It took a 2013 murder in Spokane to expose the corruption on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota.
The murder of Douglas Carlile on December 15, 2013, in the kitchen of his south hill home in Spokane was quickly determined to be a targeted homicide. The Spokane skews media covered the story as a local homicide and only occasionally made generalized references to Carlile’s possible business associations in North Dakota.
Then in its edition on Sunday, December 28, 2014, New York Times writers Deborah Sontag and Brent McDonald give us the more complete picture in their news story headlined In North Dakota, a Tale of Oil, Corruption and Death.
The Times story states Doug Carlile’s murder in Spokane may have been the critical link that ultimately exposed the oil-related corruption both in and out of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. As supervising tribal attorney Damon Williams was quoted in the article: “I’ll be deadly honest. If that gentleman [Doug Carlile] hadn’t gotten murdered in his kitchen in Washington, we might never have discovered what was going on here.”
The Times story is worth taking time to read. It is a story of how corruption creeps into acceptance among respected and honored leaders of a community. It is also the story of how the honest tribal members fought to expose the corruption.
Oh my…thanks for sharing. I thought this kind of events only happened in movies.
Comment by LTR — December 30, 2014 @ 3:42 pm
LTR,
… or somewhere else.
If our local and regional news media would pay closer attention to what’s going on in other places, they might see local connections more often than they would expect on stories that only happen in the movies or somewhere else. Remember Kootenai County’s connection to the corruption scandal in Bell, California?
Our area wants to be viewed as a player in the “global economy?” We are. The question is, are our law enforcement agencies and prosecutors and courts up to the task that goes along with that status?
My opinion is that tribal attorney Williams’ comment was a little off the mark. I believe that the connection to the MHA Nation was made more quickly and thoroughly because of the good police work begun at the crime scene by the Spokane Police Department the night the homicide was committed.
Comment by Bill — December 30, 2014 @ 3:55 pm