A little old, but I wonder how they are doing these days?
Mike

Turmoil thwarts drug probes at Red Lake
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The reservation's police force is facing suspected corruption in the department as it tries to stop a drug trade linked to the Twin Cities.

RED LAKE, MINN. - Tribal police fighting drug trafficking on the Red Lake Reservation have been undermined by weak leadership, poor training, sloppy procedures, suspected corruption and leaks of sting operations, according to former employees and federal auditors who studied the department.
The reservation's recently fired police director, Tim Savior, said that last year he turned over three cases of suspected corruption in the department to federal authorities. In one case, he said, a police safe with at least $13,000 in cash went missing. Federal officials declined to say whether they are investigating.

Red Lake police also have suspected for at least two years that one or more people in the department or tribal court may be disclosing confidential information to drug traffickers, according to two former police investigators.

The turmoil and suspicions are unfolding as federal officials are launching an offensive across northern Minnesota's Indian country against a violent, bustling drug trade with links to the Twin Cities.

But to the dismay of Tom Heffelfinger, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Red Lake pulled out of the FBI-led investigative task force last year. Tribal Chairman Floyd Jourdain Jr. said he withdrew to protect tribal sovereignty.

The reservation, home to 9,500 members of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa, is burdened by violence, alcoholism and illegal drug use. Last March, it gained national attention when a teenager shot and killed nine people, most of them in the reservation high school, and then killed himself.

The broadest criticism of the Red Lake Police Department is contained in a Bureau of Indian Affairs audit that was issued two years ago and stamped "for official use only." The report, reviewed last week by the Star Tribune, found an array of problems in the then 36-person department: missing investigative files, negligent handling of evidence, poor training and a lack of leadership.

Last month, in the latest sign of upheaval, Savior was fired after three months on the job. He had replaced a police director fired in August. Savior was not accused of wrongdoing, but he lost the support of tribal council members.

Helping the criminals?

Two former tribal police investigators said last week that their drug enforcement work at Red Lake was at times compromised by internal leaks to suspects under investigation.

Clifford Martell, a former investigator who was fired in July, said that in late 2003 and 2004 approximately five planned drug buys using informants on the reservation were ruined by that problem.

"We would have everything set up and we would go out to do the buys and all the drug dealers are gone," Martell said.

When investigators checked the department's outgoing telephone records, he said, they discovered that someone had called the suspects in advance.

Investigators stopped holding pre-operation meetings at the department and told only trusted officers of their plans, Martell added.

Another former Red Lake police investigator, Russ Thomas, said that some court-approved searches were foiled because suspects had been tipped from tribal offices. Thomas resigned from the department in October. He said that the leaks were reported to former Police Director Pat Mills, but that no one was dismissed.

The investigators said cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine are flowing into reservations, mainly from Minneapolis.

A scathing report

The BIA audited the department in 2004 at the request of the newly elected Jourdain. Auditors concluded its four investigators were unsupervised, insufficiently trained and ineffective.

The auditors couldn't find 85 of 250 investigative files the department opened in 2003. Their report also found that drug contraband was being kept in an evidence room without being inventoried. And confiscated cash, once stored in a gun cabinet, was put in a safe purchased at the urging of BIA auditors. Later, the safe disappeared.

The report also said the department was at odds with the community. "There is an obvious lack of effective leadership and management in police operations and investigations," it concluded.

Federal officials said they had hoped the Red Lake Police Department would be a participant in the drug trafficking task force they created last year.

It includes investigators from the FBI, the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, three northern Minnesota sheriff's offices and tribal police from the White Earth and Leech Lake reservations. Mills, who did not return telephone calls, enlisted Red Lake tribal police in the task force last April.

Jourdain said in an interview that when tribal leaders learned of the arrangement, they felt it compromised the tribe's status as a sovereign nation. Red Lake investigators were withdrawn from the task force. One of the investigators who had been on it was fired in July. Mills was ousted in August.

Jourdain said the reservation isn't an equal player in the task force. He said Red Lake would consider rejoining if that and other issues can be resolved. Meanwhile, Red Lake police continue to work with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

"The last thing we want to do is turn Red Lake into a drug haven," Jourdain said.

The task force controversy erupted while Jourdain's 17-year-old son, Louis, was facing federal charges after the school shooting. Louis Jourdain later pleaded guilty to sending threatening communications, a count that a federal judge found was not related to the shootings.

Heffelfinger, who leaves office this week, said task force investigations involving other tribal police departments have led to 34 arrests from November through January, including 13 for methamphetamine.

"It is working very well," he said. "The only effective way to reduce the drug problem in Indian country is through these task forces."

Dispute over dismissal

Martell, the former investigator, asserted in a New York Times story last week that Jourdain fired him to thwart investigations of drug dealers with ties to the chairman.

When asked about that allegation by the Star Tribune, Martell offered no specific evidence but said that Jourdain repeatedly threatened his job over drug investigations.

Jourdain adamantly denies threatening Martell or having any ties to drug traffickers. He said he wants to improve policing while protecting the tribe's sovereignty.

Unlike most Minnesota reservations, Red Lake is not policed by county sheriffs. Crimes are not prosecuted in state courts. The reservation has its own police and tribal court, and the FBI investigates major crimes, which are prosecuted in federal court.

Jourdain said he fired Martell for helping a police officer from another jurisdiction with a child-custody case on the reservation. He said that because state laws do not apply to the reservation, Martell's assist breached sovereignty.

Martell contends that he was helping the FBI on a legitimate felony warrant.

How much crime?

Investigators say they believe that Red Lake's struggle with drugs is getting worse, but no one knows for sure because crime statistics are not available in Indian country.

A gang known as the Native Mob has been linked to drug trafficking in Minneapolis and on reservations, investigators say. One alleged member of that gang, Gordon D. Reese of Minneapolis, is on trial in Minneapolis on firearms, drugs and other charges, including an alleged assault in July of a man in Red Lake.

The movement of drugs and gangs between cities and reservations requires better communication among police departments, said Minneapolis police Sgt. Bill Blake, a member of the Red Lake Nation. He is working to expand communication with tribal departments and improve reservation crime data collection.

"We have to do our job," Blake said, "and we are not."