cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4958704

Cody Whiterock was running for his life — the Bureau of Indian Affairs police had come for him again. He’d been drinking at a friend’s bunkhouse on a farm in Owyhee County, Idaho, south of Boise, but the farm’s owner wanted him out and called 911. When BIA police came, Whiterock did what he’d done before — he fled in his car, a BIA officer confronting him at gunpoint.

More than a year later, Whiterock’s grieving family is still searching for answers about his death, but they’ve heard virtually nothing from the agency that killed him. The BIA has not told the family about the circumstances surrounding the shooting or the names of the officers involved. The BIA hasn’t even publicly acknowledged that the March 2024 shooting occurred. An investigation conducted by Idaho State Police remains open — and police and coroner reports make no mention of Whiterock having a weapon on him when he was killed.

Whiterock, 39 when he died, was not the first in his family to be killed by BIA officers in recent years: His cousin, Kirby Paradise, was killed by BIA officers in 2020. Paradise’s death was never reported publicly by either the media or the BIA, and the family faced a similar wall of silence surrounding the circumstances of his death.

Like other families whose loved ones have been shot and killed by BIA officers, Whiterock’s family has encountered an agency that operates as a black hole of information, rarely communicating any information to families or the public and providing no public accounting of the circumstances of deaths at the hands of officers. Amid a nationwide reckoning over police use of force, the BIA has largely evaded widespread or public scrutiny of its policies. In response to questions from InvestigateWest, the BIA said it is in compliance with all federal reporting requirements surrounding in-custody deaths, but did not respond to follow-up questions regarding details in Whiterock’s and Paradise’s killings.

Existing data shows Native Americans face the highest risk of deadly police violence in the United States — between three to five times the rate that others face. And that data is likely an undercount of the true figures. Deaths at the hands of BIA police are rarely reported publicly, particularly if they occur on tribal land, and gaps exist in data meant to record in-custody deaths. For 2020, the BIA confirmed to InvestigateWest that it reported zero arrested-related deaths to the Department of Justice — despite killing two people that qualify for reporting. A lack of media attention means many killings of Native Americans by the BIA and other police agencies pass in silence.

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