South Dakota tribe sues U.S. over crime: ABC News

Indian American Priscilla Perez takes part in a rally for gun control and anti-racism, in El Paso, Texas, the United States, Aug. 7, 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

The tribe sued the Bureau of Indian Affairs and some high-level officials in July 2022, alleging the U.S. federal government is not complying with its treaty obligations nor its trust responsibility by failing to provide adequate law enforcement to address the "public safety crisis" on the reservation.

NEW YORK, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Crimes of violence have become increasingly common on the 5,400 square mile (about 14,000 square kilometers) Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the largest Native American reservation in South Dakota, the United States.

However, "only 33 officers and eight criminal investigators are responsible for over 100,000 emergency calls each year across the reservation, which is about the size of the state of Connecticut," reported ABC News last week.

The officers and investigators are all federally funded, and the tribe says it's just not enough, it noted.

The tribe sued the Bureau of Indian Affairs and some high-level officials in July 2022, alleging the U.S. federal government is not complying with its treaty obligations nor its trust responsibility by failing to provide adequate law enforcement to address the "public safety crisis" on the reservation.

The federal government countered in court documents that the tribe can't prove treaties force the government to provide the tribe with its "preferred level of staffing or funding for law enforcement." After two days of court proceedings last week, a judge said he would take the case under advisement.

The U.S. federal government has a trust duty to Indigenous nations and has made promises to tribes under treaty agreements, which should be read liberally and in favor of Native American tribes, Robert Miller, law professor at Arizona State University and an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe in Oklahoma, was quoted as saying.