FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 16, 2024

Contact: Ian Fury

Gov. Noem Urges AG Garland to Take Action on Tribal Public Safety

PIERRE, S.D. – Today, Governor Kristi Noem wrote to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to take action to address public safety on Native American reservations in South Dakota. You can find the full letter here.

“I write to follow up on your recent meeting with South Dakota’s nine Native American tribes to address public safety issues on tribal reservations,” wrote Governor Noem. “I have always believed that what you see with your eyes, you carry with your heart. I hope that this conversation convinced you of the urgency of solving the public safety issues that our tribal communities face.”

Attorney General Garland visited South Dakota in August and met with tribal leaders. At the time, Governor Noem responded to his visit on X (formerly known as Twitter), which you can find here and here.

Governor Noem called for the Attorney General to take the following actions to improve public safety on tribal reservations:

• Facilitate public and comprehensive single audits of all federal funds that have been given to South Dakota’s nine Native American tribes;
• Prioritize a Special Assistant United States Attorney initiative within the district of South Dakota to increase federal prosecutions throughout Indian Country;
• Step up efforts to help South Dakota tribes with available funding to assist with large-scale investigations specific to violent crime, gun violence, and organized crimes; and
• Join the State of South Dakota’s efforts to encourage law enforcement agreements in Indian Country.

In the letter, Governor Noem pointed to tangible actions that South Dakota has taken to provide public safety on reservation lands, including:

• Launching a first-in-the-nation tribal-focused law enforcement training, which recently graduated eight tribal law enforcement officers to keep our communities safe;
• Signing a Mutual Aid Agreement between the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and the South Dakota Highway Patrol, and more tribes are in the final stages of signing one for their communities;
• Calling the first-ever joint legislative session to focus on addressing the crisis at the Southern Border, which is impacting all South Dakotans, especially our tribal reservations, and the legislature took immediate action;
• Calling the first-ever Tribal Public Safety Crisis Summit and bringing together law enforcement and leaders from the state, tribal, local, and federal levels;
• Deploying three detachments of South Dakota National Guard troops to Texas to help build the border wall, which will make us safer here at home (including on our tribal reservations); and
• Naming the first-ever Tribal Law Enforcement Liaison in the Noem Administration, who is successfully facilitating law enforcement memorandums of mutual aid with tribes throughout the state.

“I hope that after your meetings in South Dakota, you will take these necessary next steps to make our tribal communities safe. Conversations help us move towards solutions, but the time has long since passed to take action to fix the problem,” concluded Governor Noem.