"That's none of the public's business; that's our reservation"

The above wise-crack-seeming header is not one of mine - it is an actual statement from a San Manuel Indian, and in the context of the story below - NOT funny.

And in accordance with that statement what is happening in San Bernardino is not at all surprising. Nor is San Bernardino unique. A little digging will turn up similar stories at any Indian Casino. Drugs and gang banging... what's not to like? You must be some kind of hater. Lets gives these guys another 20,000 slot machines so they can continue to enrich themselves.
From the Press-Enterprise:

Errant members, gangster friends give San Manuel casino headaches, ex-employees say
By MICHELLE DeARMOND
The Press-Enterprise

One of Southern California's busiest Indian casinos is plagued by criminal tribal members and Inland gangsters.

According to former tribal employees, a source close to the tribe, court documents and internal tribal documents, criminal elements have started brawls, assaulted people, brought in guns and used drugs inside the facility.

Those sources say the members of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, some with connections to criminal gangs such as the Mexican Mafia, aren't governed by the same rules as other patrons.

"They can do whatever they want and go wherever they want," said one former tribal employee, who spent more than a decade working for San Manuel. "They are above the law."

A source close to the tribe, whose casino near San Bernardino draws many customers from the Los Angeles area, said the tribe is failing to properly regulate itself. Leaders are too fearful of gangs to crack down on their errant members or other criminals, the source said.

The result, insiders say, is a poorly regulated casino and a reservation of tribal members paralyzed by fear. The tribe doesn't have its own police force to enforce laws, and its regulatory and security staff -- most of whom are not tribal members -- are not allowed to crack down on San Manuel Indians, former employees say.

The tribe says the casino is well-regulated, pointing to a "myriad of laws and regulations" the facility is subjected to, including tribal, state and federal rules. Tribal members are not exempt from those rules, and some have been banned from the casino in the past, said Jacob Coin, director of communications.

"We feel like it's been a very good system in that it guards against the type of criminal element that appears to be on the minds of people," Coin said. "I'm convinced that our gaming commission does a good job at making sure we're in good compliance."

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department has at least one deputy dedicated at all times to patrol the reservation, but the deputy usually goes inside the casino only when a tribal public-safety officer requests it, said Jodi Miller, a San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman.

"They don't necessarily go inside the casino," she said, adding that the deputies patrol the parking lots and surrounding areas. "They respond in the event that ... there's a criminal activity that they need to respond to."

Critics say the tribe is failing to quash serious criminal risks -- such as drugs and violence -- brought on the reservation and inside the casino by its own members.

"The biggest issue they have up there is public safety," said one former San Manuel employee, who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation from the tribe. "It's actually nothing but a playground for them."

Most of those interviewed for this story requested anonymity, saying they feared for their safety or that speaking out would hurt them professionally.

The criticisms come as the tribe prepares to expand its gleaming 2,000-slot-machine casino. The tribe got state approval last year to add 5,500 more slot machines to its Las Vegas-style casino and is expected to expand soon.

Opponents of similar gambling agreements signed with four other Southern California tribes have challenged those agreements, and voters will get to consider them on the Feb. 5 ballot. However, the San Manuel Band's agreement has not been challenged.

The San Manuel tribe opened a bingo hall in 1986, but it wasn't until the January 2005 opening of its current casino that the place became the hot spot it's known as today. With restaurants, a lounge and popular music concerts, business has boomed in the past several years, but critics say the casino has grown and prospered beyond the 200-member tribe's ability to manage it.

"The San Manuel gaming is so amateuristic, it's like running a billion-dollar organization out of the back of a pickup truck," said Robert Bollong, a former lieutenant with the San Manuel Department of Public Safety. "These people have no expertise."

Tribal Misdeeds

Former employees and a source close to the tribe describe the crime problem and the fear among tribal members as pervasive, not limited to just an isolated few members. Further fueling the problem, the critics say, are the $100,000-a-month casino-profit checks that each adult tribal member receives.

There are some tribal members whose names crop up in tribal public-safety documents and court cases. Most are young adults.

Among those is Stacy Barajas-Nunez, 25, who is awaiting trial on murder conspiracy charges in a case with her brother, Erik Barajas, 35, and two men identified by federal authorities as Mexican Mafia members.

The four were arrested when authorities raided multiple houses on the reservation and in other San Bernardino County communities in December 2006. The raids were part of a massive Drug Enforcement Administration investigation targeting the Mexican Mafia and its methamphetamine trafficking and street crime.

In court documents, law enforcement officials say Barajas-Nunez has served as a financial backer for gang members' families and has paid rent and provided vehicles for gang members. She and Salvador Hernandez, described in the court documents as a top Mexican Mafia member in Southern California, are charged in the same counts of transporting and possessing methamphetamine.

Barajas-Nunez, her brother, Hernandez and his brother Alfred Hernandez are due back in court next month in connection with the December 2006 bust and murder conspiracy case.

Her alleged criminal connections and activities have extended into the casino, according to law enforcement sources and tribal and court documents.

In June 2006, Barajas-Nunez assaulted a 110-pound woman who was sitting on a bench at the casino, according to a report by the San Manuel Department of Public Safety, which handles security for the tribe. The woman responded by attempting to hit Barajas-Nunez, who weighs 250 pounds, until public-safety officers stepped in and restrained the smaller woman, according to the documents. The smaller woman, who did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article, was banned from the casino; Barajas-Nunez spoke to her parents on the phone, then declined to make a statement to security officers and walked away, according to the report. She was never arrested or prosecuted, although surveillance tape of the episode showed she initiated the fight, according to the department's report.

In April 2005, Barajas-Nunez and acquaintances were at the casino on the night of a concert, when public-safety officers were on a heightened state of alert because they had heard rival tribal members and their gang associates would be there, former employees say. The surveillance staff saw Barajas-Nunez's friends hand her guns outside the casino, but didn't tell public-safety employees at the time, the former employees said. Public-safety officers later saw images from the surveillance tape and learned that she had taken guns into the casino and never was punished, sources said.

"The weight (of the guns) is pulling her pants down. She keeps pulling them up and pulling them up," one former employee said of the surveillance video he later saw.

Reached by cell phone Thursday, Barajas-Nunez denied both accounts.

Of the June 2006 fight, Barajas-Nunez said she was the victim and the other woman attacked her first. She said the Department of Public Safety report's description of the surveillance tape was "false."

Of the April 2005 account of guns, Barajas-Nunez said she wasn't at the casino that night and doesn't gamble. She denied accusations that she brings a criminal element to the casino.

"I don't even like going there," she said, adding that she goes to the reservation about once a week but not to the casino. "I live at my parents', but I've got my vacation places. That's usually where I am. I'm a kid; I'm trying to enjoy life."

In another incident in June 2006, multiple tribal members got into a brawl in the casino, threatening one another and pushing and shoving public-safety officers, said one former tribal employee.

Feuding tribal members and their friends, including a local gang member who later was arrested in the December 2006 DEA bust, started fighting in the casino and yelling at one another, the former employee said.

Some casino patrons who saw the fight asked why the tribal members weren't being arrested.

"This is typical -- you always had to take this. We knew who could push us around," said a former casino public-safety officer.

And on at least one occasion, employees witnessed a tribal member in his mid-20s smoking marijuana in a casino room reserved for tribal members, but they did not take criminal action against him, former employees said.

Instead, the tribal member's mother, a prominent member of the tribe, was called to take him home, the sources said.

'Flawed' System

Critics of the problems at San Manuel say there are several reasons for the security breakdowns and most can be traced to tribal politics and gaps in federal and state laws.

One problem, they say, stems from how the tribe selects its gambling commission chairman, a key regulatory job that involves many areas of expertise. Instead of hiring a skilled person from the gambling industry, as some other Indian casinos do, San Manuel members voted several years ago to make the job an elected position.

The decision injected tribal electoral politics and family feuds into regulation of a bustling Southern California casino.

"This is where culture and tradition collide with modern life," a source close to the tribe said.

A former employee of the tribe's Public Safety Department said the tribe should hire a top regulator from Las Vegas or Atlantic City, N.J., instead of expecting a San Manuel Indian to run for office and then regulate family members.

The only way to properly run the casino is for the tribe to hire a gambling commission chairman who is not related to any tribal members, as is done for the other commission positions, said Bollong, who oversaw the San Manuel security force's training and professional standards.

Bollong said he spent 2 ½ years working for the tribe until early last year and lost faith in the tribe's ability to regulate the casino.

Bollong died last week in Riverside.

The source close to the San Manuel Band said the tribe has tried to crack down on problems over the years but it is hampered by inadequate federal regulations, limited state involvement and its own tribal government.

"The system is flawed," the source said, acknowledging that crime involving tribal members has been a problem for the tribal government. "It's not capable of dealing with those types of incidents."

Another problem that public safety and tribal leaders have had to work around is the tribe's own governing body, known as the business committee. The committee is made up of elected members, including the mother of a 28-year-old convicted felon, Robert Vincent Martinez Jr.

The home of his mother, Audrey Martinez, was one of those raided when the DEA conducted its sweep through the reservation and surrounding areas in December 2006, according to Department of Public Safety documents. Neither Martinez was charged in connection with that raid, according to court records.

That family link and other similar relationships, former employees and another source say, has made people uncertain of the business committee's ability to put policing the reservation above family ties.

Audrey Martinez did not return a phone message left at her home.

Coin, the tribe's director of communications, said those concerns are unfounded. The business committee members are elected by the tribe, work as a collective and deal with problems "fairly, openly and honestly," he said.

The tribe's seven-member business committee has "worked well as a government system for us for a very long time," he said. "No one individual has authority over the six other."

The tribe has tried to address the problem of tribal criminal activity inside the casino, according to one recent court document, although it's unclear if any action has actually been taken.

James Ramos, the tribe's unity and cultural awareness director, was granted a two-year restraining order against Barajas-Nunez's father, Kenneth Barajas, last month in San Bernardino County Superior Court after an argument between Ramos and Barajas at a tribal meeting.

According to the restraining order, the tribe held a meeting in November 2007 that included an agenda item on possibly fining Barajas-Nunez for "her conduct at the casino on an earlier date and time."

The report did not offer specifics or clarify whether fines were levied against Barajas-Nunez. Ramos and Barajas apparently got into an argument when Barajas-Nunez and Barajas "became very agitated during the meeting."

Ramos originally sought a restraining order against both Barajas and Barajas-Nunez, saying he was afraid for his life and that Barajas-Nunez had ties to the Mexican Mafia. Ramos later dropped Barajas-Nunez from his request.

Barajas-Nunez refused to comment about the possibility of being fined by her own tribe.

"That's none of the public's business; that's our reservation," she said.