Mary Annette Pember
ICT
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. government to pay a Northern Cheyenne woman $1.6 million in damages after she was sexually assaulted by a Bureau of Indian Affairs police officer she had called for help.
The sharply worded ruling by U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in Montana notes that the assault was not an isolated incident within the BIA and acknowledged staggering rates of sexual violence by BIA law enforcement.
“This case shines a light on the realities of being a Native American woman living on a reservation policed by the BIA,” the judge wrote in the ruling released Tuesday, Feb. 25.
“In general there is systemic misconduct within the BIA and violence against women on reservations,” he said.
The ruling in the civil case followed a decade-long fight for justice by the woman, referred to only as L.B. in court documents. The judge concluded she was sexually assaulted in her home on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana on Oct. 31, 2015, by BIA Officer Dana Bullcoming while he was on duty. The assault resulted in pregnancy.
The officer was later charged in 2017 in federal court with “deprivation of rights under color of law” and two counts of making a false statement to a federal officer. He later pleaded guilty to the deprivation of rights charge and was sentenced to three years in prison. He has already served his sentence and been released. He is a registered sex offender in the state of Montana.
The latest ruling holds the United States liable for Bullcoming’s actions by furnishing the officer with both the power and opportunity to commit them. The U.S. contributed to the assault by creating a situation in which Bullcoming was often alone while on duty and failing to require officers to wear body cameras at that time.
The ruling also notes that Bullcoming had admitted sexually assaulting up to 20 women while on duty, but later reduced the number to 12 and then three.
Pattern of sexual assault
According to the court’s findings, L.B. called police to her home over concerns that her mother was driving drunk. Bullcoming responded to the call to L.B.’s home, where he administered a breathalyzer test that indicated she was intoxicated.
He then threatened to arrest her and turn her children over to child protective services if she refused to have sex with him. Alcohol is illegal on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation.
“L.B. believed she had only two choices: to be arrested meaning her children (ages 10 and 12) would be taken away and she would lose her job, or have sex with Officer Bullcoming,” according to the judge’s ruling.
The judge’s ruling details disturbing statements made by Bullcoming admitting to sexual contact with women while on duty and in uniform, though his testimony changed multiple times during the course of the investigation and court proceedings.
The BIA failed not only to investigate L.B.’s allegations but also opted not to look into other allegations of sexual assault by Bullcoming. The ruling notes that former Northern Cheyenne Police Chief Donovan Wind said that the department never received any reports of assault from victims.
Evidence presented at the trial, however, showed there is a pattern of sexual assault committed by law enforcement officers and that Bullcomings crime was not an isolated incident.
Bullcoming is no longer employed by the BIA and is listed as a sex offender on the Montana Department of Justice Sexual or Violent Offender Registry, though the website notes he appears to be in violation of requirements that he notify the agency of his current address.
Fighting back
The most recent trial before Molloy was aimed at determining if the federal government was liable for Bullcoming’s actions.
Initially, a lower court granted summary judgment in the federal government’s favor and dismissed L.B.’s lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Last summer, however, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s decision.
The Coalition of Large Tribes, and the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, filed a joint amicus brief in support of L.B. and her appeal before the Ninth Circuit.
“The District Court’s analysis is thorough and comprehensive. The court clearly captures the challenges many of our large land-based tribal nations face, with insufficient law enforcement to keep our tribal citizens safe,” said J. Garrett Renville, chairman of the large tribes coalition who is also chairman of Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate.
“When federal law enforcement responds to our calls for help by sexually assaulting our women, that just means our women and our families will stop calling law enforcement for help — and they have. The system is broken, and the only way the federal government can fix it is to start taking responsibility for the actions of their own officers. The United States should have settled this case long ago.”
Mary Kathryn Nagle, attorney for the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, agreed.
“I think the BIA has a history of hiring perpetrators and also keeping them on and not letting them go even after they’ve assaulted people,” Nagle, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, told ICT.
She said the NIWRC and other Native organizations have sent numerous letters over the years to government leaders, including then-Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and then-President Joe Biden, asking them to put programs and policies in place to ensure such assaults don’t continue to occur.
“We got no responses or indications that they had any interest in addressing this crisis,” Nagle said.
According to Nagle, low pay and lack of resources for BIA police contribute to criminal activity like that found in the L.B. case.
“The work is dangerous, exhausting and underpaid and officer turnover is high,” she said. “When you set up a law enforcement agency like this, you’re setting it up to fail.”
Nagle noted that legislation aimed at improving resources for BIA officers, such as BADGES – Bridging Agency Data Gaps and Ensuring Safety – has been introduced in Congress but so far failed to pass both houses.
Police officers sanctioned or investigated for wrongdoing are often allowed to move quietly to other jurisdictions. In research conducted by Duke University, scholars describe the problem as “Wandering Officers,” who are fired by one department for criminal actions and subsequently hired by another. And according to the National Women’s Law Center, sexual assault by police is a systemic problem.
Despite these findings, President Donald Trump issued an executive order in late February shutting down the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database. Trump proposed creating the database in 2020, also by executive order, during his past administration. Biden later created the database in 2022.
“We need accountability for our victims,” Nagle said. “Maybe it takes a court order requiring a federal agency to pay money to get attention; sometimes that’s the only way we can fight back to change the system and make it better for Native people.”