Couture raises the bar at Tribal police

Editor's note: The following two Citizen's Academy stories are part five of a nine-part series.

It's a strong mandate, but Tribal police chief Craig Couture said he's committed to moving Tribal law enforcement forward by increasing public interaction, cooperation with other agencies, fitness standards, and levels of training to help the agency become one of the top law enforcement departments in Western Montana.

Couture voiced those goals to Citizen's Academy participants last week, and his presence at the Sheriff's class for private citizens was in and of itself an indication — supported by Sheriff Bill Barron — of how far both the Tribal chief and Sheriff's office is committed to working together.

"If we are requested, we will provide back-up off the reservation. It's a safety issue. That's the one thing we've changed — cooperation between the agencies," Couture said. "We're all doing the same thing out there."

Tribal law enforcement covers land from Evero to Dayton, from Hot Springs to Dixon, Couture said — any land that's part of the Flathead Reservation.

"We are in three separate counties," he said.

Within those counties are more than a dozen city, state and county law enforcement agencies, and while cooperation between Tribal and other agencies might have been strained in the past, Couture and Barron said they're both working to reduce that.

"The Sheriff is working overtime to make more cooperation between agencies, and that's what I want to do, too" Couture said.

Couture cited his earlier work experience on another reservation in which the police chief worked hard to cross-deputize Tribal and non-Tribal law enforcement personnel so that they could reduce boundaries, both cultural, civil and relational — an idea the Sheriff's office supports, as well.

"We are eventually going to make some Tribal police deputy coroners so that we can be more responsive to (Tribal) cultural issues," Barron said.

(In Montana, coroners are appointed by the Sheriff and can even be civilians, as long as they have the proper medical and criminal investigation training, folks learned in a prior class.)

Because of the retrocession agreement currently in place, Sheriff's deputies are allowed to transport Tribal members to the Tribal jail, but must rely on a Tribal police officer to fill out the citation and place a suspect in jail. In most cases, a deputy will simply wait for a Tribal officer to show up at the scene and transport a suspect.

And they'd like to change that to allow more inter-agency jurisdiction over Tribal and non-Tribal members, both men said.

Inter-agency cooperation is just one area of emphasis, said Couture, who took over as chief last June after spending five years with the Northwest Drug Task Force and eight years overall in narcotics investigations.

Other improvements will include greater public involvement, increased training and more emphasis on fitness. While Tribal police must go through the same training requirements as other law enforcement officers around the state, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has its own guidelines above and beyond the state requirements, including having twice-yearly physical fitness tests instead of just once a year, Couture said.

He also said he's making his officers do more public appearances — at schools, community events and other places — even if it's not something all officers are comfortable with.

"All too often, when people see a law enforcement officer, something bad has happened — they got pulled over for a ticket, there was a death in the family, or something like that," Couture said. "But we're just like you. We're happy, we're sad, we're human."

Increasing public involvement, such as making an appearance at the Citizen's Academy, helps reduce those barriers, Couture said.

Changes are not only taking place within the department, but outside, as well, as the Tribes are in the process of building a new detention center, which should be ready by late summer, Couture said. The current center holds 24 adults, but cannot accommodate juveniles.

Both the Tribes' and county's detention centers fill up on a regular basis, and both departments share the same frustration of needing more and more space. That frustration was evident last year when, in response to a public outcry over poor conditions at Indian jails, inspections were conducted at each reservation around the state.

For the Tribal facility in Pablo, it was bittersweet, Couture said.

"We have so many things we can improve about our jail, but they told us we had the best one of all of them, so we were at the end of the list for any funding," he said. "Both jails (county and Tribal) are out of room constantly."

In keeping with his efforts to increase inter-department cooperation, Couture said county deputies will eventually be issued security cards to the Tribal facility in order to create a safer, lock-down environment, in contrast to the current Tribal facility.