Sheriff Richard Hickox reported at the last Churchill County Commission meeting that his office has been working since 2018 on a long-term MOU with the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe and as of the last week in July it has been signed.
“We have had a temporary Memorandum of Understanding that allows us to go on tribal lands to assist them with backup, but without the permanent MOU we can’t continue to go on tribal lands to help their law enforcement officers because of the extreme liability that places on the county and our officers,” said Hickox.
For the last year, there has been no active MOU between the sheriff and the Tribe, which Hickox says also places the sheriff’s status to provide dispatch services at risk. “We have been pushing the tribe to complete the permanent MOU but it has been back and forth several times and had become quite frustrating,” he said.
With the MOU now in place, the Sheriff can enter tribal lands and assist their law enforcement officers as needed.
Before the agreement was signed, if the FPST Police arrested a member of the tribe for tribal code violations, they had to take the prisoner to another community and had been sending them to Storey County, Yerington, and Reno. “What that does,” said Hickox, “is reduces the law enforcement force patrolling on the reservations, which means their officers call for back up more frequently which results in us not being able to go help more frequently.”
Back in 2018, it was determined that without an MOU, if the sheriff allowed the Fallon Tribe to book inmates into the Churchill County jail, it would open the county up to having to take prisoners from any Bureau of Indian Affairs facility across the country. “It would open us up to all troublemakers from any BIA facility from any community.”
Hickox has been in front of the Tribal Council several times since 2018 trying to get the MOU signed and completed. “Their concerns are that we are going to try to expand our borders, and they ask if we are going to try to take over their law enforcement. Always the answer is ‘no, that is not our intent,’ we recognize their sovereignty, we just want to be able to assist as needed,” he said.
In mid-July the sheriff attended the council meeting, and the MOU was approved, providing $55,000 for dispatch services and $100 per day for booked inmates in the Churchill Jail facility. “They can only stay for 72 hours and then have to be transferred to a longer-term facility, but this gives us the ability to meet our requirements and ensure inmates don’t sit longer than is constitutionally allowed.”
In other business, Hickox also reported to the commissioners that the Bureau of Land Management, under an MOU with Churchill County, has traditionally provided law enforcement if needed on the public lands surrounding the community, including the Bureau of Reclamation lands. “We typically rely on the BLM and there is some kind of horsetrade’ their word, not ours, between BLM and the BOR. Now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be taking over some of the law enforcement duties for BOR lands and we are not clear how that will look.”
The issue is, as explained by Hickox, with no MOU, as a federal officer, the FWS officer assigned to the Stillwater Wildlife Refuge cannot arrest anyone under Nevada Revised Statute outside of the jurisdiction of the refuge. “I will continue to keep you updated on this issue as well,” said Hickox.
Additionally, he reported that his office is working with the Cantaloupe Festival, scheduled for the weekend of August 25, and working to address the parking and traffic issues. The biggest concern for traffic is the other events that take place near the fairgrounds on that same weekend, including Friday night football at the high school as well as Saturday with the soccer league and the youth football games. “We are urging people for safety to not park along Sheckler, there is no corridor for emergency vehicles, and we do not want intoxicated people on the roadway,” he said. His office is working with the fairground staff on safety and overflow measures.
Comment
Comments