Tribal police chief promises crackdown on juvenile drinking

PABLO - In the wake of an early September juvenile drinking incident that sent three tribal member youngsters to area hospitals, Tribal Police Chief Craige Couture is promising a much more "proactive" approach to the problem.

Underage drinking has become a deadly problem on the Flathead Reservation. During last winter and spring, a total of four reservation youngsters, some as young as 11 years old, literally drank themselves to death.

And those numbers don't include people in alcohol-related traffic deaths.

"We're not going to wait for things to happen," the new chief said Monday morning. "We will be out in force getting the job done, with more education, more active patrols, and more arrests."

The most recent underage drinking incident, which took place at Pache Homesites near Ronan and involved tribal member youngsters, was a very close brush with yet another alcohol-related tragedy. Of the eight juveniles partying with both hard liquor and beer the afternoon of Sept. 3, three wound up at hospitals due to their alcohol consumption.

One 12-year-old was airlifted from St. Luke Hospital to Missoula's St. Patrick Hospital. That youngster was found at the party scene, passed out and with a blood alcohol concentration of .387.

One of the partiers was 11 years old. That youngster's blood alcohol count was not known.

The mother of one juvenile girl showed up at the Pache residence to get her daughter. "Otherwise, there's a good possibility that we would have had another fatality," Lake County Undersheriff Mike Sargeant commented.

Meanwhile, on Sept. 1 a 13-year-old girl from Hot Springs was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. According to reports, her blood alcohol content was more than .10. That incident, which occurred in Hot Springs, involved five minors who were cited by the Hot Springs Police Department.

"We're working hard to make a difference in this area, on both alcohol and drugs," Couture said of the Tribal police. "We will attack these alcohol cases as if they were drug cases. We will handle them like they're felonies."

He feels that the biggest problem right now is that people are not taking the underage drinking seriously.

"The kids think we - law enforcement and adults in general - are overreacting to what's going on," he said. "That came from one of the kids."

Couture plans to put more officers out there on patrol by creating overtime shifts - shifts that will focus on juvenile drinking. "We'll go undercover, just like in drug cases, for the buying end of it."

He commented that the Tribal Council has been "more than supportive" in efforts to combat juvenile drinking.

It has to be a team effort, the chief notes. "We're trying to work hand in hand. One problem with our youth court system is that we don't have a youth detention center. What happens is that youth get in trouble, we haul them to Kalispell or Missoula, and the next day they have to be in court. Then they come back up here, and they're hauled back and forth. It's very expensive. There's no long-term detention. We're looking into possible funding for a youth detention center.

"We can't hold them here, and they often get turned back over to a parent. Then it's like a revolving door. A facility to deal with juveniles would make our jobs way easier.

"We're seeing a lot more youth committing violent crimes, too, like packing guns to school, 14-year-olds selling methamphetamine, aggravated assaults. It's getting way out of control."

If he can, he vows to toughen up local laws. "Whatever we can do, we're going to try to do," he added.

He also promises equal application of the law to everyone. "There is no gray area for certain people to get away with crimes," he emphasized. "We will do our jobs."