Tribal Law Expert Explains Jurisdiction Confusion Between Muscogee Lighthorse Police And Okmulgee Co. Jailer

An arrest warrant issued by the Muscogee Nation court for an Okmulgee jailer has been recalled tonight, but that jailer is still charged with assaulting a Lighthorse police officer on Monday.

The Lighthorse officer was booking a non-native suspect into the jail, but the jailer initially refused to accept the inmate.

The jail says there was confusion over where the officer had jurisdiction through his cross-deputization through the Grand River Dam Authority, and the jail wanted to avoid any liability.

The disagreement led to pushing and shoving.

Related: Okmulgee County Jailer Accused Of Assaulting Lighthorse Deputy Chief

The Grand River Dam Authority says its cross commission for Lighthorse police applies to the town of Okmulgee.

The Lighthorse police officer wanted to book the nontribal citizen into the jail in Okmulgee for a drug case.

Initially, the jail wouldn’t accept the suspect because the jailer believed the Lighthorse officer did not have the authority to make the arrest.

This led to a scuffle between the officer and the jailer when the officer entered a secure area of the jail.

The Okmulgee County Criminal Justice Authority runs the jail and says after reading the statute and realizing it could accept the inmate, it did.

The tribe saw the scuffle as assault and filed a charge and issued an arrest warrant for the jailer, who's nontribal.

The jail says it was not assault, and the jailer used the minimum force necessary to keep the officer out of the secure area.

This is another example of how the US Supreme Court decision on tribal jurisdiction leaves many questions up in the air.

Attorney Robert Gifford says one solution is cross-deputization, but not every county has that, including Okmulgee County.

"For an average citizen, if they feel that, ‘hey, you don’t have jurisdiction over me,’ the problem becomes a matter of trust and especially when they see publicly that the two governmental agencies are not getting along whether it’s the tribe and the county or some kind of combination of that, they don’t know if what’s happening is legally correct,” Gifford said.

Gifford says all law enforcement agencies have the authority to detain and conduct an investigation, which is why it's important for state, local, and federal agencies to work together.

“If the governmental agencies are not getting along or not sharing information, at the end of the day, it's the people that actually get hurt in this,” he said.