Here’s the initial story from the Associated Press:

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana tribal leaders, fed up with growing gang violence, have invited the Guardian Angels to open its first chapter on an American Indian reservation.

Curtis Sliwa founded the citizens’ crime watch group, whose members are known by their red berets. He arrives at the Fort Peck Indian Reservation this weekend to help kick off the chapter.

Sliwa calls it a breakthrough that traditionally insular leaders from the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes invited the Guardian Angels to the reservation.

Chauncy Whitewright III, vice chairman of the Wolf Point Community, helped organize the chapter. He says teens on reservations across Montana are at risk and vulnerable to gang recruitment, and the Guardian Angels should help give them an alternative.

Read the expanded version, here.

In it, Whitewright tells Matt Volz of the AP that “there are all kinds of gangs roaming around up here. Our kids are in danger, they’re being influenced, they’re being targeted. It’s going on every day of the week … and they’re busy recruiting.”

And, he adds, “”It’s not just an Indian problem, it’s all our problem, and we’ve got to deal with it before it gets out of control.”

Tags: Assiniboine, buffalo post, Chauncy Whitewright III, Curtis Sliwa, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Guardian Angels, Gwen Florio, Native American news, Sioux, Wolf Point Community

Yesterday’s announcement of more federal money to fight crime on Indian reservations was welcomed by lawmakers on some of Montana’s reservations – but those same legislators raised pointed questions about the effects of that help.”

“I can see the benefits” of the new program, state Rep. Margarett Campbell, a Democrat from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, tells the Missoulian’s Michael Jamison, here. “And I can also see where it could be problematic.”

Treatment programs must accompany prosecutions, she says, because without them, “then all we’ll be doing is breaking up families and putting young parents in prison,” she says. “There needs to be a help component along with the prosecution effort.”

Likewise, state Rep. Shannon Augure, a Democrat from the Blackfeet Reservation, says that “We need to prosecute the violent offenders,” Campbell said, “but we also need to help heal families.”

But there’s no mention in the federal announcement of money for treatment. Just as they fought for the needed funds for law enforcement, we trust that tribes will continue to fight – this time on behalf of the very necessary prevention and follow-up programs.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Blackfeet Indian, buffalo post, D-Browning, D-Poplar, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Native American news, Rep. Margarett Campbell, Rep. Shannon Augare, U.S. Justice Department

A.J. LongSoldier, who died shortly after being taken from Montana’s Hill County jail to a nearby hospital, died of natural causes, a coroner says.

“There was no foul play involved,” says Fergus County Coroner Dick Brown. He says it could be a month before more tests determine the cause of death, according to this AP story.

LongSoldier, 18, was a standout high school basketball player who led Hays-Lodgepole, on the Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana, to a Class C state championship as a sophomore in 2007.

The story reports that The state Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating LongSoldier’s death, said division chief John Strandell, and a coroner’s inquest will be scheduled because LongSoldier died while in jail.

Blaine County Sheriff Glenn Heustis says LongSoldier didn’t say anything about feeling sick when he was booked into the jail last Thursday on a contempt of court warrant for a juvenile charge. But another inmate says LongSoldier complained the next day about feeling nauseous.

“He was kind of yelling for the guards,” Don Farrar tells the Great Falls Tribune. “He said he wasn’t feeling well, that he was losing color, that he couldn’t hold anything down.”

LongSoldier went to the hospital by ambulance late Sunday night and died Monday morning.

Gwen Florio

Tags: A.J. LongSoldier, buffalo post, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Hays-Lodge Pole, Native American news

Prescription drug abuse can create a sort of perfect storm of misery on Montana’s Indian reservations.

The problem is already severe in the state – in Montana, which has the unfortunate distinction of a high rate of traffic fatalities, prescription drug abuse kills more people than car crashes.

And problems with law enforcement on Indian reservations – where manpower is short and legal entanglements among state, federal and tribal reservations are high – have been well documented.

The problem is so intense that in August, the Obama administration announced a new effort to try and reduce crime on reservations.

This week, authorities in Montana took aim at the problem, at least on the Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana. A sting targeting suspected prescription drug dealers netted about three dozen suspects on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, according to this Associated Press story.

Authorities said more arrests are expected as part of “Operation New Beginning.”

“I guarantee you there will be more arrests made,” says Roosevelt County Sheriff Freedom Crawford. “Our goal is to get people off drugs, to get people to quit drug trafficking and to protect our community and our children.”

Crawford says many of the pills were initially purchased at the two Indian health service pharmacies on the reservation and two other pharmacies in the county.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Native American news, prescription drug abuse

The 30 swift foxes released a month ago on northeastern Montana’s Fort Peck Indian Reservation appear to be thriving, according to this Billings Gazette story.

The reservation’s Assiniboine and Sioux tribes have collaborated with state agencies in re-establishing the foxes, who play a role in the tribes’ creation stories. The idea is that releasing the foxes on the reservation will eventually create continuity between populations of the animals in Canada, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming, according to the Gazette’s Brett French.

Leonard Bighorn, a wildlife technician for the reservation who has been tracking the collared animals since their release, says biologists will be keeping a close eye on the animals, which wear radio collars.

So far, predators have killed two of the foxes and a vehicle struck and killed a third.

“The biggest challenge with them is survival,” says Kyran Kunkel, a biologist with the World Wildlife Fund. “Coyotes are their main predator. Keeping their survival above 50 percent is difficult.”

The foxes join 10 that were transplanted to the reservation three years ago.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Assiniboine, buffalo post, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Native American news, Sioux, Swift Fox

Clover Anaquod was shopping for Halloween with her son this week when he gasped and pointed to a display.

Headdresses. Tomahawks. Peace pipes.

Anaquod, who is Assiniboine Sioux from the Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana, tells the Missoulian that she was taken aback.

“Native American regalia is not a costume,” said Anaquod. “I took it personal.”

As for 10-year-old Matthew, “he was shocked. It hurt his feelings to see these.

Confederated Salish and Kootenai elder Tony Incashola says Indian costumes on Halloween make people view Native Americans “more as a display than humans.”

On the plus side, said Incashola, it seems as though fewer people these days tend to sashay out on Halloween in feathers and paint.

“They feel it’s time to move on, that those days are gone,” he said. “Gradually, more and more people are starting to understand the feeling.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: Assiniboine Sioux, buffalo post, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Halloween costumes, Native American news, racism

For reasons we’ve given up trying to understand, the Bureau of Indian Affairs yesterday delayed by a single day its long-awaited decision on federal recognition for the Little Shell Band of Chippewa, in west-central Montana. (The state has recognized the tribe, and its congressional delegation supports recognition.) Given that the Little Shell formally began the process 31 years ago – and more generally sought it in the 1860s – what’s one more day? Still, we’re not holding our breath. That said, we’ll update as soon as we hear something.

Native American blessing attempts to remove “Talladega Jinx” from famed speedway

We’ve been posting a lot about non-Native people appropriating Native American ceremonies for their own purposes as a result of the recent deaths in a so-called sweat ceremony run by a New Age guru. Here’s a story about the flip side of that particular coin. In this case, Racin’ Today makes much of the so-called Talledega Jinx that haunts the NASCAR track that supposedly is built atop Native American burial mounds.

Rick Humphrey, president of the Talladega track, called in Robert Thrower, tribal historic preservation officer and cultural authority director for the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama. Thrower performed a blessing asking that balance be restored to the land.

“With the controversy that surrounded Talladega when we first opened, it’s a possibility that there has always been some unbalance here,’’ Humphrey says. ”I’m confident in saying that after this ceremony however, we don’t have to worry about that anymore and we are looking forward to a great AMP Energy 500 race weekend.’’

More swift foxes to roam Fort Peck Reservation
The Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana has been instrumental in the restoration of the swift fox, an endangered species, to its traditional territory. The fox once was completely wiped out in Montana, but an estimated 500 now roam the state. Now, 30 more swift foxes have been released on the reservation, joining that thriving population. Les Bighorn, a wildlife technician for Fort Peck Fish and Game, tells the Billings Gazette, here, that the species is also a central character in the creation story of the Assiniboine tribe and an important cultural icon.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Little Shell Chippewa, Native American news, Poarch Band of Creek, Swift foxes, Talladega Jinx

Even as the health news that grabs us these days is about the H1N1 virus, health workers in Montana are worried about another health crisis – a rise in cases of HIV and an even higher leap in the cases of Hepatitis C.

They attribute the problem to the increasing use of prescription drugs, which can be injected, according to today’s comprehensive Missoulian story on the issue.

The problem is especially high on the state’s Indian reservations. Roosevelt County, home to the Fort Peck Reservation, has 11,000 people and 50 cases of hepatitis C.

Kris FourStar, the communicable disease officer for the Fort Peck Tribal Health Department, recently helped start Montana’s only needle exchange program. Such programs – which supply clean needles and works to intravenous drug users – have been shown to be effective in halting the spread of disease, but the federal government prevents states from using them.

But Fort Peck is sovereign and has its own health code. FourStar is working hard to make it a success. “The networks of users are really tight,” he says. “It’s such a small community here and everyone knows everyone, so people are really wary of getting tested or reaching out for help.”

His sense of urgency is strong. Because there are high rates of alcoholism, hepatitis C is even more likely to affect a person’s health,” he says. “Some people can fight it off, but when you already have liver disease it’s more difficult.”

“It’s tragic,” he says. “The hep C rates on reservations are unbelievable.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Hepatitis C, HIV, Native American news