More than three years have passed since Braven Glenn’s crash and the abrupt closure of the Crow tribal police department. Mother Jones senior criminal justice reporter Samantha Michaels spent much of time since then investigating the circumstances of Glenn’s death — and the state of policing on tribal lands. She joined MTPR’s Austin Amestoy to share her reporting.
Austin Amestoy: Hello, Samantha.
Samantha Michaels: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
Austin Amestoy: So it's been quite a while since we covered the Crow Tribal Police Department. Could you start by giving us a bit of an overview of how the department was created and what happened to it?
Samantha Michaels: The Crow Tribal Police Department was created basically to fill a gap in law enforcement on the reservation. Previously, the federal government had controlled a lot of policing there. And there were only about four or five federal officers for a reservation that's, you know, nearly the size of Connecticut. So, the Tribal Administration wanted to create a tribal police department. And, in the spring of 2020, after the pandemic hit, the tribe received some COVID relief funding that it used to create a tribal police department in June of 2020.
Austin Amestoy: We didn't know much about why the department shut down in 2020, just a few days after Glenn's death. I'm wondering, though, Samantha, did you find any additional details during your investigation as to the circumstances of the department shutting down?
Samantha Michaels: In my reporting, I spoke with former law enforcement officials, and they had a number of theories about what happened. Some of them speculated that the department shut down because of Brandon's death and the investigation into his death. A former BIA officer said that was kind of common knowledge, that was the reason why the department shut down. Former tribal police officials told me that the department was already failing before Braven died, and that the department was running out of money, and it shut down because of that. And then a lot of people that I spoke with, they talked about politics. A couple of weeks before Braven died, there was an election on the reservation. And the chairman, the Crow chairman, who had created the police department, he lost the election. And Chairman White Clay, who won the election, didn't think that it was a good idea to, you know, create this police department with COVID funding. There's a lot of speculation that the department shut down because of that.
Austin Amestoy: Despite some new information you gleaned through your records requests and, Blossom's investigations yourself, Blossom Old Bull, she is still seeking really any certain or definitive answers as to what happened with Braven's crash and death. A lot of your reporting goes into, sort of, what this case tells us about the state of policing on tribal lands.
Samantha Michaels: I think that this case highlights a few things. One is that Blossom is not the only person, you know, who struggled to get information after a loved one died. And families are going, you know, many months and years trying to get basic autopsy reports, death certificates after their loved ones die. And it's really painful for them and it's not okay. I think another takeaway is to think about just the lack of funding that tribal police have received. There's really kind of a crisis of law enforcement on reservations where they don't have enough money from the federal government, they're short staffed, they're under-resourced. And, sometimes that can culminate in cases like this, you know, where there's an officer involved death. Blossom was very open with me. I think she really wanted, you know, her family's story and the pain that they're gone through to be shared and to be known.
Austin Amestoy: Samantha Michaels is a senior criminal justice reporter at Mother Jones. Samantha, thanks for coming on.
Samantha Michaels: Thank you so much for having me.
Mother seeks details on son's death, Crow Nation Police Department
Jackie Coffin | Yellowstone Public Radio
The case of a Crow teenager hit and killed by a train during a car chase with a now defunct-tribal police force is gaining fresh attention through an investigative report from Mother Jones more than three years after the crash.
17-year-old Braven Glenn’s mother is suing the federal government alleging the wrongful death of her son, and while a bench trial is creeping closer, Blossom Old Bull says she is still trying to learn what happened to her son and why.
On the evening of November 24-th, 2020, 17-year-old Braven Glenn was driving down Highway 451 between Garyowen and Lodge Grass on the Crow Reservation when he passed a cruiser on the two lane highway.
The cruiser, a police vehicle, flipped on its lights and pursued Braven. He sped up his car, a Chevy Malibu, missed a turn, went off the road and onto the train tracks that run parallel to the highway. The car stopped but the oncoming train was unable to.
Braven died at the scene of the crash and toxicology reports showed he had alcohol and marijuana in his system.
A brief write up in the news came days later, and the comments did too. Braven’s mom Blossom Old Bull remembers them well.
“It's like all people see is like, oh, this bad Indian kid, So he was running from the police. He must've been doing something really bad. So he deserved to die. So it's like, and that's another thing that drives me to tell a story too, is because they need to know that he was, that's not who he was.”
I’m down in Crow Agency sitting with Blossom in her car talking about Braven. Her daughter, Braven’s sister, and eight-month-old granddaughter are in the car too, and Blossom is sharing her story, Braven’s story, including all of the parts she’s still trying to piece together.
“His initial story in the beginning was that Braven was going 90 miles an hour. And that's why he was being chased, because he was speeding. And then after I watched the the dash cam footage, that's, that wasn't the case. You know, that was not the case at all. He was not speeding. They did not clock him going 90 miles an hour. When the chase began, yeah, he sped up and then he was going 90 miles an hour, but not when he passed her, he was not. So it's like, I just don't get why they told us that in the beginning. You know what I mean? he didn't deserve to die that way that night. And by people that weren't even cops, they weren't legal police officers.”
The officer chasing Braven was part of the newly-formed Crow Nation Police Department started by the tribe as an attempt to improve policing on tribal lands.
Within a few days of Braven’s death, the police department folded and ceased to operate. Blossom, who was Braven’s parent and legal guardian says she was not given accurate details of the crash, was not allowed to identify his body, and didn’t even know where Braven was sent for autopsy. Blossom says she was told there was no accident report. With the Crow Nation Police Department gone, she tried to get answers from the tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
“Not even any explanation to the family of even what happened that night. It's like I had to fight for that information for years. Months and months and months and telling me I had to FOIA information. We were denied every time. It was denied, denied, denied. Connecting with a lawyer changed the process and helped release information.
Blossom is suing the United States government for excessive force, wrongful death and violations of Braven’s 4th amendment rights.
The government has denied her claims that any federal employees were present at the accident scene or had a role in Braven’s death.
But Blossom says her fight is far from over, motivated by the memory of her son and the life he had to live.
"It was only two weeks before he passed away, I was having a talk with him and I told him, I said, Braven, I don't want you to fall into this cycle of drinking, a that it's really affected our family so much. You know, I don't want you to fall into the cycle. I said, I want you to be somebody. I was like, I want you to be a productive member of society. I want you to be somebody. And he looked at me and he was like, 'I am, mom.' And I said, and he looked at his phone and then he like showed me his phone. And he showed me, like, text messages where he was talking to the, it was like an Army recruiter or Marines recruiter, and he goes, 'I'm gonna join after I'm done with high school.'
"I'll continue to fight, I'll continue to tell a story, and I hope people understand, He didn't deserve this. No matter, despite what, you know, what people say. They don't know the real story. They don't know, like, who this kid was."
Yellowstone Public Radio reached out to Crow tribal leadership for comment about this story, Braven's death and for information about why the police department folded, but have not heard back at this time.
