This article appeared about two weeks ago in the Los Angeles Times. ("On a vast reservation, female Navajo officers patrol with bulletproof vests and protective amulets") It talks about how the female Navajo Nation police officers deal with Navajo-specific issues such as lack of manpower and witchcraft.
Navajo police
The reservation is about the size of West Virginia with about 27,000 square miles. It is huge. There are only about 200 police officers to provide law enforcement for this huge area. The police density is about 2 police officers per 1000 people. Outside the reservation in the United States, the police density is about 3.5 police officers per 1000 people. Compared to the rest of America, the Navajo Police Department is severely lacking police power. No wonder many areas of the Navajo reservation is like the wild wild west.
Wild West
People do whatever they want. They drink, get drunk, get violent, and 911 calls start coming to the police dispatcher. These Dine terrorize the community and the people live in fear. Under these circumstances, the crime rate is high, most of it caused by alcohol. There is much violent crimes, sex crimes, and substance crimes.
Unique values
The article also shows how the Navajo people have their own unique values. For instance, a family member died and the family member demanded that the female police officer remove the body from the house to somehow make the house less contaminated. But the police officer cannot just remove the body. She has to follow protocol. The evidence needs to be preserved. There needs to be coroner, etc. The family should not be drinking in the first place. But it is hard because the area is high in poverty and unemployment. People just drink to pass time and because they are bored. It is hard being a police officer in the rez.
Witchcraft
The article also tells of how the police officers experience witchcraft with some of the Navajo population. The police officers experience sickness. The particular female police officer does cedar to protect herself. Our Cheis and Masanis use to warn of these types of situations. They would advise us to protect ourselves.
Culture loss
Currently, we have lost a lot of these teachings. Our younger generations are oblivious to the taboos our grandparents lived by and taught, especially on the subject of death. The Christian church and federal government has a lot to do with our culture loss. I hope we can talk about it and educate each other on why we are losing our culture, and to reteach our culture to our youth.
Bravo to all our women and men police officers.
