Information
Name: Fort Belknap
Tribe: Assiniboine & Gros Ventre
Population: 3,115
Native: 94%
Counties: Blaine,
Phillips
"People just don't think anything is going to change," Benson says. "I mean, it's a nice idea if it works, but we'll see."
In spite of this, the council feels that a safety commission will benefit the community. "We need a safety commission, or someone to police our law enforcement," says councilman John Allen. "We can't allow officers to bully the public."
Ironmaker, who has worked in law enforcement for 37 years, acknowledges that complaints about officer conduct are common. "We're always getting calls from folks who say that some cop manhandled them, or pulled them over for no reason," he says. "If we fired every officer who had complaints brought against him, we wouldn't have a police force."
That's one reason Ironmaker feels a safety commission would do more damage than good. Police in Fort Belknap make $10 an hour, the lowest starting wage in District 5 (which includes all of Montana) and, according to Ironmaker, more complaints against tribal law enforcement will add to "the extremely high turnover rate" on the force.
"I don't like it," he says. "A lot of us think it's going to be a police bashing. I've been involved with safety commissions before and they've just never worked. Maybe things have changed, but I don't think they have."
Moses Dionne has been in law enforcement 17 years. In April of this year left his position as chief of police at Fort Belknap to take a higher-paying job on the Fort Peck Reservation. He is unsure about his views on the safety commission, but says that if done right it could be a good thing.
With regard to Benson's complaint that she was kept in the dark when she tried to find out if a suspected murderer was on the run near her home, Dionne says he "wasn't aware that anyone by the name of Carletta Benson requested information that night."
In fact, Dionne and Ironmaker say that when Has The Eagle allegedly committed the murders, Fort Belknap police weren't even aware he was back on the reservation. They thought he was still in the Phillips County jail an an assault charge.
"Would it have made a difference if we had known?" says Ironmaker. "Maybe. Maybe not."
Regardless of what information tribal police had or released that night, crimes like those grisly murders have lasting effects, effects that a safety commission won't be able to erase.
On a reservation that's home to fewer than 5,000 members of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes, many people now lock their doors. Law enforcement officials are feeling increasingly stretched in terms of resources and manpower. And a fear that the rising crime rate on Fort Belknap can't be curtailed is troubling police and community members alike.
"In the last couple of years, there has been a steady increase in crime, especially in the Hays-Lodge Pole area," says Dionne. "And we've only got 10 officers on the ground. In 2002 there were 1,200 arrests, compared to around 1,800 in 2008."
The small towns of Hays and Lodge Pole sit about five miles apart, roughly 35 miles from the reservation's central hub, Fort Belknap Agency, where tribal police offices are located. Dionne says that one of the reasons the crime rate is higher in Lodge Pole is because perpetrators know that it takes police about a half hour to arrive after a call comes in to the tribal police office.
Sometimes, if the call isn't considered an emergency, it takes even longer.
"It took the cops an hour and a half to get down to the grocery store after our gas pump was broken" and they caught a teenager stealing gas, says Sheila Martin. Martin and her husband own Martin's Grocery in Hays, which has the only gas pump in town. "A kid who's been poking a stick in the thing to steal gas finally got caught, and it took forever to get someone down here."
Although Martin's Grocery is located in Hays, Lodge Pole residents also use its gas pump. The nearest gas station beyond that is in Agency.
"It's frustrating is what it is," Sheila Martin's husband, Gerald, says. "For me, you feel like taking the law into your own hands. What else can you do?"