A New Police Force Chased a 17-Year-Old Boy to His Death. Then It Vanished.

[Nevilledog]

https://www.motherjones.com/criminal-justice/2024/04/crow-nation-police-accountability-braven-glenn-bia/

Cruising south down a two-lane highway in Montana, Braven Glenn looked out onto the open road, the evening sky chilly and dark. It was November 24, 2020—half a year into the pandemic and three months after his 17th birthday. He was a good student, on his way to pick up his girlfriend, a basketball player like him, at her house on the Crow Indian Reservation.

Most days, Braven took his time while driving; his friends sometimes teased him for staying below the speed limit. But lately he hadn’t been feeling like himself—not since his grandma died from Covid weeks earlier. On this particular night, when a car ahead of him sat at around 60 mph in a 70 mph zone, he signaled and passed it, slowing again to the speed limit after crossing back over the dotted yellow line.

Then lights flashed behind him. The car he’d passed belonged to a white cop from the reservation’s brand-new tribal police department. Headquartered inside a former Subway restaurant, the department had launched just five months earlier with Covid relief funding—an attempt by the tribal nation’s chairman to address crime and a huge deficit of federal police.

The officer called dispatch to report a speeding driver, according to law enforcement records, even though Braven wasn’t speeding when she activated her siren.

A chase began.

Within 70 seconds, his car was struck by a train.

*snip*