Rocky Boy gets new top cop

A new police chief has been hired on Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation as part of an effort to “restructure and reorganize” the reservation's police department following the resignation of former chief Steve Henry.

Allen Primeau, who has a 20-year history in law enforcement, was sworn in Wednesday by Chippewa Cree Business Committee Chair Ken St. Marks. Other committee members were present.

Beau Mitchell, a member of the Business Committee, said the change in leadership at the reservation’s police department comes after a Dec. 11 meeting between himself, St. Marks and Bureau of Indian Affairs officials.

Mitchell said that at the meeting he and St. Marks were provided with numbers from a nearly year-old full program review conducted by BIA.

The results showed the police department scored 36 out of 100 on the review. Mitchell and fellow committee member Dustin Whitford said the committee has requested but not yet received the report or a corrective action plan that has been drafted. Mitchell said they hope to receive copies of both in the coming months.

“So, hopefully, in the next six months, we’ll see some upward trends in the metric indicators to prove the effectiveness of our new chief here, and we will be watching those pretty closely,” Mitchell said.

Dustin Whitford, another member of the Business Committee, said Henry resigned on his own accord and in good standing.

Primeau has a long career in law enforcement, the military and working with troubled youth. He graduated twice from the Northern Nevada Law Enforcement Academy in 1997 and 2008, and completed his Nevada Highway Patrol training in 2012. He began his career working as an officer for the Paiute Tribe of Las Vegas and the Pyramid Lake Police Department in Nevada.

Primeau later worked in parole and probation for the Fallon Police Department before working as a trooper for the Nevada Highway Patrol.

In 2008, he returned to the Pyramid Police Department as the reservation’s police chief. He was later a coach counselor at Rite of Passage, a program for troubled youth, including gang members.

He also spent 15 years in the U.S. Army.

Whitford said Primeau was an alternate candidate who was considered for the position when Henry had taken the position. They have had Primeau’s resume on file since then.

Since arriving on the reservation last Monday, Primeau said, he has tried to get acquainted with the tribe, as well as the challenges facing the department by speaking with the committee, officers, social service agencies on the reservation and others throughout the community.

“I am trying to get the whole story, see where the common denominators are and how everything works together,” Primeau said.

Among the issues is a shortage of officers on Rocky Boy.

Whitford said right now the reservation has six officers and nine openings.

“Recruitment is key,” Primeau said.

Mitchell said the committee is working to advertise across the nation for new officers and put together a benefits package that will be competitive with those offered by departments in other communities and on other reservations.

There are now about two possible candidates from the reservation who are in training at the police academy, two more are expected to join the police department in March.

The process of doing background checks on candidates can often be long and cumbersome, Primeau said. A lot of times, applicants will move on and accept another position rather than wait out the vetting process.

Rocky Boy has a three-person vetting team, Whitford said, tasked with aggregating, presenting and adjudicating candidates’ background information. However, those three people are prohibited from both investigating and adjudicating and therefore restricted to performing just one of those functions. For each, Whitford said, they must undergo specialized training.

Primeau said a better working relationship with agencies off the reservation could also strengthen the department. Communities or outside law enforcement agencies, he said, are sometimes reluctant to work with reservation police.

“So it’s up to us to get that rapport back, so we can be a team again,” Primeau said.

Primeau said he is looking to be a visible presence on the reservation, describing himself as a “very community-oriented police officer.”

Despite not being Chippewa Cree, Primeau said he is confident that he to can be part of the fabric of Rocky Boy.

“It doesn’t matter that I am not from this tribe, to me Native people are as a whole,” said Primeau, who is a Paiute. “Not this tribe or that tribe, to me, I see us as a whole.”