the officers were acting in an official capacity the tribe is casting a protective cover around them from civil suit (but not criminal charges).
ColeyG, this is why the frustration. Tribal members are (1) members of a sovereign "nation" within a nation, (2) wards of the Government and (3) citizens of the U.S. While your voice of reason is certainly the civilized approach the problem remains of tribal actions against non-tribal citizens and the inability of such citizens to seek remedy in a courtroom. Once the WSP officer and Sheriff's Deputy arrived on scene and figured out what was happening they shouId have taken the tribal "officers" into custody. Had it been one of us having run out there with a loaded firearm under the same circumstances and put those folks into handcuffs at gunpoint I have no doubt what would have occurred when the real cops showed up. Waiting for the County prosecutor to announce charges.
Larry. Thanks for the illumnation of the issues, or at least part of what I am sure will become the whole. I haven't followed this thing other than what I have read here so forgive my ignorance on the specifics.
A few questions.
How could the officers have been acting in "official capacity" being outside of the area in which they are authorized to cary out such capacities. I rememer reading a few posts back that these fellows may not have been tribal members, but rather folks hired by the tribe for the specific purpose of tribal law enforcement? Is that the case?
Does the "immunity clause" you mention make provision for wards of the tribe, or just members of the tribe? If they are not tribal members, and they were outside of tribal jurisdiction, they were private citizens of the US carrying an LE commission authorizing them to intervene to prevent harm to person (themselves or others), to aid a fellow office in harms way, to protect property from harm, and to carry their service weapon concealed. That's it.
As you mention, tribal LEO's are, in essence wards of the Fed and acting under powers granted them by the Govt. I can't see how they would be immune from either criminal or civil prosecution as such. Admittedly, I haven't looked for any information to substantiate this, but it just seems a bit out of place if that were to be the case.
Immune or not, officers responding after the fact would likely never take another officer into custody unless they were causing physical harm to a person outside of what could be considered "reasonable" given the circumstances. For all they knew, PC, imminent harm, jurisdiction, etc, etc could all have been intact. I suspect they knew better though.
Do you have links to the aforementioned legal speak?
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