11-1-2018
LA CONNER, Wash. — The Swinomish Tribal Police Department will soon be among nine Washington tribes, including the Lummi Nation, with better access to national crime information.
The Skagit Valley Herald reports the department was recently selected as one of twenty-five tribal police departments nationwide to be added to the federal government’s Tribal Access Program.
The program allows tribal police to check national databases and more easily register sex offenders, identify human remains, locate missing people and do background checks.
Many say direct tribal access to this information may have prevented the Marysville-Pilchuck High School shooting, in which the teen shooter got the gun from his father, a Tulalip tribal member who was not allowed to have a gun.