The Lakota Nation Invitational basketball tournament is being held in Rapid City this weekend. Multiple Law Enforcement agencies are teaming up to make sure the event is secure. Officials from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Oglala Sioux Tribe Department of Public Safety are assisting officers from the Rapid City Police Department with security duties.
Tarah Heupel is the Community Relations Specialist for the Rapid City Police Department. She says partnering up is a win-win situation.
“For the last four years the Police Department has been partnering with Tribal law enforcement to provide security for the LNI Tournament. When we first started that we found that we were just sort of inundated with calls for service and couldn‘t handle them all at that point and we decided to partner with Tribal law enforcement and that has worked exceedingly well for the last four years,” says Heupel
Heupel says in years past as part of a ride-along exchange program officers from the Rapid City Police Department have gone to Pine Ridge and rode along on patrol with Oglala Sioux Tribe officers. She adds that the program gives officers valuable experience and helps facilitate inter-agency relationships.