Keith
Member
If the mods feel this is off topic, well then close it... But I feel this is an interesting twist on self defense in small rural communities.
It's a long story, so I only pasted in the a short piece. The entire article (and photos) can be seen here: http://www.adn.com/front/story/4325477p-4335352c.html
Trouble in Perryville
Village banished their problem resident, but state officials say they had no right
By SHEILA TOOMEY
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: November 2, 2003)
PERRYVILLE -- A tiny Alutiiq village, 218 bumpy air miles from the nearest trooper, has grown weary of a local troublemaker with a history of drunken violence and banished him.
The Native Village of Perryville, a community of 110 people on the Pacific edge of the Alaska Peninsula, bought John Tague a one-way ticket to Anchorage and told him not to come back.
In itself, this isn't so unusual. "Blue-ticketing" undesirables out of town is an old Alaska tradition, not much used in urban centers these days but still practiced in smaller rural communities. A lawyer based in Dillingham counts about eight in that area in recent years.
The banishment of John Tague is noteworthy because the Perryville tribal council, which runs the village, persuaded a state court judge to issue an order backing up its action. The village doesn't have any police officers and worried that the Alaska State Troopers would not enforce a tribal court order.
When Tague showed up uninvited in January, the council produced the tribal order and the state judge's order and asked a trooper to make Tague get back on the plane. In the end, Tague left the village voluntarily, but reports were filed and questions asked.
Perhaps if this had all happened under the Knowles administration, which was widely seen as sympathetic to tribal governments, state officials might have let it slide, especially since Tague didn't register any formal objections. But the Murkowski administration, which says it is rethinking the whole system of law enforcement in rural Alaska, attacked the banishment as an illegal action and chastised Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski for issuing a permanent injunction against Tague returning to Perryville.
In court briefs, assistant attorney general Dean Guaneli called Michalski's action illegal and insisted he rescind it. Guaneli said in a letter to the judge that troopers will be instructed to disobey the existing injunction and any other the judge issues in the case.
Anchorage attorney Sam Fortier, who represents Perryville, said the dispute will almost certainly end up in the Alaska Supreme Court.
People who have grappled for years with the problem of violence in Alaska's small rural communities are outraged. As they see it, the state long ago abandoned Alaska's smaller villages by refusing to provide effective law enforcement. Now that an increasing number of those villages are tackling problems on their own, the state is reaching out to cripple them, they say, to strip their tribal councils of the few tools they have, including the expulsion of a repeat offender.
"This is, in our minds, a matter of life and death," said Donna Goldsmith, an attorney for the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, which has joined the court case on the side of Perryville. "This community has no other option. ... The offender needs to be removed from the community for the community's safety. ... The goal should be how to work together, not how to silence the tribe."
It's a long story, so I only pasted in the a short piece. The entire article (and photos) can be seen here: http://www.adn.com/front/story/4325477p-4335352c.html
Trouble in Perryville
Village banished their problem resident, but state officials say they had no right
By SHEILA TOOMEY
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: November 2, 2003)
PERRYVILLE -- A tiny Alutiiq village, 218 bumpy air miles from the nearest trooper, has grown weary of a local troublemaker with a history of drunken violence and banished him.
The Native Village of Perryville, a community of 110 people on the Pacific edge of the Alaska Peninsula, bought John Tague a one-way ticket to Anchorage and told him not to come back.
In itself, this isn't so unusual. "Blue-ticketing" undesirables out of town is an old Alaska tradition, not much used in urban centers these days but still practiced in smaller rural communities. A lawyer based in Dillingham counts about eight in that area in recent years.
The banishment of John Tague is noteworthy because the Perryville tribal council, which runs the village, persuaded a state court judge to issue an order backing up its action. The village doesn't have any police officers and worried that the Alaska State Troopers would not enforce a tribal court order.
When Tague showed up uninvited in January, the council produced the tribal order and the state judge's order and asked a trooper to make Tague get back on the plane. In the end, Tague left the village voluntarily, but reports were filed and questions asked.
Perhaps if this had all happened under the Knowles administration, which was widely seen as sympathetic to tribal governments, state officials might have let it slide, especially since Tague didn't register any formal objections. But the Murkowski administration, which says it is rethinking the whole system of law enforcement in rural Alaska, attacked the banishment as an illegal action and chastised Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski for issuing a permanent injunction against Tague returning to Perryville.
In court briefs, assistant attorney general Dean Guaneli called Michalski's action illegal and insisted he rescind it. Guaneli said in a letter to the judge that troopers will be instructed to disobey the existing injunction and any other the judge issues in the case.
Anchorage attorney Sam Fortier, who represents Perryville, said the dispute will almost certainly end up in the Alaska Supreme Court.
People who have grappled for years with the problem of violence in Alaska's small rural communities are outraged. As they see it, the state long ago abandoned Alaska's smaller villages by refusing to provide effective law enforcement. Now that an increasing number of those villages are tackling problems on their own, the state is reaching out to cripple them, they say, to strip their tribal councils of the few tools they have, including the expulsion of a repeat offender.
"This is, in our minds, a matter of life and death," said Donna Goldsmith, an attorney for the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, which has joined the court case on the side of Perryville. "This community has no other option. ... The offender needs to be removed from the community for the community's safety. ... The goal should be how to work together, not how to silence the tribe."
