The standoff between an armed suspect and area law enforcement officers wasn’t the only confrontation that took place  at the Fort Hall Indian Reservation  on Saturday, and Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen isn’t happy about it.

    At one point in the 18-hour standoff, a Fort Hall Tribal Council member ordered the seven-county Southeast Idaho SWAT team headed by Bannock County off the reservation and threatened to confiscate the SWAT team’s armored vehicle, Sheriff Nielsen said Tuesday. The sheriff said the Tribal Council member also called Bannock County deputies “Indian killers.”

    Nielsen said he does not know the identity of the Tribal Council member, but the dispute resulted in a meeting between the Tribal Council and non-tribal authorities Saturday during which it was eventually decided to allow the Southeast Idaho SWAT team to respond to the standoff without fear of having its equipment confiscated by the tribes.

    Nielsen, who has been Bannock County Sheriff for 20 years, said he wants to have a one-on-one conversation with Fort Hall Tribal Council Chairman Nathan Small about what happened on Saturday.

    “There was definitely hate there toward law enforcement and non-tribal members,” Nielsen said. “At what point is the hate going to stop and the trust going to start?”

    When contacted regarding Nielsen’s statements Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes said the Tribal Council was unavailable for comment.

    Nielsen said the way the Southeast Idaho SWAT team was treated by the Tribal Council member was “the most unprofessional and unethical” incident he’s ever experienced as a law enforcement officer, especially considering that Fort Hall police had asked for the SWAT team’s help.

    Fort Hall police had been called to the residence of Ray Broncho about 3 a.m. Saturday after his Lodge Pine Street neighbors called in a complaint about gunshots being fired. When Fort Hall police arrived, Broncho barricaded himself in his home and reportedly fired at the officers using a SKS assault rifle. Nielsen said that several times during the standoff Broncho shot at law enforcement officers or neighboring houses. No one was injured and officers never returned fire.

    After coming under fire from Broncho, the Fort Hall police called the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office and requested that the Southeast Idaho SWAT team and its BearCat armored vehicle respond to the scene, according to Nielsen. 

    “It’s my understanding a police car had been hit,” Nielsen said, referring to the gunfire coming from Broncho.

    Although the seven-county SWAT team contains law enforcement officers from Bingham, Oneida, Franklin, Bear Lake, Power and Caribou counties, the majority of its members are from Bannock County.

    Late Saturday morning, the team members from Bannock County were the first SWAT personnel to arrive at the Fort Hall incident command-center that had been set up near the Shoshone-Bannock Hotel and Event Center in response to the standoff.

    Two Tribal Council members were also at the command center.

    Nielsen said he was headed to the scene to join Bingham County Sheriff Craig Rowland when he received a call from the SWAT team’s leader. The leader told Nielsen to get to Fort Hall fast and help smooth over some problems.

    As Nielsen pulled into the command center, the Southeast Idaho SWAT team was preparing to leave the reservation.

    The sheriff immediately talked to a FBI agent and was told about the tribal councilman’s demand that the SWAT team members from Bannock County leave the scene, but leave their equipment behind to be confiscated by the tribes.

    Nielsen said to defuse the situation he ordered the Southeast Idaho SWAT team to leave the scene and take all their equipment, including the BearCat, back to Pocatello.

    A meeting was then held between the FBI, Sheriff Rowland and Tribal Council members at the command center. It was decided that the Southeast Idaho SWAT team and its equipment were needed. The team returned to the scene only after receiving assurances from the Tribal Council that none of its equipment would be confiscated.

    Rowland said Tribal Council members wanted to talk Saturday about the incident last November in which a Bannock County deputy shot tribal member Kevin Toane when Toane backed into the deputy’s vehicle after leading law enforcement officers on a high-speed chase. Tribal Councilman LeeJuan Tyler is Toane’s uncle.

    The Bingham County sheriff said he told Tribal Council members he wasn’t there to discuss the nearly year-old incident, but to focus on the SWAT response to the current armed confrontation at Fort Hall.

    “I told them they had an obligation to protect citizens,” Rowland said. “I just told them it’s all or nothing. You either want the (SWAT) team or you don’t.”

    Both the Southeast Idaho SWAT team’s BearCat and a MRAP armored vehicle belonging to the Pocatello Police Department were then used to shuttle neighbors away from Broncho’s home. Law enforcement officers from non-tribal agencies also provided relief to Fort Hall police who had been on the scene since 3 a.m.

    Sheriff Nielsen said the confrontation with tribal leaders was completely unnecessary.

    “More than 50 officers were willing to put their lives on the line to help another law enforcement agency,” Nielsen said about Saturday’s standoff. “I told my SWAT guys, ‘Let’s take this guy alive’ and they performed extremely professionally.”

    Broncho’s family members, as well as law enforcement negotiators, spent hours talking to him via phone, trying to persuade him to surrender. Broncho also communicated with friends and family via Facebook during the standoff.

    “Our idea was to get him out of the shooting mode and into the talking mode,” Nielsen said.

    At one point, an FBI agent gave Broncho a drink of water from a garden hose and Broncho eventually left his SKS outside the residence.

    When Broncho went back inside his home, the bomb robot from the Idaho Falls police bomb squad was positioned over the top of the assault rifle to keep him from retrieving it. A short time later, around 9:30 p.m., Broncho came out and surrendered. He was transported to the Fort Hall Justice Center and will appear in tribal court, according to the FBI.

    Possible federal charges are pending.