Violent crimes have surged on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation and the federal government is ignoring tribal leaders’ pleas for assistance. So Colorado lawmakers are asking the Department of the Interior to step in and do its job.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs must do a 90-day needs assessment to evaluate the law enforcement capacity on the reservation, U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, along with U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, said in a letter to the department of Indian Affairs on Wednesday. And it must explain why 10 bureau officers assigned to the reservation have dwindled to one.
“The Tribal Council met with all three of the congressional offices back in December and raised the issue,” Hickenlooper’s office said in an email Wednesday. “But BIA staffing shortages and chronic underfunding have undermined public safety for Tribal communities for years.”
The letter follows a spike in gun violence, domestic violence and stabbings over the past two years that have left the community reeling.
In December 2024, a gunman opened fire into a home with a semiautomatic weapon, killing 7-year-old Zamias Lang as he lay in his bed. Nine months later, another gunman killed 24-year-old Destiny Whiteman while she was sitting in her car.
In January, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council set a nightly curfew across the reservation in an attempt to slow violence in the absence of adequate policing.
In a letter to William Kirkland, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and assistant secretary of Indian Affairs, the legislators said the tribe “prides itself on its sovereignty and self-reliance but it has struggled to keep the community safe on the reservation.”
They blamed the reservation’s remote location and lack of law enforcement officers: Just one Bureau of Indian Affairs-assigned police officer and one officer employed by the tribe patrol the nearly 600,000-acre reservation where around 1,100 people live in Towaoc, the tribal headquarters, and around 200 live in White Mesa, Utah, a satellite community 75 miles away.
Without more law enforcement, the tribe worries violent crime will not only persist but worsen, the lawmakers said.
The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe is one of a handful that still rely on the bureau’s Office of Justice Services for policing needs. “Over the years, the Tribe has requested, and we have supported, greater law enforcement resources from BIA to address rampant crime and violence, but these requests have gone unanswered,” the legislators’ letter said.
In 2022, Hickenlooper called on then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to help address the storages by speeding up the hiring process, Hickenlooper’s office said. But her efforts failed to improve the situation as evidenced by the number of officers currently employed.
Tribal members have tried stepping up in the absence of adequate law enforcement.
In August, the Ute Mountain Ute Gun Violence Prevention Coalition hosted a two-day prevention event at the bingo hall in the Ute Mountain Casino in Towaoc. More than 100 community members attended.
Wendy Laner, who is a victim advocate for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, a member of the gun violence prevention coalition and sister of Destiny Whiteman, was there. A week later, on Aug. 12, the father of Whiteman’s child, Duran Wade Lang, allegedly opened fire on her in her car.
“My sister Destiny Whiteman’s life was stolen,” Laner said in a news release from the gun violence prevention coalition sent to tribal leaders that day. “This is the reality so many Native women face — silenced by violence, failed by systems.”
The coalition called for tribal leadership to declare a state of emergency “for the urgent coordination of resources, interagency support and protection for families at risk,” following Whiteman’s death.
The group said gun violence across the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation had reached crisis levels, with impacts that extend far beyond individual families. “Indigenous women and youth are disproportionately affected and the connection between firearms, domestic violence and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives crisis is undeniable,” they wrote.
They urged tribal leadership to allocate emergency funding for community-based prevention and survivor support, launch firearm safety and secure storage campaigns, and improve coordination with state and federal agencies for faster response and stronger legal protections.
The letter was controversial, and later the coalition said it was not meant to “cause strain or to disregard the complexities and responsibilities (tribal leaders) carry in leading the Nation.”
But violent crimes persist, and in an interview with The Colorado Sun in October, then-Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Chairman Manuel Heart said he “had legislation before the tribal council to create a gun ordinance meant to curb the use of guns on the reservation.”
He wanted accountability for tribal members who commit firearm-related crimes to have “more teeth. They could get dis-enrolled from the tribe, lose tribal membership, be taken off the reservation forever.”
Hickenlooper told The Sun on Wednesday that he will “continue pushing for additional resources to make sure tribal members and the community are safe on the reservation.”
Kirkland with the Indian Affairs office has not responded to an interview request from The Sun.