Ten American Indian tribes, including the Tulalip Tribes, are gaining access to national criminal databases after a deadly shooting in Washington state helped reveal flaws in the way federal authorities and tribal governments share information.
The program allows tribes to conduct thorough background checks and enter criminal records, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday. It comes after glitches in the criminal reporting system allowed a member of the Tulalip Tribes to buy a gun that was later used by his son to kill four classmates and himself at Marysville Pilchuck High School last year.
A domestic violence restraining order issued by a tribal court in 2001 should have stopped the father from buying firearms.
“This innovative program will allow an unprecedented sharing of critical information between tribal, state and federal governments, information that could help solve a crime or even save someone’s life,” Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates said.
Two tribes from Washington and two from Arizona, plus one each from Oklahoma, North Carolina, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Idaho will take part in the program announced at the annual White House Tribal Nations Conference in Washington, D.C.
Tulalip Chairman Melvin Sheldon Jr. said it will empower tribal law enforcement by giving them the tools they need to protect their communities — tools that tribes nationwide have pursued for years.
“We have to have access to this database not only to enter this data but to get this data,” he said, something that has not been possible due to restrictions placed on data sharing by the Washington State Patrol.
“It has consistently been our position that having the ability to independently report and access criminal information is the very best way to protect our citizens,” he said.
Access to the database has been authorized as part of previous legislation, including the Violence Against Women Act of 2005, the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 and the 2013 VAWA reauthorization, but no system was established, said Francesca Hillery, a tribal spokeswoman.
One problem was logistics. There was no uniform way for tribes to enter criminal information directly into the databases.
In Washington state, when a state court issues a restraining order, the clerk sends the record to the sheriff, who puts it in the database, said Heather Anderson, a manager with the Washington State Patrol’s criminal records division.
But the reporting process between state authorities and the 29 federally recognized tribes in Washington was inconsistent.
The shift allows tribes to conduct background checks, especially when they need to place a child with a foster parent in an emergency situation, Sheldon said. Plus, they can enter tribal restraining orders into federal databases, which are used by gun dealers to ensure legal sales, he said.
The restraining order against Raymond Fryberg, which should have prevented him from buying guns, was never sent to the Snohomish County clerk or entered into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Fryberg’s 15-year-old son, Jaylen, used one of his father’s guns in the mass shooting at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in October 2014.
Raymond Fryberg was not charged in the shooting but later was convicted of six federal counts of illegally possessing firearms. He’s scheduled to be sentenced early next year.
The new program will let tribes access and exchange data with the national databases for civil and crimes, the Department of Justice said.
“Tulalip is going to work very hard with our neighbors and the program to make sure this succeeds so that all tribes have access to the database,” Sheldon said.
No timeline for rollout has been announced.
The program “will help us understand the information gaps and the best ways to use this service to strengthen public safety in Indian country,” said Yates, the deputy attorney general.
The tribes that are part of the program are: the Tulalip and Suquamish tribes of Washington; the Pascua Yaqui and White Mountain Apache tribes of Arizona tribes; the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma; the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina; the Keweenaw Bay Indians of Michigan; the Oneida Indian Nation of New York; the Umatilla of Oregon; and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in Idaho.
Herald writer Chris Winters contributed to this report.
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