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LEIF ENGER: One late March afternoon, Bemidji State University student and single mother, Kim [? Hettinger ?] decided to call a cab. She'd been shopping at the Paul Bunyan mall on the West edge of town and needed to get home. She waited an hour, no cab.

Finally, a friend happened by and offered a lift. Just then, the cab arrived and Kim told the driver she didn't need him anymore.

KIM: The cab followed us to 15th and Irvine. And there, two cop cars stopped us and pulled us over. And the cab driver pointed me out. Immediately, the officer came over and opened up my door, ordered me out of the car.

LEIF ENGER: Kim says the officer told her she'd committed theft and fraud and ordered her to pay the driver a $3 service fee. She paid. She says he then misled her to believe she was being arrested.

KIM: And I said, well, what am I going to do with my son? And he says, I don't care if your son was dying. I said, you're a public servant here to serve and to protect, and you don't care if my son was dying? He had no response. Then I said, you're doing this because I'm Indian, and so is my son.

LEIF ENGER: It's familiar talk in Bemidji that the police pick on Indians first. That they tail cars bearing Red Lake Reservation plates. That Indians keep the local criminal justice system in the Black with all their traffic fines.

Last year, in an effort to learn how legitimate all of this is, the city formed its first law enforcement liaison committee. It's a panel of city and county representatives and Indians who hear complaints like Kim Hettinger's and decide whether to recommend investigations.

So far, there have been very few formal complaints. Far more common are the informal ones, the ones that come in by the dozens, the letters to the editor variety, alleging police unfairness or brutality.

BOB TELL: All we can do is deny it because I know it's not true and the people on the department know it's not true.

LEIF ENGER: Bob Tell has been Bemidji's police chief for almost a decade. He sat on the liaison committee until recently but stepped down because he said it put him in an automatically defensive position. In this town, where the per capita crime rate is among the highest in the state, Tell admits that a disproportionate number of those arrested are Indians, about 40%. But he says that's socioeconomics at work, not police discrimination.

BOB TELL: I have faith in the people that are working for me, number one. I have just a super bunch of guys. And they're out there taking this guff, even more than I am.

DARYLE RUSSELL: 17th.

SPEAKER 1: 10-4.

LEIF ENGER: Weeknights are slow for Bemidji patrolman Daryle Russell. He's a 10-year man on the force and knows the routine well. Check out the bars, answer a domestic disturbance or two, stop a few speeders.

DARYLE RUSSELL: Yes, sir. I clocked you up to 42 miles an hour in a 30-mile-an-hour zone. Have you had any tickets for anything in the last six months?

SPEAKER 2: No, I haven't.

LEIF ENGER: Russell gets irritated at the frequent allegations that the police are especially hard on non-whites. He says the converse is actually true. That officers here use extra care to avoid even the appearance of discrimination. That's especially important, he says, because in a town as racially explosive as Bemidji, it's nearly impossible not to have some racist feelings.

DARYLE RUSSELL: I am prejudiced against Indians. I think a lot of or most of or all of the members of our department are, I think, most or all of the White members of the community are. And like I say, it's because they're a minority population of a high concentration in this area. I don't know how you cannot be prejudiced-- you can not discriminate, but I don't know how you can not be prejudiced.

LEIF ENGER: But many Indians feel criminal justice here is stacked against them. That there are too many layers of white to break through. Since the law enforcement liaison committee was established last year, just six formal complaints have been brought forward. None of those have resulted in reprimands to officers, a problem says Committee Chairman Joe Belanger, is the simple fear of reprisal.

JOE: The people, when they do have a complaint, or something does happen to them, they keep the thing within themselves and they carry it around, and it builds on them, and they have a grudge on them. Our situation here in this town here is where there is a complaint or anything like that, they feel that the retaliation isn't worth the publicity.

LEIF ENGER: Bemidji mayor Doug Peterson.

DOUG PETERSON: If I ever find that these things are substantiated, and they are proven to be true, that I will get involved desperately as it relates to correcting that problem. If we find an officer who is showing a problem with racism, we will correct that problem.

LEIF ENGER: Some say, though, that the chain of investigation doesn't lend itself to punishing law officers who show racist behavior. The police department is responsible for investigating itself. If the complainant is unsatisfied, he or she can go next to the city manager, the local Human Rights Commission, or the courts, and that means a lot of effort for what might seem a trivial complaint.

Most cases never get beyond the police investigation. And Kim Hettinger says the police want it that way.

KIM: I think that they're doing it maybe just to soothe our wounds and no, I don't think they're really taking it seriously. I think they have no intent of even reprimanding the officers who take this attitude towards Indian people.

LEIF ENGER: But racial issues are being taken seriously by many local leaders. In employment, housing, even with the law enforcement liaison board, Bemidji is trying to shake off the label of racism that's been stuck tightly for decades. Still, as one local Indian leader said, the wheel is turning too slowly. It's time we had a welcome and not just tolerance. This is Leif Enger.