The Soboba tribe of Southern California is suing the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, alleging it violated tribal sovereignty, falsely imprisoned the tribal council and forced it to turn over hundreds of hours of surveillance video during its investigation of a missing person case that later became a murder.
The tribe’s lawsuit alleges Sheriff Stanley Sniff used illegally obtained search warrants to deploy a SWAT team, “helicopter, canine units, and countless … officers and vehicles, all for the purpose of downloading video surveillance and searching a single site on the reservation.”
The incident occurred in May of 2016 when deputies began searching for Jerome Salgado, brother of the chairman of the Cahuilla Band of Indians. His body was later found in a shallow grave on the Soboba reservation. The investigation continued for four days, when reservation’s residents were “terrorized and intimidated” by deputies while the tribal administration building was surrounded, according to the lawsuit.
This forced the tribe to close two schools for several days.
The Sheriff’s Department is not commenting on the pending litigation.
The 7,000-acre reservation is located near Hemet and has about 1,200 members, many of whom rely on the tribal casino and farming for a living.
According to the lawsuit, when detectives asked for surveillance video, the tribe complied but that because of a computer malfunction two hours were missing. The detectives found this to be suspicious and claimed that the footage “was used as a means of committing a felony,” according to the lawsuit.
This led to the Sheriff’s deputies, including a SWAT team and helicopter, to invade the reservation to serve two search warrants. They took over the administration building, not allowing it to conduct any business, and prevented it from operating for three days.
A year later, says the tribe, the department has refused to return the surveillance footage or delete it from its computers.
Although in California law enforcement officers are allowed to enter the reservation to enforce criminal laws, the tribe claims they do not have the right to obtain search warrants for the reservation.
Besides claiming trespass, false imprisonment and privacy violations, the tribe also claims the officers imprisoned the tribal chairman and five-member council for several hours.
Besides the sheriff, the lawsuit also names Riverside County and several sheriff’s investigators.
