Two American Indian Teens To Be Kicked Off Reservation

Mar 17, 2005 10:48 am US/Mountain

Two American Indian teens suspected of stealing $58,000 worth of silver and beadwork from a trading post on a southeastern Idaho Indian reservation will be kicked out of Indian Country Monday.

It's the first time the 137-year-old Fort Bridger Treaty between the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe and the U.S. government has been used to ``exclude'' minors from the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, tribal officials say.

More than just a reservation squabble, however, the case underscores troubles at the intersection of tribal law and those of the rest of the U.S.

Shoshone-Bannock leaders, still angry about 1953 federal legislation that lets Idaho share jurisdiction over juveniles, have opted not to seek help from federal agents or neighboring counties in dealing with the boys. They're concerned over their right to govern themselves and say outside agencies wouldn't help, anyway.

``Federal and state resources are insufficient to address juvenile delinquency on the reservation,'' said Paul Echohawk, attorney for the tribe. ``And when the tribe exhausts its own resources, it's left with exclusion.''

The boys, brothers aged 14 and 17, aren't Shoshone-Bannocks, but their mother is.

She'll probably have to leave with the pair, who have ties to the tribe of their father, the Crow Indians of Montana. Shoshone tribal officials say the family also could relocate to a town near their reservation.

The upshot is that law-enforcement agencies in jurisdictions surrounding Fort Hall may eventually be forced to grapple with teens already branded serial lawbreakers.

And owners of The Corner Mercantile/Indian Goods, founded in 1873, fear not enough is being done to exact justice from suspected thieves who stole goods worth six times the average annual reservation income.

``They should arrest them,'' said owner Paul Lowdermilk. ``The boys are old enough to be tried as adults.''

Efforts to reach family of the juveniles, whose names are known to The Associated Press, were unsuccessful.

The 544,000-acre Fort Hall Indian Reservation is bordered on the north by the Snake River. It can be a tough place: Methamphetamine labs, child abuse and domestic violence keep tribal authorities busy.

It's home to 3,600 Shoshone-Bannocks on territory less than a third its original size, the result of an 1872 government surveying error and because tribal land was reduced for white settlement.

Lowdermilk and his wife, Wendy Lowdermilk, a Shoshone-Bannock tribal member, have run the store here for a decade.

They discovered the burglary Jan. 28, when they saw broken display-case glass littering the floor.

``They knew just where to go,'' Lowdermilk said in a recent interview from the western-style building. ``The morning after, the kids were walking through the town wearing the jewelry.''

He claims up to 30 juveniles and several adults are involved in a theft ring.

Tribal officials say five or six kids are suspects, including the brothers due to be excluded March 21.

Blaine Edmo, a councilman with the Fort Hall Business Council, which runs reservation affairs, says the boys finally wore out their welcome. Even if the tribe wanted to keep the brothers, he said, the reservation's juvenile jail has been condemned.

``They have a repeated and chronic history of alcohol and substance abuse, burglary, assault, damage to property, a number of complaints,'' Edmo said in a recent interview. ``Because they aren't members of the tribe, they've repeatedly argued the tribe can't do anything to them. They're using their status as non-tribal members to basically stay above the law.''

The tribe draws on the 1868 Fort Bridger Treaty _ signed in the Utah Territory under then-U.S. President Andrew Johnson _ to justify the exclusion of ``bad men among the Indians (who) commit a wrong or depredation.''

It's booted a dozen non-tribal adults off the reservation in the past five years.

At least one tribal member was banished, for selling sacred Indian ceremonies on the Internet, Edmo said. Federal agents are often called in to investigate reservation felonies.

In the case of the Corner Mercantile, however, they haven't been told of the break-in.

And none of the five counties that surround the reservation were informed of the youngsters' impending expulsion, according to separate interviews with law enforcement agencies there.

``It's confusing any time you deal with an Indian reservation,'' said Terry Derden, a federal prosecutor in Boise who handles some American Indian cases. ``It's not unusual to have these cracks in jurisdictions on all the reservations across the country.''

Part of the reason: The U.S. Congress passed the law known as ``Public Law 280'' in 1953 allowing states to extend their legal reach onto reservation land.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has bolstered the sovereignty of Idaho tribes in recent years, including a Feb. 28 decision not to review a lower court ruling forbidding the state to levy a tax on gas sold on reservations, the state still has jurisdiction over the Shoshone-Bannocks in seven areas, including roads and juvenile justice.

The tribe isn't happy about it, arguing Public Law 280 was foisted upon them amid what Echohawk calls ``a failed policy of assimilation.''

An attempt to abandon the policy during the 1998 Idaho legislature misfired, and it remains a flashpoint in relations between the state and tribes.

``There's this patchwork kind of approach on the reservation that contributes to this,'' said Kevin Worthen, dean of the law school at Brigham Young University and an expert on American Indian law.

Tribal officials and county law enforcement agents in southeastern Idaho say there has been some progress recently in trying to resolve Public Law 280-related differences and boost cooperation.

Meetings that began last October were prompted by a May 2002 dispute, in which Fort Hall police threatened to arrest two Bannock County deputies for trespassing while attempting to serve warrants on tribal land.

This March 29, seven city, county and Shoshone-Bannock law enforcement agencies are due to sign a pact they say will help them team up to fight the rise of methamphetamine manufacturing and use on the Fort Hall reservation.

``There are some broader issues under (Public Law) 280 where we can work together,'' said Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen. ``Right now, why don't we use it in a way that we can help some of our citizens in a humanitarian way?''

Meanwhile, the Lowdermilks, the trading post owners, wonder if they'll ever be compensated for the January thefts.

``Expelling them is not the way to stop crime,'' said Paul Lowdermilk. ``It gets rid of the problem of those two on the reservation, but it definitely doesn't fix the problem.''

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Last updated on March 18, 2005