, and many of the complaints haven't changed much.
When he sat down to get an earful from the Tribal Council, he said, "there were a lot of issues that they brought to our attention that were basically the same issues that were on the table when we took over."
"We've had a year to work on it," he continued, "but it's been slow. We know it's been slow. But we do think things are moving in the right direction."
To measure that movement, he and a team of police chiefs from a half-dozen reservations came to Browning the first week of March to assess the progress.
They looked at police administration, "which has improved quite a bit," Naranjo said. Gone are the days when bills went unpaid and vendors refused to extend credit for uniforms and equipment. He'd like a little stronger hand from the top administrators, he said, but, all in all, things are running more smoothly than before.
They also looked at the jail, where "there's been one heck of an improvement," he said. The 30-year-old building has new paint, he said, some new plumbing and some new bunks. It has new locks and new doors. Of course, it still needs more staff, "but that's a problem in every jail in Indian Country."
Naranjo's team also looked at police dispatch, where the call load easily overwhelms the small staff. One of the new BIA dispatchers, in fact, suffered a nervous breakdown handling the heavy Browning call load.
(On the Pine Ridge Reservation, which has a population more than four times that of the Blackfeet Reservation, police handled 173 violent crimes in 2003. The Browning police handled 970.)
The dispatch technology is outdated, Naranjo said, as is the 9-1-1 system. It is an area with much room for improvement, he said.
But in investigations, improvement is visible everywhere, he said.
"The BIA investigators are actually investigating," he said. "The tribe had investigators, but they didn't investigate. They just gave everything to the FBI."
Still, he said, investigators are hampered by an antiquated record-keeping system and a short staff.
The short staff also hinders the patrol division, he said. "We just don't have enough people," he said. "I mean, God, we're going to burn these guys out." Four officers might handle 150 calls a night, he said, "and with that many calls, you don't have time for reports."
Complicating the staffing problem is the fact that the tribe lost eight community police officers, whose pay had been part of a federal grant. The Department of Justice is currently investigating the tribe's handling of that federal money.
Those positions, Naranjo said, would have been lost regardless of who ran the police department. Guardipee, however, insists patrol staffing was better under tribal leadership.
"All I know is that since the BIA came in, I see a big difference in Browning," said local policeman Michael Augare. "I feel safer now. Things have changed. There's more street patrol. It's good."
For years, the Blackfeet police department has been swapped back and forth between the tribe and the BIA. Prior to last year's takeover, the most recent switch was in 1995, when the tribe took over from the BIA.
At the time, the tribe's complaints looked a lot like the BIA's complaints eight years later and the tribe's complaints today.
"We weren't doing squat either," Naranjo admits. "Back in 1995, we gave them a piss-poor program to begin with. They tried to build on it, but it was just impossible."
Guardipee agrees, saying "it was set up to fail."
Which is exactly why Naranjo thinks it so important that the BIA hang on to Blackfeet law enforcement for at least a little longer.
"If we're going to give it back," he said, "we need to hand them a top-notch program."
But tribal Chairman Jay St. Goddard isn't willing to wait. If the BIA were truly committed to a top-notch program, he said, then the agency would have come through on its promises of a year ago.
"They're not running the program any better" than the tribe had, he said, adding that the BIA's poor communications with other departments - such as emergency medical teams - endangers public safety.
The main issue - lack of funding - remains chronic on the reservation, St. Goddard said, and the BIA presence has done little to remedy that overriding problem.
In fact, it is when pressed up against the funding wall that the BIA and the tribe begin to find some common ground in their ongoing power struggle.
"It's not us against them in any way," St. Goddard insisted. "We have to come together and work these things out."
Councilman Monroe agrees. "At this point," he said, "it's not the Bureau or the tribe's fault - it's at a higher level of government."
By which he means Congress.
So long as Congress fails to adequately fund the BIA, Naranjo and the tribal officials agree that there will be no money for a new jail, no money for modern equipment, no money for training, no money to entice professional police officers onto the reservation.
"The federal government controls this thing," Naranjo said. "They can ensure success or doom it to continued failure."
And failure - despite overwhelming public opinion otherwise - is what Guardipee sees when he looks at the past year of reservation policing.
"Just looking at the number of complaints," he said, "we must do something."
Something like getting a proposal to the BIA within the next 90 days, laying out a plan to resume tribal policing. Something like making that change effective before summer's end.
But the tribe, Naranjo said, cannot simply take policing back. Instead, the BIA must give it back.
And although the agency will have to justify any attempt to keep control of policing, even tribal attorney Matt concedes that "I think that they may have a legal argument."
Of course, she has a few legal arguments of her own, and it could be the court that decides whose cops patrol Browning.
"Personally, I don't care who does the police work, as long as it gets done and gets done right," Naranjo said. "The BIA has more resources, and so we can do things the tribe can't. It makes sense to let us keep putting these improvements in place before we hand it back."
The March review, he said, proves that things are on the right track, and the community is welcoming the changes. What's really at stake, he said, is not agency funding or tribal pride - it's the safety of Indian people who live and work on the reservation.
Regardless of who controls the cop shop, he said, there will continue to be more crimes than there are resources to police those crimes. And that, finally, is the reason so many still feel so afraid.
Guardipee agrees, and is willing to risk all politically to speed change for the better.
"It appalls me," he said, "to see this happening to my people."
But his people appear appalled that he would think the tribe is ready to reclaim policing. At the community meeting in Heart Butte, not one could be found who agreed with Guardipee that the answer was a return to tribal policing.
"Keep the BIA," said Phillip Dog Gun. "The tribe's got too many relations."
"Yeah," said Franklin Comes At Night. "I'd rather have an officer who isn't related to the community. It's better to have someone from the outside."
"The BIA is great," agreed Nicole Calf Looking. "They get the job done. I'm really glad these guys are here. The Council wants its power back, but we've seen what they do when they have control."
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com
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