One tribal official is offering details into the Tribal Public Safety Crisis Summit held by Gov. Kristi Noem.
Noem convened the summit after the tribes banned her from their reservations for comments she made about cartels on reservations and about Native children not having any hope.
“We have dangerous drugs and violent crime taking place in parts of South Dakota – we can fix it if we have honest conversations and work together. That’s what happened today,” said Noem in a press release about the June 24 summit. “Because of the conversations and the relationships that were built at this Summit, we will continue to make meaningful progress towards making South Dakota safer.”
At least two tribes, Flandreau Santee and Standing Rock Sioux Tribes, sent members to the summit to hear from the governor and other law enforcement officials. Representatives from US Attorney’s office and Attorney General's office also attended.
Francis Wakeman is a spokesperson for the Flandreau Santee tribe. He attended the summit and said it was a good first step.
“The governor was very interesting in going to Congress with the tribes and asking for additional appropriations that would benefit both the tribal and the state law enforcement. But, everything’s being held up because the BIA isn’t... providing the data that reflect the necessity for the governor or the tribes to go to congress and ask for more money.”
Wakeman said no mutual aid agreements were made during the meeting. That’s something Noem said she would like to see in the future. Noem has said that could help with cross jurisdictional law enforcement issues.
Currently, state law enforcement cannot go onto tribal lands and tribal police cannot enforce the law off reservations.
Wakeman said that’s something they heard about from law enforcement officials.
“I think the governor got everybody in the right room and stuff like that,” Wakeman added. “But it was interesting to hear from law enforcement—not the governor or not the head of tribes or anything like that, but actually the people on the ground doing the work. That was very eye opening. Ducking in and out of the reservations, state lands, bringing crimes to the reservation and state.”
Wakeman said many Native nations did not attend the summit because it was held the day before celebrations for the Battle of Little Big Horn, when Lakota and Northern Cheyenne defeated General Custer in what is now southeastern Montana.
The governor’s office said all nine tribes were represented at the summit. At least three tribes, Lower Brule, Yankton and Rosebud confirmed to SDPB they did not send representatives to attend the summit.
When asked to clarify, the governor’s spokesperson Ian Fury said, “There were tribal members in attendance.”
