We have an “interesting” situation here on the interface 3-way interface (rez/county/fed) with the Blackfeet reservation but before I address it I want to tell two stories.
The first one is from “Shantung Compound” by Langdon Gilkey, one of my most brilliant and inspirational professors at the U of C Div School. Gilkey was a colorful guy who wore a necklace and bandanna instead of a tie and ran class by sitting on his desk, inviting us to suggest a topic on which he could riff. He wrote quite a few books, but “Shantung Compound” was about being interned by the Japanese at the beginning of WWII. He was a young man at that point, not quite as young as in the movie, “Empire of the Sun”. Most of the Westerners who had been rounded up were missionaries, and some of the stories were about the conflict between the different styles and assumptions. His fav group was the Trappist monks, whose worst suffering came from being unable to achieve solitude in the camp, but whose strength was their solidarity. If the Japanese demanded that offenders step forward, the whole group would step forward to accept punishment. Because they tended to be big guys in identical robes with full beards and long hair, the Japanese couldn’t tell them apart, so this foiled all attempts to divide and conquer.
The conservative Protestants were interned as family units and the often aggressive parents put their family well-being ahead of even their Christian principles. The camp was ruled by a committee of intern representatives, one of whose duties was the allocation of resources. The most precious of these was space. At some point it became necessary to shrink the spaces allotted to the families, but the policy was so ferociously opposed that the committee could not make the families comply. In the end they had to resort to getting the Japanese guards to come with guns to force the families to obey.
The second story was told to me by the daughter of a white Browning school administrator deep in the past. I ran into her in Portland twenty years ago, so I may have the details wrong. In those days the administrators (principals and superintendent, both white and enrolled) did their drinking in Valier, which had bars then. They were adult male entitled people who drank together to show solidarity. It’s a status marker, a way to be seen publicly as a unit and to blow off steam in enough of a group to be relatively safe. Like a cop bar.
But the father of the woman who told me this story didn’t like to drink, didn’t want to be out at night, and liked time with his family. So he refused to join the group. They didn’t like this, so after they got pretty well lubricated, they piled into a car and went up to this administrator’s house to make him come drink with them. He wouldn’t even open the door. So they began to pelt the house with rocks, eventually smashing the big picture window in front. That sobered them up enough to scatter. How this was finally resolved is unknown to me, but it stayed in my head as a good example of pack behavior. I know the people involved, and they are decent human beings. But they didn’t like anyone getting out of line.
So now let’s talk about Shannon Augare. I don’t know Shannon. I knew Calvin Augare, who might be his uncle, and who was Bob Scriver’s hunting buddy, the man who saved Bob from going blind by forcing IHS to look at Bob’s enflamed eye and then driving him to Great Falls to a specialist. He was a man of principle who insisted on results, so that’s the way I think of Shannon. The deal was that a Cut Bank cop followed Shannon from a bar to the reservation, pulled him over, accused him of being drunk, argued and reached into the car for the keys, which caused Augare to drive off. He was served a citation the next day.
We’ve got several “third-rail” issues in this situation: one is drunk driving and another is law enforcement on reservations. People die in car accidents a LOT -- often by colliding with livestock. There are also many violent incidents on the rez, often against women or even children. The FBI sort of waves the cases on. The newspaper stories -- which always have a sensationalist tilt anyway -- testify that this is a place and time that is having a hard time re-aligning laws, perps and victims. Shannon is both a state senator and on the tribal council, which means in some minds he is presumed to have too much power. An enduring Blackfeet sin is “getting the big head.” Montana feels that way, too, except for recent immigrants.
Shannon Augare had previously been involved in one of those strategy blockades in the state senate, foiling a planned vote by not showing up. (He’s a D, Cut Bank is R. He's either culprit or rescuer, depending on which side you favor.) I went to look at the drinking “hole” in Cut Bank, which is in the middle of town and newly redecorated, probably benefitting from the renewed oil-drilling action, maybe a half-mile from the rez -- the dividing river is at the edge of town. It is not a big town. I did a walk-through before business started because the last time I was in a Cut Bank bar was 1962, the height of oil-drilling action, and it was a very unpleasant experience. Cut Bank is an oil town and a reservation vampire. They are not friendly to reservation law enforcement and would love to see some fancy Blackfeet “suits” brought down to what might be considered their proper status, according to Texas immigrants with images of John Wayne dancing in their heads. I don’t suppose the rez cops are very fond of oil roughnecks.
MONTANA FREEDOM CAMPAIGN REPORT CARD
Looks good from my point of view -- just turn it upside down.
Of course, it was stupid and self-deceiving for Augare to think that he could step out of line in any way, even if his mother was with him, which she was. And it was stupid of the local cop to pursue and attempt to detain Augare in a way that could easily have escalated into tragedy. The cop had a partner with him and a video cam running which may have given him an exaggerated sense of authority. But my guess is that he just wanted to nail Augare. Every person on the scene was offending, enabling, and persecuting. Very mixed.
Then came the FBI, rubbing its hands together in anticipation. It appears Carl Pepion called them in, setting up a competing triangle of motives and roles. Essentially, he brought in guards to use their fire power to force compliance to what he considers the “right thing.” (Carl is the Tribal Chief Prosecutor.) Sharp, the tribal council chair, is sticking to the principle of sovereignty. A body cannot be sovereign if it has to resort to the FBI, which originally was limited to ten major crimes (murder, rape, and others) but has managed to wiggle into many situations without really being on the scene: armchair analysts playing a long game with no skin in the game. (see footnote)
I’m in Valier, adjacent to the rez. We’re involved in all sorts of three-handed games, but so far the FBI has stayed out, though there is other Federal pressure. Mostly we’re wrestling with infrastructure erosion versus economic issues, which are less violent but sometimes seem equally insoluble. Water rights, for instance, are as much a sovereignty interface problem as who gets to pull over whom for drunk driving. At least it’s not likely there will be a massacre like a hundred years ago when the cavalry was called in to show who was boss. At least I hope not. I don’t want to see blood, no matter the source or kind.
FOOTNOTE:
Indian Country and the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010By Michael J. Bulzomi, J.D.
“In 1885, Congress passed the Major Crimes Act to address the resolution of cases in which a crime involving two Native American parties occurs in Indian country. This Act established federal jurisdiction over seven crimes committed in these instances. The original seven covered by the Act include murder, manslaughter, rape, assault with intent to kill, arson, burglary, and larceny. Subsequent amendments to the Act have added seven more offenses: kidnapping, incest, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault resulting in serious bodily injury, assault with intent to commit rape, robbery, and felonious sexual molestation of a minor. “
This whole document is worth reading in regard to the Shannon Augare incident and the general background.
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