05.24.24

Cantwell: WA Tribes Don’t Have Enough Law Enforcement Officers

Yakama, Lummi, Tulalip, Colville, Chehalis, Spokane, Cowlitz, Nisqually, Kalispel and other WA Tribes report chronic understaffing

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), senior member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, pressed federal officials about the need to help tribes across Washington state and the country hire and keep more tribal law enforcement officers.

“According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, tribal communities need over 13,600 additional law enforcement personnel just to meet the FBI’s Community Safe standard. So that means that many tribes do not have enough law enforcement to tackle these big problems like fentanyl or murdered and missing indigenous people,” Sen. Cantwell said in today’s committee hearing. “Currently, state and federal law enforcement can provide retirement and other types of compensation benefits that tribes can't provide to law enforcement, and so this disparity means even though tribes have been trying to keep up, we've had a great deal of problem in keeping the commissioned officers.”

“The Yakama Nation Police Department has less than one quarter of the police officers to patrol its 1.4 million-acre reservation and serve 30,000 residents, so clearly they need more support,” Sen. Cantwell continued. “The Chief of the Tulalip Police Department testified before this committee earlier this month -- his department lost approximately 50% of their commissioned officers due to [recruitment] by non-tribal jurisdictions over time. The Kalispel Tribe lost nine officers over a five-year period the same way. The Colville have struggled to keep three officers on duty per shift to patrol; the Colville is about basically the size of the state of Delaware.”

In July, Sen. Cantwell introduced the Parity for Tribal Law Enforcement Act, which would help tribal police departments hire and retain tribal law enforcement officers by providing tribal law enforcement officers access to federal retirement, pension, death, and injury benefits on par with law enforcement officers from non-tribal jurisdictions.

Across the State of Washington, tribes report chronic issues with law enforcement understaffing. Examples include:

  • The Tulalip Tribal Police Department has lost approximately 50 percent of their commissioned law enforcement staffing in recent years. Numerous officers have been recruited away and offered better salaries, benefits, and pension programs.
  • The Lummi Nation Police Department is currently staffed with 15 commissioned officers and three support staff, with 11 commissioned officer positions vacant. With the population growth in their area, 30 commissioned officers would be optimal.
  • The Colville Tribal Police Department has eight vacancies out of 29 officer positions. The Colville Reservation is larger than the state of Delaware and is the largest Indian reservation in the Pacific Northwest. On the average shift, the Colville PD has only three police officers to patrol all 2,275 square miles of the reservation and the more than 250 parcels of off-reservation trust lands. This means that an officer’s backup is at least 30 minutes away by car at any given time, though usually farther.
  • The Yakama Nation Tribal Police Department has had anywhere between 11 to 20 certified patrol officers for the 1.4 million-acre Yakama Reservation over the last two years. Under FBI law enforcement guidance of 2.3 police officers per 1,000 residents, adequate staffing for the Yakama Nation Police Department would be approximately 76 officers to serve 33,000 residents.
  • Chehalis Tribal Public Safety Department has 13 commissioned officers who are certified under state law to enforce state and local criminal laws, in addition to Chehalis tribal criminal laws. Currently, the department has two vacant positions. The reservation spans 5,500 acres and is checkerboarded with parcels up to twenty miles apart.
  • The Spokane Tribal Police Department currently has 10 police officers and one sergeant, and the chief of police says the department should have six to eight additional officers to adequately protect the area.
  • The Cowlitz Indian Tribal Public Safety Department currently has 17 officers to patrol a large service area covering the reservation and other tribal properties stretching north to Toledo, WA, nearly 50 miles away. There are currently three official police officer vacancies. Ideally, to keep up with a 39% increase in call volume between 2020 and 2023, the tribe would have at least six additional officers as well as more support staff, crisis response, victim advocacy, mental health services, and additional legal, child welfare, and tribal court staff. There are typically only two officers on duty at a given time to patrol the area.
  • The Nisqually Tribe Police Department has a police force of 25 officers, but currently five vacancies.
  • The Kalispel Tribal Public Safety Department is currently staffed with 24 commissioned officers and five non-commissioned administrative employees. They currently have three vacant officer positions. To adequately serve the tribe and its members, their police chief says they need at least 27-30 commissioned officers in total and two additional support employees.

Sen. Cantwell is a strong advocate for increasing the presence of tribal law enforcement officers on reservations to help combat the fentanyl epidemic and Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP) crisis among Native communities.

Video of Sen. Cantwell’s remarks at today’s Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing is available HERE; a transcript is HERE.

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