Dorgan Objects to BIA's Police Shuffle

Last week the Bureau of Indian Affairs sent 25 additional police officers to the troubled Pine Ridge Reservation to supplement the police force there. The problem is, according to North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, the agency took six of those officers from the Standing Rock Reservation in his state.

“The Standing Rock Reservation had a crime rate that was more than five times the national average," Dorgan told the Bismarck Tribune. "The additional police officers moved there by the BIA have substantially reduced the crime rate. This is not the time to reduce the number of police officers."

The BIA should use the $23.7 million appropriated last year by Congress for the Safe Indian Communities Initiative to put more officers in American Indian communities with high crime rates, Dorgan said.