Holding signs and wearing red, more than 100 people gathered at Fort Peck Community College on March 22 calling for an end to the violence that has plagued the tribal community.
Protesters walked about one-third of a mile from the campus in Wolf Point to an abandoned building that recently burned down.
“A murderer killed my father,” 9-year-old Emadeline “Maddy” Weeks told the crowd. Her father, Cody Weeks Combs, was shot and killed near his home in Wolf Point in 2020. He was 28 years old.
“All my family members are gone,” she continued. “No one seems to … care. Violence has to stop!”
Located in northeast Montana, the Fort Peck Reservation is home to nearly 10,000 people. The two largest towns on the reservation, Poplar and Wolf Point, are separated by about 20 miles.
Frustrated by persistent violence and insufficient law enforcement resources to combat it, community members have held several marches this month to raise awareness and call for change. Some residents have proposed creating a neighborhood watch group, others say they plan to establish new programs to engage youth in positive ways.
Four hundred miles away in Helena, members of Montana’s American Indian Caucus are pushing for legislation that aims to bolster public safety in Indian Country at both the state and federal level.
RECENT INCIDENTS
The awareness campaigns come in response to several recent deaths on the reservation.
Stan Moran, Jr., a 48-year-old former addiction counselor and wrestling coach, was found dead in an abandoned building that burned down in September. His death is still under investigation.
Fort Peck Tribal Law Enforcement on Feb. 26 found the body of Gifford Standing near that same area. Standing, 47, loved sports, fishing and music and was engaged to be married on March 13, according to an obituary written by his family. Tribal police later announced that four people had been arrested in connection to his death, which they said was a homicide.
And two weeks ago, a child was stabbed near the wellness center in Poplar. Videos of the incident circulated social media.
Tribal council member Wayne Martell said while violence has been an issue in the community for years, lately, it’s become normalized.
“It’s so prevalent that we kind of overlook it,” he told Montana Free Press last week. “It feels like it doesn’t really have meaning anymore when it occurs.”
TRIBES URGE ADEQUATE FUNDING FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT
While Native Americans face higher rates of violence than their white peers nationwide, they must often rely on overburdened and underfunded systems of public safety.
A consequence of U.S. federal policy, on the Fort Peck Reservation tribal police generally handle misdemeanor crimes committed by tribal members. Federal entities, like the Bureau of Indian Affairs and FBI, handle major crimes. And because of cross deputization agreements between the state and Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board, Montana Highway Patrol and county law enforcement also assist in public safety efforts. Wolf Point police officers also patrol within city limits on the reservation.
Despite these partnerships, however, Fort Peck community members say law enforcement services remain inadequate. Wolf Point Police Department Clerk Chris Will said it’s not uncommon for the department to have just one officer patrolling the 2,604-person city. With more resources, Will said the city could have two or three officers patrolling at once.
“It would help if we could have a presence,” Will told MTFP last week. “If people could see us out on the street, we can stop and talk to them instead of just having one officer go from call to call.”
Recent awareness campaigns have caught the attention of the Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board. Though the Fort Peck Tribes receive federal funding for various programs, Council member Roxanne Gourneau expressed frustration at a recent council meeting, saying those dollars are often earmarked for specific purposes.
She urged the council to bring together law enforcement, criminal investigators, court officials and social service leaders to find solutions.
“We’ve got all this money, but all this crime,” she told her colleagues at the meeting Monday. “What can we do? What can we accomplish?”
The Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes are not the only ones in Montana to voice frustrations with insufficient law enforcement funding. Devastated by the death of an 8-year-old child last fall, Northern Cheyenne community members in southeast Montana took to the streets to protest violence. The tribe in 2022 sued the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Department of the Interior, alleging the federal government has failed to provide adequate public safety services on the reservation. The Fort Belknap Indian Community, headquartered in north central Montana, in 2022 also sued the United States, saying the lack of funding has prevented them from hiring key positions.
Rep. Tyson Running Wolf, D-Browning, has proposed a resolution this legislative session that would urge Congress to fully fund law enforcement on reservations in Montana.
Running Wolf on March 25 told the Senate Energy, Technology and Federal Relations Committee that the resolution “is a call to action.” He argued that adequate funding is necessary for tribes “to protect their communities.”
House Joint Resolution 1 cleared the House and must advance out of the Senate before arriving on the governor’s desk. While resolutions cannot create law or force action, they are meant to convey the Legislature’s desires and priorities.
Another bill brought by Running Wolf to bolster the state’s Missing Indigenous Persons Task Force became law. Effective July 1, the new law allows the task force to receive donations, grants and other money for operational expenses.
House Bill 545, also brought by Running Wolf, would rename the task force the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Advisory Council and add a homicide investigator to the group. That bill sailed through the House and will move to the Senate for consideration.
‘NO MORE LOOKING THE OTHER WAY’
At a community meeting after the march last weekend, organizer Lance FourStar, proposed forming a goodwill ambassador program, where respected community members receive training to essentially act as a neighborhood watch.
Frances Weeks, who served in tribal and federal law enforcement for 13 years and whose granddaughter spoke at the march earlier this month, would help lead the program.
With insufficient policing, Weeks said people feel emboldened to commit crime, knowing it’s unlikely they’ll be held to account. Those who witness a crime, she added, are therefore less likely to come forward, fearing retaliation.
“It’s a Catch-22 for law enforcement, then,” she said in an interview last week. “They know people see things, but people don’t follow through and report it.”
The goal of the goodwill ambassador program, Weeks said, is to encourage people to report suspicious incidents to someone they trust.
“A lot of people just don’t know what kind of information might be helpful,” she said. “We want community training for community policing.”
Dave Mathison, a retired fire chief who is planning a similar march in Poplar, said young people would benefit from more services and activities.
“You look at these communities and there is absolutely nothing for these kids to do,” he said. “They’re only kids, and we’re creating nothing for them.”
He is planning a march against violence in Poplar on April 5 that he hopes will include music, bounce houses and games. Mathison said he hopes to implement a program that would incentivize young people to clean up the community and get involved in other safe activities.
“I don’t want the people of Poplar to leave,” he said. “We have good things that can happen on this reservation. There’s possibilities galore, but we have to get together as a team. There’s no more looking the other way.”
Mathison’s march against violence will begin at noon on April 5 at the cultural center in Poplar.
This story was updated on April 1, 2025 to correct the conditions of a death on the Fort Peck Reservation.
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