Post by Okwes on Jun 6, 2007 14:51:12 GMT -5
Navajo officers hard to find
By Lindsay Whitehurst The Daily Times
It isn't always easy being one of the few Navajo police officers in
the Farmington Police Department.
"Certain people ... think of police officers as the man," said Will Nez,
31, of Shiprock. "They say, How come you're working for the white man?'
... It's one of those things that's taboo. No one wants to talk about
it."
Last summer, when an Anglo Farmington police officer responding to a
domestic violence call shot and killed a Navajo man, Nez wasn't spared
from the verbal jabs. The officer was cleared of any wrongdoing
following an investigation conducted by the San Juan County Sheriff's
Office.
"People were calling me, saying, The Farmington Police Department is
really dirty,'" he said. "(But) my agency is not racist. It doesn't
discriminate. I don't want to go to work for an agency that treats
Navajos that way."
In fact, Nez said he feels more at home with Farmington police than he
did on the Navajo Nation police force, where he briefly trained before a
back injury forced him to leave.
"I'm not treated like an
Advertisement [Click Here!]
<http://ad.doubleclick.net/click;h=v8/34fd/0/0/%2a/o;44306;0-0;0;1343570\
9;255-0/0;0/0/0;;~aopt=2/1/ff/0;~sscs=%3f> outsider here; I feel more
comfortable," said Nez, who added his shaky Navajo language skills and
college education set him apart.
Nez, however, is the exception to the rule.
Navajo police officers are difficult to come by in Farmington. Eight
officers out of 125, or about 6 percent, are American Indian — a
much lower percentage than in the city as a whole, where American
Indians make up 17 percent of the population, according to the 2000
United States Census.
The numbers are similar in San Juan County, where six of the 101
officers, or about 6 percent, are American Indian, compared with 44
percent of the population. In Bloomfield, there are two native officers
out of 17, and in the 13-officer Aztec force, there are none.
Despite active recruiting, the number of native officers in the city of
Farmington as a percentage has actually decreased slightly since 2004,
according to the 2004 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report and numbers
provided by Farmington Police Chief Jim Runnels. While the overall size
of the department has grown, the number of Navajo officers has stayed
the same.
"We advertise in every possible venue that we can, try to get our name
out there as much as possible," Runnels said. But "it's hard."
More Navajo officers, some say, would go a long way toward soothing the
periodic racial tensions stirred up by tragedies like the slaying of two
Navajo men by teenagers in 1974 to the police shooting in 2006.
"It would be a real benefit if there were more Navajos on the Farmington
police force," said Duane "Chili" Yazzie, Shiprock Chapter president and
Navajo activist. "It certainly would help."
The number of native officers has increased since 1974, when 3.5 percent
of officers in the city and about 8 percent in the county were Navajo,
according to the civil rights report.
That report pointed to the small number of local Navajo law enforcement
officers, and native officers also said they're able to connect better
with the minorities they serve.
But competition between agencies for native officers and the cultural
disconnect between the native and white worlds combine to keep those
numbers small.
"The underlying cause is the inability to get Native Americans to
apply," San Juan County Sheriff Bob Melton said.
The percentage of Navajo applicants who are hired, he said, is about the
same as whites. "There are well-qualified applicants. The challenge is
to get them to apply."
Cultural differences
When 23-year-old Amanda Tso decided to become a San Juan County
Sheriff's deputy, her traditional Navajo family wasn't crazy about the
idea.
"They said, Do you really want to do this? There will be
repercussions,'" she said.
In traditional Navajo culture, it's taboo to be near a corpse. But for
Tso, who earned her associate's degree in criminal justice, her desire
to be "helping other people, put yourself out there," trumped her
traditional aversion to violence and death.
"This is where I want to be, what I want to do," she said.
To reconcile her professional realities with her traditional beliefs
(she encountered her first corpse just 90 minutes into her first shift),
she participates in cleansing and protective ceremonies as often as she
can.
Traditional beliefs could be a reason, she said, why few of her fellow
Navajos decide to get into law enforcement.
"It goes against the belief system," she said.
At Shiprock High School, Tso said she didn't have much exposure to law
enforcement as a possible career, though she sees that changing as her
brother prepares to graduate.
"I really didn't know (the sheriff's department) was there," she said. A
special request got her a ride-along with a San Juan County deputy and
she was smitten.
Since she started on the streets about a year ago, she's gotten a lot of
support from her own people — even when she's pulled them over.
"You pull people over, and they say Thank you, I'm proud of you!'" she
said. "It's kind of weird — you're writing them a citation."
Religion isn't the only cultural disconnect that keeps some from
joining. For many American Indians, the required standardized testing is
a challenge.
"At accident investigations and all that, I was really competent," said
Everett Howe, a veteran of the San Juan County and McKinley County
sheriff's department. "That's the problem — taking the test. You
have to go in there, take that written exam ... I was real practical."
Howe, a sergeant in the Marine Corps and security guard before joining
with San Juan County in 1986, wasn't used to the multiple choice format
and struggled to pick a single answer. With the help of other police
officers, though, he learned to pick one answer and stick with it. He
passed the test and built a long career, even running for San Juan
County sheriff in 2002.
Navajo officers, though, say they have an immediate repoire with other
minorities.
Nez, for example, said he knows that "just because someone is not
looking you in the eye doesn't mean they're not telling you the truth,"
he said. Turning eyes downward is a sign of respect for both Navajo and
Hispanic people, he said.
Talking to students in his job as the school resource officer is also
easier, he said.
"You have different teaching styles, different learning styles," he
said. "(Anglos might) go from point A to point B, but native kids might
go from point A to point C to point M, and then get to point B. Other
officers want to get right to the point."
But as Nez has experienced, it's not always easy to be a minority on any
police department.
"Different races deal with officers of the same race differently,"
Runnels said. "Sometimes it's positive, sometimes it's negative. Native
Americans, any race, look down upon members of their own race in law
enforcement."
Staying home
Perhaps that's part of the reason why many American Indians who go into
law enforcement decide to join the Navajo Nation police department.
The Department of Public Safety has 364 officers, including leadership.
That agency doesn't have problems with recruitment, but the force is
still small for the 25,000-square-mile reservation. They could put
another 1,000 officers to work, Sampson Cowboy said, and recently
increased recruitment efforts, adding another 100 officers.
"You're mainly dealing with Navajos," said Cowboy, the executive
director of public safety for the Navajo Nation. "You don't deal with
any non-Indians, any black people. I think a lot of people are more
comfortable coming from one segment of culture."
The Navajo Nation is just one agency competing with local law
enforcement for officers, Runnels said. Farmington is competing against
San Juan County, other border towns like Gallup, state police and
federal agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which acts as a
law enforcement agency on small reservations.
"It's a shrinking labor pool, and everyone is going after it heavily,"
he said.
And for many, staying on the reservation is preferable.
The pay scale for patrolmen there starts at $27,000 a year, increases to
$33,000 after graduation from the police academy, and tops out at
$41,000.
Farmington officers stand to make more money.
Farmington patrolmen start out at $19.13 an hour, or about $39,000 a
year, and go up to $20.08 an hour for experienced officers.
"That's pretty good money," Runnels said. "I don't think money has ever
really been an issue."
Only five agencies in the state, he said, offer higher pay — but one
is San Juan County.
In the county, officers start at $19.22 an hour and increase to $24.16,
with a boost to $26.69 in their 15th year.
But Cowboy also offered a different reason why Navajos might shy away
from employment in Farmington. While the department isn't perceived as a
bad place to work, he said it isn't seen as the place to build a career.
"I think where they get stuck is the promotion part," he said. "I think
the upward mobility, they have no confidence."
At the city, two of the department's upper management, one sergeant and
one corporal, are Navajo. At the county, there is one Navajo lieutenant.
There isn't much competition coming from Aztec or Bloomfield, however.
Both departments said they're content with their level of native
officers.
"We're not a large agency. We do have quite a few (Navajo residents),"
said Capt. Troy Morris of the Aztec Police Department. "I haven't seen
much effort (to recruit native officers) — whatever race, whoever
does the best is who we pick up."
"I don't go after one particular race," Mike Covacs, Bloomfield Police
public information officer, said. "We're reaching out, making sure they
get the word, letting them know about testing. We had several who
tested, but they didn't do real well with oral expression."
The history
Some said the history of racial tensions in Farmington could be a
factor.
Among some Navajos, Nez said there is still a fundamental distrust of
the law.
"I remember my grandmother used to say, Be good or the police will come
and get you,'" he said. "I think it sill goes on, but nobody talks about
it."
But San Juan Sheriff Melton disagreed.
"I don't think that is the case," he said. "It's certainly something
that's been a challenge, not just in the sheriff's office but in law
enforcement in general. It's not specific to any one case, it's just a
challenge to get interest in the Native American population to do police
work."
For his part, Runnels said the affect is hard to gauge, but probably
exists.
"I would think that there are some out there who are not interested in
working in Farmington because of the past history. I've never had anyone
personally say that," Runnels said. "I'm sure that probably plays into
their minds for some, but that's just a guess on my part."
By Lindsay Whitehurst The Daily Times
It isn't always easy being one of the few Navajo police officers in
the Farmington Police Department.
"Certain people ... think of police officers as the man," said Will Nez,
31, of Shiprock. "They say, How come you're working for the white man?'
... It's one of those things that's taboo. No one wants to talk about
it."
Last summer, when an Anglo Farmington police officer responding to a
domestic violence call shot and killed a Navajo man, Nez wasn't spared
from the verbal jabs. The officer was cleared of any wrongdoing
following an investigation conducted by the San Juan County Sheriff's
Office.
"People were calling me, saying, The Farmington Police Department is
really dirty,'" he said. "(But) my agency is not racist. It doesn't
discriminate. I don't want to go to work for an agency that treats
Navajos that way."
In fact, Nez said he feels more at home with Farmington police than he
did on the Navajo Nation police force, where he briefly trained before a
back injury forced him to leave.
"I'm not treated like an
Advertisement [Click Here!]
<http://ad.doubleclick.net/click;h=v8/34fd/0/0/%2a/o;44306;0-0;0;1343570\
9;255-0/0;0/0/0;;~aopt=2/1/ff/0;~sscs=%3f> outsider here; I feel more
comfortable," said Nez, who added his shaky Navajo language skills and
college education set him apart.
Nez, however, is the exception to the rule.
Navajo police officers are difficult to come by in Farmington. Eight
officers out of 125, or about 6 percent, are American Indian — a
much lower percentage than in the city as a whole, where American
Indians make up 17 percent of the population, according to the 2000
United States Census.
The numbers are similar in San Juan County, where six of the 101
officers, or about 6 percent, are American Indian, compared with 44
percent of the population. In Bloomfield, there are two native officers
out of 17, and in the 13-officer Aztec force, there are none.
Despite active recruiting, the number of native officers in the city of
Farmington as a percentage has actually decreased slightly since 2004,
according to the 2004 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report and numbers
provided by Farmington Police Chief Jim Runnels. While the overall size
of the department has grown, the number of Navajo officers has stayed
the same.
"We advertise in every possible venue that we can, try to get our name
out there as much as possible," Runnels said. But "it's hard."
More Navajo officers, some say, would go a long way toward soothing the
periodic racial tensions stirred up by tragedies like the slaying of two
Navajo men by teenagers in 1974 to the police shooting in 2006.
"It would be a real benefit if there were more Navajos on the Farmington
police force," said Duane "Chili" Yazzie, Shiprock Chapter president and
Navajo activist. "It certainly would help."
The number of native officers has increased since 1974, when 3.5 percent
of officers in the city and about 8 percent in the county were Navajo,
according to the civil rights report.
That report pointed to the small number of local Navajo law enforcement
officers, and native officers also said they're able to connect better
with the minorities they serve.
But competition between agencies for native officers and the cultural
disconnect between the native and white worlds combine to keep those
numbers small.
"The underlying cause is the inability to get Native Americans to
apply," San Juan County Sheriff Bob Melton said.
The percentage of Navajo applicants who are hired, he said, is about the
same as whites. "There are well-qualified applicants. The challenge is
to get them to apply."
Cultural differences
When 23-year-old Amanda Tso decided to become a San Juan County
Sheriff's deputy, her traditional Navajo family wasn't crazy about the
idea.
"They said, Do you really want to do this? There will be
repercussions,'" she said.
In traditional Navajo culture, it's taboo to be near a corpse. But for
Tso, who earned her associate's degree in criminal justice, her desire
to be "helping other people, put yourself out there," trumped her
traditional aversion to violence and death.
"This is where I want to be, what I want to do," she said.
To reconcile her professional realities with her traditional beliefs
(she encountered her first corpse just 90 minutes into her first shift),
she participates in cleansing and protective ceremonies as often as she
can.
Traditional beliefs could be a reason, she said, why few of her fellow
Navajos decide to get into law enforcement.
"It goes against the belief system," she said.
At Shiprock High School, Tso said she didn't have much exposure to law
enforcement as a possible career, though she sees that changing as her
brother prepares to graduate.
"I really didn't know (the sheriff's department) was there," she said. A
special request got her a ride-along with a San Juan County deputy and
she was smitten.
Since she started on the streets about a year ago, she's gotten a lot of
support from her own people — even when she's pulled them over.
"You pull people over, and they say Thank you, I'm proud of you!'" she
said. "It's kind of weird — you're writing them a citation."
Religion isn't the only cultural disconnect that keeps some from
joining. For many American Indians, the required standardized testing is
a challenge.
"At accident investigations and all that, I was really competent," said
Everett Howe, a veteran of the San Juan County and McKinley County
sheriff's department. "That's the problem — taking the test. You
have to go in there, take that written exam ... I was real practical."
Howe, a sergeant in the Marine Corps and security guard before joining
with San Juan County in 1986, wasn't used to the multiple choice format
and struggled to pick a single answer. With the help of other police
officers, though, he learned to pick one answer and stick with it. He
passed the test and built a long career, even running for San Juan
County sheriff in 2002.
Navajo officers, though, say they have an immediate repoire with other
minorities.
Nez, for example, said he knows that "just because someone is not
looking you in the eye doesn't mean they're not telling you the truth,"
he said. Turning eyes downward is a sign of respect for both Navajo and
Hispanic people, he said.
Talking to students in his job as the school resource officer is also
easier, he said.
"You have different teaching styles, different learning styles," he
said. "(Anglos might) go from point A to point B, but native kids might
go from point A to point C to point M, and then get to point B. Other
officers want to get right to the point."
But as Nez has experienced, it's not always easy to be a minority on any
police department.
"Different races deal with officers of the same race differently,"
Runnels said. "Sometimes it's positive, sometimes it's negative. Native
Americans, any race, look down upon members of their own race in law
enforcement."
Staying home
Perhaps that's part of the reason why many American Indians who go into
law enforcement decide to join the Navajo Nation police department.
The Department of Public Safety has 364 officers, including leadership.
That agency doesn't have problems with recruitment, but the force is
still small for the 25,000-square-mile reservation. They could put
another 1,000 officers to work, Sampson Cowboy said, and recently
increased recruitment efforts, adding another 100 officers.
"You're mainly dealing with Navajos," said Cowboy, the executive
director of public safety for the Navajo Nation. "You don't deal with
any non-Indians, any black people. I think a lot of people are more
comfortable coming from one segment of culture."
The Navajo Nation is just one agency competing with local law
enforcement for officers, Runnels said. Farmington is competing against
San Juan County, other border towns like Gallup, state police and
federal agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which acts as a
law enforcement agency on small reservations.
"It's a shrinking labor pool, and everyone is going after it heavily,"
he said.
And for many, staying on the reservation is preferable.
The pay scale for patrolmen there starts at $27,000 a year, increases to
$33,000 after graduation from the police academy, and tops out at
$41,000.
Farmington officers stand to make more money.
Farmington patrolmen start out at $19.13 an hour, or about $39,000 a
year, and go up to $20.08 an hour for experienced officers.
"That's pretty good money," Runnels said. "I don't think money has ever
really been an issue."
Only five agencies in the state, he said, offer higher pay — but one
is San Juan County.
In the county, officers start at $19.22 an hour and increase to $24.16,
with a boost to $26.69 in their 15th year.
But Cowboy also offered a different reason why Navajos might shy away
from employment in Farmington. While the department isn't perceived as a
bad place to work, he said it isn't seen as the place to build a career.
"I think where they get stuck is the promotion part," he said. "I think
the upward mobility, they have no confidence."
At the city, two of the department's upper management, one sergeant and
one corporal, are Navajo. At the county, there is one Navajo lieutenant.
There isn't much competition coming from Aztec or Bloomfield, however.
Both departments said they're content with their level of native
officers.
"We're not a large agency. We do have quite a few (Navajo residents),"
said Capt. Troy Morris of the Aztec Police Department. "I haven't seen
much effort (to recruit native officers) — whatever race, whoever
does the best is who we pick up."
"I don't go after one particular race," Mike Covacs, Bloomfield Police
public information officer, said. "We're reaching out, making sure they
get the word, letting them know about testing. We had several who
tested, but they didn't do real well with oral expression."
The history
Some said the history of racial tensions in Farmington could be a
factor.
Among some Navajos, Nez said there is still a fundamental distrust of
the law.
"I remember my grandmother used to say, Be good or the police will come
and get you,'" he said. "I think it sill goes on, but nobody talks about
it."
But San Juan Sheriff Melton disagreed.
"I don't think that is the case," he said. "It's certainly something
that's been a challenge, not just in the sheriff's office but in law
enforcement in general. It's not specific to any one case, it's just a
challenge to get interest in the Native American population to do police
work."
For his part, Runnels said the affect is hard to gauge, but probably
exists.
"I would think that there are some out there who are not interested in
working in Farmington because of the past history. I've never had anyone
personally say that," Runnels said. "I'm sure that probably plays into
their minds for some, but that's just a guess on my part."