Tribal Cops, A&E, 2004
They patrol a vast swath of the Dakota Badlands, an area more than twice the size of Connecticut. The Pine Ridge Reservation of the Oglala Sioux is a place where buffalo roam, where beat-up pickups smuggle whiskey, where unemployment runs at nearly 80 percent and the law is regarded with a blend of resignation, hatred and distrust.
British filmmaker Kim Hopkins, whose father is a Native American, explores the dangerous and difficult dynamic that faces the native-born police who work the reservation. In interviews with nearly forty citizens and cops, a portrait of a climate poisoned by poverty and fear emerges, where the police are called "apples"--red on the outside, white on the inside--and their presence and the fact that they are employed engender equal resentment.
In the mysterious world of the Tribal Cop, DNA and dreams are accorded equal value.
50 minutes, closed-captioned, fully narrated, VHS only, ISBN: 0-7670-5889-5, VT8761 / $24.95
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