Whiterock, described as Shoshone-Paiute and a father of two, was shot and killed in March 2024 after what the lawsuit and law-enforcement accounts portray as a prolonged chase in Owyhee County, southwestern Idaho, the Associated Press reported.
The filing alleges that after a ranch owner called 911 reporting an unwanted person on private, non-tribal land on March 2, 2024, two BIA officers located Whiterock in a car on or near Idaho Route 51, about 15 miles south of Riddle. According to law-enforcement records described by the report, his vehicle became stuck in ice and Whiterock ran from the officers, prompting one officer to chase him for the next 80 minutes through a snowy sagebrush prairie.
The lawsuit challenges the circumstances of the chase and the officers’ use of force, the Associated Press said. It accuses the officers—who were not identified in the lawsuit—of pursuing Whiterock outside the bounds of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation, where Whiterock lived, and then shooting him in the face, back and chest, according to the filing.
In addition, the filing asserts that the officers “falsified or withheld evidence to escape accountability,” a claim the report said is part of the lawsuit’s allegations. The complaint also contests the officers’ narrative of the encounter: the report said one officer described an altercation that knocked him on his back, followed by Whiterock “continued aggressing him” and “kept reaching for his waistband,” and that the officer said he struck Whiterock with the muzzle of his rifle and then shot Whiterock four times at close range in the chest and face.
A death certificate described in the report said Whiterock was shot twice in the back and was found lying face-down in the snow. Whiterock’s family said he was unarmed and posed no immediate threat, the report said, adding that no weapons were recovered. The lawsuit also raised a point about where Whiterock’s body was found at the end of the pursuit, saying his dead body was located only about 200 yards from the roadway despite the reported length of the chase.
The suit also targets what it describes as a jurisdictional failure. It argues that because BIA officers were patrolling the Duck Valley Reservation, they lacked legal authority to pursue Whiterock outside reservation boundaries absent a memorandum of understanding with local Idaho law enforcement, the report said. It further states that the pursuit and eventual killing never crossed onto tribal land and characterizes any use of force as “unreasonable and unlawful,” according to the Associated Press report.
Idaho-based attorney T. Jason Wood, who represents Whiterock’s family, told the report it was “the first time in my career where I’ve had a case where the officers may not have had any jurisdiction at all.” The lawsuit also says the BIA officers patrolling the reservation lacked training regarding jurisdictional limits.
The Associated Press report said the lawsuit is part of a broader pattern of scrutiny of BIA policing oversight. It noted that InvestigateWest had previously reported on Whiterock and his cousin, Kirby Paradise, and that InvestigateWest reported last year that the agency did not report the deaths to the U.S. Department of Justice as required under the Death in Custody Reporting Act, a federal law meant to track in-custody deaths.
The AP report said federal authorities declined to investigate Whiterock’s death, with InvestigateWest reporting that the FBI is responsible for investigating in-custody deaths under BIA’s watch under a memorandum of understanding. The report also said Idaho State Police conducted an inquiry, but that it was unclear why the FBI, which declined to comment, did not investigate; Idaho State Police did not return a message asking for the inquiry’s status.
The lawsuit also seeks the identities of the officers involved. The Associated Press report said it is filed against three BIA police officers, including the two “unknown” officers involved in Whiterock’s killing and their supervisor. The report said Wood added that InvestigateWest’s reporting was critical to filing the complaint, and that Wood said the agency refuses to release a report on Whiterock’s autopsy.
The Associated Press report placed the case within recent scrutiny of BIA police conduct, noting that the agency recently settled a civil rights lawsuit over the death of Arlin Bordeaux, a Northern Cheyenne man, who was killed in Lame Deer on the North Cheyenne Indian Reservation. The report said Bordeaux’s death involved allegations that an officer tased, pepper-sprayed, beat him with a baton and shot him three times in the back, and that federal authorities declined to prosecute the officers involved. The report also said one of those officers, Murrell Deela, was charged in October with sexually assaulting a Northern Cheyenne child and was later banned from the reservation by the Northern Cheyenne tribal government.
In the Associated Press report, Kenneth Bordeaux, Arlin Bordeaux’s father, described the killing as: “They killed my son like a dog.”