Bill Blake, a member of the Red Lake Nation of Minnesota who was a police sergeant in Minneapolis, died on Saturday. He was 45. Blake worked to improve tribal relations with the city. He organized Minnesota's first Native American Law Enforcement Summit in 2004 and began work in 2007 on a system to share data with tribal law enforcement agencies. "This is a model that should be an overlay for all tribal communities," Ed Krueger, the director of the Criminal Justice Center for Innovation, told The Minneapolis Star Tribune. Eight tribes in Minnesota and four in Wisconsin have agreed to participate in I-CARE, the Indian Crime Awareness, Research and Evaluation. Get the Story:
Bill Blake's brainchild: tribal-city database (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 8/4)