Hearing opens on tribal law enforcement bill

The hearing this afternoon on HB 500, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s legislative proposal on policing on Indian reservations, has attracted a large crowd, including representatives of several of Idaho’s Indian tribes and numerous uniformed law enforcement officers. It’s beginning with Helo Hancock, legislative director for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, giving some background for the House Judiciary Committee on land ownership on Indian reservations, and how they ended up, on some reservations like the Coeur d’Alenes’, in a checkerboard pattern of Indian and non-Indian ownership. On the Coeur d’Alene reservation, there are 10,000 residents, Hancock told the committee, but only about 1,500 of them are tribal members. “Which means that our tribal police officers come in contact, either responding to 911 calls or pulling over cars … that involve non-Indians, and this is a frequent occurrence.”