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Name: Fort Belknap

Tribe: Assiniboine & Gros Ventre

Population: 3,115

Native: 94%

Counties: Blaine,
Phillips

Underprotected, Underserved

Fort Belknap copes with the reality of inadequate law enforcement with plans for a public safety commission

Written by Jesseca Whalen

It's 4 in the morning. A shroud of gray mist stretches across rolling fields, draped over miles of wooden fencing, nestled into the crevasses of the snow-capped Little Rocky Mountains. Fort Belknap Reservation is quiet.

In a farmhouse at the north end of the reservation, a persistent ringing cuts through the stillness. Flicking on the light, Carletta Benson moves toward the phone with a hazy sense of urgency.

No one calls at this hour with good news.

"Hello?" Benson asks, voice grainy with sleep.

"Carletta?" her sister says, "Jay just killed two people and he's headed your way. We don't know where he's at."

Twisting the phone cord around one clenched fist, Benson peers down the smoky line of road that traverses the ranch where she lives with her husband.

"Where are the police? Are they here? Are they coming?" she asks, fear replacing her exhaustion.

But the dogs aren't barking. If someone was on her land, she would know.

After saying goodbye to her sister and locking the doors, Benson waited. With a rifle in one hand and the phone in the other, she called the police station five times. Five times she was told that law enforcement couldn't give out any information regarding the case or the suspected whereabouts of 25-year-old Elwin "Jay" Has The Eagle.

After hours of watching out the window, ("We were too scared to go back to sleep," Benson says) a friend told the Bensons that Has The Eagle was in custody. Police arrested him following a car chase at speeds of more than 100 miles per hour.

The double homicide occurred around 1:30 a.m. Dec. 17 in Lodge Pole, just two weeks after Has The Eagle was released from the Phillips County jail on $50,000 bond. He had been in custody for beating a man over the head with a rock and leaving him for dead. In the Lodge Pole homicide case, Has The Eagle pleaded not guilty and has yet to go to trial, but criminal investigator Robert Ironmaker says Has The Eagle faces a life sentence on charges of slitting the throats of Calvin Snell, 69, and Doreen Manzanares, 62, before stealing their car.

"I live right next to the Has Eagle family, not even a mile as the crow flies, and the only thing I knew was that Jay was someplace close," Benson says. "We were terrified. Any information would have been a relief, but the cops refused to talk to us. That was wrong."

Complaints like Benson's are one reason the Fort Belknap Tribal Council is in the process of putting together a public safety commission — a forum where community members can voice concerns about safety and law enforcement. The commission's function is to hear complaints or suggestions and then decide if they should be acted on.

The commission will comprise five members, handpicked by the tribal council, and must meet certain criteria. For example, one slot will go to a current or former law enforcement officer. Council member Andrew Werk, who chairs the council's law and order committee, will oversee the new commission.

"We want it to be very objective," Werk says. "I think it will be a good tool to help with ongoing safety issues. There is always skepticism, but the hope is to get community members involved and get some things resolved a little faster."

However, Werk is concerned that the Fort Belknap community isn't showing much interest. "It's hard to say if the idea is being wellreceived," he says. "We haven't had the amount of public response that we would like to see."

Werk has held four community meetings, but only the first had more than a dozen people attending and most of those were law enforcement employees apprehensive about the commission's role. The Lodge Pole meeting had to be rescheduled twice — once because of a winter storm, and once because no one showed up.