national

WASHINGTON - Months before a teenager fatally shot 10 people on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in 2005, the local band finished building a taxpayer-funded detention center for troubled youth.

Five years later, the $2 million facility remains unopened and empty, except for thousands of dollars in furniture bought by the U.S. government.

The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was supposed to request the more than $1 million per year needed to run the center, but never did. Leaders of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa, the state's poorest and most isolated band, say they lack the resources to operate the center themselves. They've since hired a law firm and are preparing to take the federal government to trial next month.

The unused juvenile center hits a particular sore spot for Red Lake, which on Sunday will commemorate the fifth anniversary of the day a 16-year-old opened fire on his classmates at Red Lake High School. It remains one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history.

"They were there in front of the cameras when the cameras were rolling," Tribal Chairman Floyd Jourdain said of the federal officials who descended on Red Lake after the shooting, even turning the facility into a temporary command center. "They sure as hell grabbed the spotlight. But once the cameras were off, they all left."

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., brought the boondoggle to public notice at a recent committee meeting in Washington, D.C., questioning Indian Affairs representatives to little effect.

"You hope that you can take these kids and catch them before they become criminals, but then [the facility] is just sitting there," Franken said in an interview. He added, "You just kind of shake your head and go, 'This is dysfunctional.'"

Former U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Tom Heffelfinger, who spent part of 2005 trying to speed up funding for Red Lake, called the five-year wait "ridiculous."

Nedra Darling, a BIA spokeswoman, declined to comment for this article because of the litigation, as did officials at the Justice Department, which provided the grants for the building.

A broken promise?

When the tribe first obtained Justice Department grants to construct the center in the late 1990s, BIA officials wrote in letters that their agency would be responsible for requesting operating funds for facilities built using the grants. The head of the BIA reaffirmed that responsibility in a congressional hearing last month.

Months before construction on the juvenile center was completed, the government signed an agreement with Indian leaders promising that the BIA would request $1.2 million in the president's budget, which would go mostly to pay salaries for the planned 18-person staff. BIA officials later conceded in sworn statements that they never made the request, citing timing complications.

Dave Conner, acting director of self-governance for the band, said that after construction was complete in early 2005, BIA officials expressed confusion about the facility's mission and engaged in a discussion with Indian officials that lasted months. When the band filed a formal grievance for the funds in 2006, the head of the BIA wrote back that no money was available.

The band sued the government for breach of contract in 2006, seeking more than $2 million in damages. Jourdain said that so far, the litigation has cost the cash-starved band nearly $500,000. After years of legal maneuvering, the case is headed to federal court on April 7 in Washington, D.C.

'A national disgrace'

The vacant 13,000-square-foot, 24-bed center is emblematic of how a Clinton administration effort to improve Indian detention facilities has soured for several tribes which, according to a federal report, were left with empty buildings because of funding or staffing problems.

The Red Lake Band, located just north of Bemidji, built its center with federal grants as a response to what leaders call a "youth crisis" of truancy, gang activity, suicide and drugs that plague the reservation of 12,000. The band also invested $300,000 of its own money, hoping that the center could become a positive alternative for young offenders whose crimes did not warrant lockup in the medium-security jail.

Because the center never opened, Indian leaders say, judges now have little choice but to send many young offenders back to the streets.

"Right now they just go out on the street and then go right back through the revolving door," Conner said.

In 2004, the inspector general for the agency that oversees the BIA issued a damning report that described the BIA's detention program as "a national disgrace" plagued by a "crisis of inaction, indifference, and mismanagement."

One of the problems identified in the report was the number of Justice Department-funded facilities that remained unoccupied.

"Just putting the bricks and mortar up and then walking away doesn't solve the problem," Heffelfinger said.

Franken, who sits on the Indian Affairs Committee and who recently toured the unoccupied building, said he wants to see more federal money flowing to Indian areas, but worries about giving more funds to the BIA, an agency that he said already "isn't functioning properly."

For now, the Red Lake Band hopes to reach a settlement with federal officials before next month's trial.

"They've got limitless resources and they run the clock out on us," Jourdain said. "So be it, but we're going to go kicking and screaming and fighting for our youth."

Eric Roper • 202-408-2723