BIA reassigns top cop

By Carson Walker, Associated Press Writer | Wednesday, June 09, 2004

Previous Page

Share

• del.icio.us
• Digg
• NewsVine
• Fark

Print

Email

SIOUX FALLS - Robert Ecoffey, who has served as a U.S. marshal and head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, has taken a job in his home state of South Dakota.

Ecoffey asked to step down as the BIA's deputy director of law enforcement services, according to Nedra Darling, spokeswoman for the agency in Washington.

In that position, Ecoffey oversaw all aspects of Indian law enforcement nationwide.

"He came to us voluntarily for a reassignment. We were able to accommodate him," Darling said Tuesday.

Walter Lamar, a former FBI agent, was appointed acting deputy director.

Ecoffey, who could not be reached for comment, is moving to Aberdeen as deputy regional director for Indian services. He will oversee BIA programs for South Dakota, North Dakota and Nebraska, including social services, transportation, law enforcement and child welfare, Darling said.

Citing personnel policies, Darling said she could not say why Ecoffey asked for the transfer, which comes as the Interior inspector general conducts a nationwide probe into deteriorating conditions in tribal jails and several recent inmate deaths.

Jails on tribal lands have been operating well beyond their capacity for the past several years. One jail in six held twice its recommended maximum of prisoners as of mid-2002, according to the latest figures available from the Justice Department. In all, 2,080 people were being held in 70 Indian jails, detention centers and other correctional facilities.

Since 1999, the BIA's budget for such operations has grown from $25.6 million to $58 million, BIA officials have said. President Bush is requesting $65.8 million for the 2005 budget.

Ecoffey, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, began his law enforcement career on the Pine Ridge reservation in southwest South Dakota, where he grew up. He was named the state's U.S. marshal in 1994, the first Indian to ever hold the post. In 1996, he became Pine Ridge BIA superintendent, and in 2001, he took over as deputy director of the BIA Office of Law Enforcement Services in Albuquerque, N.M.

His reassignment to Aberdeen was effective May 27.

In the 1990s, Ecoffey resurrected the investigation into the 1975 killing of American Indian Movement activist Anna Mae Pictou Aquash on the Pine Ridge reservation.

Several grand juries heard evidence in the case, and in May 2003, two men were indicted on murder charges.

Arlo Looking Cloud was convicted and is serving a life sentence at a federal prison in Florence, Colo. John Graham is free on bond in Vancouver, British Columbia, and plans to fight extradition.

Ecoffey was the last prosecution witness at Looking Cloud's trial in February in Rapid City and testified that in July 1995, Looking Cloud showed him where Aquash was killed.

After Looking Cloud's conviction, South Dakota's U.S. attorney, Jim McMahon, said Ecoffey "opened up a lot of lines of communication on the reservation" for the case.