OLYMPIA — A bill to cross-commission tribal police to arrest non-Natives on reservations faces a hearing today in the state Senate.
That’s unless Clallam Sheriff Bill Benedict and Jefferson Sheriff Mike Brasfield — plus all but one of their 37 peers — can convince state officials to postpone action on the legislation.
The members of the Washington Association of Sheriffs want the idea diverted to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.
WASPic, as the group is known, would draft a “model guideline,” Brasfield said, that would govern cross-commissioning tribal officers, and send that to the state Legislature.
Clallam County includes the Quileute, Makah and Lower Elwha Klallam reservations and land owned by the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe.
Jefferson County includes the Hoh reservation and a slice of the Quinault reservation.
The bill passed the state House of Representatives this week, by a vote of 58 to 37, with three absences.
Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, voted with the majority, but Rep. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, voted against it after Benedict convinced him the legislation was flawed.
Both Kessler and Van De Wege represent the 24th District, which includes Clallam, Jefferson and a portion of Grays Harbor counties.
Van De Wege said he might vote for the bill if it were amended to suit the sheriffs.
“I would not at all put out the possibility that I would vote for it later in the session,” he said.
In a letter to Rob McKenna, state attorney general, the state Sheriff’s Association raised questions regarding tribal immunity from state and federal civil suits.
Brasfield said the group also shared its worries with Gov. Chris Gregoire.
The association, of which Brasfield is secretary/treasurer, also asked what liability local governments might face for tribal officers’ actions.
“When someone makes a mistake, who pays?” Benedict asked.
Clallam County is self-insured, he said.
“We don’t expose the taxpayer to costs for negligent conduct,” he said.
Benedict also questioned tribal police departments’ accountability to citizens.
Benedict said he answers to voters, and chiefs of police are held responsible by their mayors or city councils, but tribes are sovereign nations.
Neither McKenna nor Gregoire had responded to the sheriffs as of Thursday afternoon.
According to Brasfield, the bill originated in a period of ill will between the Tulalip tribes and the Snohomish County sheriff that largely has been resolved by the new Snohomish sheriff, John Lovick.
Lovick is the only sheriff to support the bill, whose prime sponsor is Rep. John McCoy, D-Marysville, a member of the Tulalip tribes.
“That was the real nexus of all this to start with,” Brasfield said.
One of the provisions he said the law should include is a statewide department to certify police agencies.
Currently the state Criminal Justice Training Commission certifies only that individual officers have completed courses at its training academy.
“We would just like to have everybody step back,” Brasfield said.
Current cross-commissioning practices — at the prerogative of individual sheriffs — had lasted since Washington was a territory.
“Another 12 months is not going to create any kind of a problem,” Brasfield said.
But Mike Lasnier, former chief of the Lower Elwha tribal police, now chief of the Suquamish force, cited studies showing Natives suffer disproportionately from violent crimes — mostly at the hands of non-Native offenders.
He said that was because non-Native criminals feel impunity to arrest by tribal officers, even thought they can detain offenders.
“Tribal communities are seeking some type of change,” Lasnier told Peninsula Daily News.
“We can’t just ignore it for another few decades, and hope it will go away.”
Meanwhile, Benedict said he was near signing a memorandum of agreement — a contract between government agencies — with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribal police and eventually with the LaPush tribal police.
“I’m pretty close to getting that taken care of, that I would commission their officers,” said Benedict, who promised to cross-commission tribal officers during his 2006 election campaign.
Even if the cross-commissioning legislation passes, he said, “I don’t doubt that we can work it out within the framework of the law.”
Nevertheless, William Lyon, chief of LaPush police, supports the bill.
“Right now, the issue that comes up is that when we do make a detention on a non-Native, and a deputy is unable to respond, [tribal officers] forward their report to the deputy, who adds a cover sheet,” he said.
“The only thing deputies do is put a good name to our police report.”
Sometimes, Lyon said, tribal officers must let offenders go for lack of a deputy to arrest a suspect.
That problem was echoed by Lasnier.
Native Americans are more than twice as likely to be victims of serious violent crimes than any other racial group, Lasnier said, citing a 2002 study by the U.S. Department of Justice.
One in four young tribal women will be raped, he said, but nine of 10 of the rapists will be non-Natives, according to the statistics.
“Here in Washington, Natives make up only 1.6 percent of the population,” Lasnier said, “yet comprise 4 percent of the murder victims.”
Lasnier quoted Chelan County Sheriff Mike Harum as saying:
“The reality is that state and county law enforcement officers are reluctant to enter Indian lands in Washington for several reasons, including confusion over jurisdiction, the remoteness of some tribal communities, a lack of resources and a rejection of outside police services.”
That, said Lasnier, turns reservations into hunting grounds for human predators.
“Our tribes deserve the same degree of safety as everyone else,” he said.
According to Lasnier, the bill was approved by a majority of members of the WASPiC, (in which police chiefs outnumber sheriffs, and by the Fraternal Order of Police, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Washington State Trial Lawyers.
It was not approved by the state sheriffs’ association.
Similar provisions have been endorsed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Lasnier said.
Furthermore, he said, only tribal officers who have met standards for training and certification by the state Criminal Justice Training Commission could exercise authority under the bill.
Explaining his vote against the bill, Van De Wege said none of the tribal departments in the 24th District had contacted him about the bill.
However, he called the issue “something that needs to be addressed. I think it would make our communities better.
“It’s a pretty big issue for our district, having as many reservations as we do.”
For more information
THESE ORGANIZATIONS’ WEB sites offer more information on the proposed cross-commissioning of tribal police officers:
— Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs: www.waspc.org/index.php?c=Publications.
— International Association of Chiefs of Police: www.theiacp.org/div_sec_com/sections/Indian/IndianCountryReport2006.pdf.
— U.S. Department of Justice: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/aic02.pdf.
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Reporter Jim Casey can be reached at 360-417-3538 or at jim.casey@peninsuladailynews.com.
