California sheriff warns of cartels amid accusations of overstepping authority in tribal land cannabis raids
A Northern California sheriff is speaking out after a Native American tribe accused him of overstepping his authority when his office conducted raids on cannabis farms on tribal land last year amid his warning that drug cartel organizations had a "toehold" in the area.
Mendocino County Sheriff Matthew Kendall told Fox News Digital his office has received pleas from tribal members asking for action to combat illegal cannabis farms as well as crime on the reservation. Kendall said most of his office's raids were not on tribal land.
"They're begging me, saying, ‘Please, we’ve got gunshots going on all night, all around us,'" he said. "These people are tribal members as well as people who aren't tribal members. I have to go up and protect these folks. I have to go up and deal with the law. But when I go up there and serve search warrants and whatnot, and next thing you know, I'm getting sued for it."
"It's a very depressed economy, and it's kind of ripe for picking for bad things to come in," he said of the cartels. "We've had a lot of shootings up there, a lot of violence up there. It's not OK, the things that are going on."
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Kendall is named as one of several defendants in a lawsuit that accuses him of conducting raids where he did not have jurisdiction, including one in which an 86-year-old woman's garden was allegedly destroyed.
The Round Valley Indian Tribes and three individual plaintiffs, April James, 48, Eunice Swearinger, 86, and Steve Britton, are asking a federal court to impose an injunction to prevent the sheriff's department from carrying out more raids on their land.
The lawsuit also names Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal, a Humboldt deputy, California Highway Patrol Commissioner Sean Duryee and the counties of Mendocino and Humboldt. The lawsuit alleges that multiple sites on the tribe's reservation were targeted in illegal law enforcement operations.
Lester Marston, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, told Fox News Digital that Kendall tried to enforce his authority on tribal land with the raids.
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"He has had training sessions on what his authority is," Marston said, contending that the sheriff knew he didn't have jurisdiction on the reservation. "And if he didn't know, he's a stupid idiot."
Marston also alleged Kendall failed to disclose in his warrant application to a judge that at least one particular raid would be conducted on tribal land.
Kendall said the valley has around 1 million marijuana plants and that drug cartels have spent a lot of money to establish marijuana-growing operations there. Google Maps satellite images he showed Fox News Digital show what he said are marijuana-growing structures all over the area.
Round Valley, which is surrounded by mountains, is now rife with illicit cannabis and cartel activity as well as murders, Kendall said.
"Right now, I believe drug trafficking organizations have a toehold into that area and other places in my county," Kendall said. "Illegal marijuana cultivations are really dropping because the price is so low. Round Valley is really just ramping up."
The lawsuit centers around the enforcement of Public Law 280, a decades-old statute that gives California and a handful of other states – Alaska, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon and Wisconsin – the authority to enforce criminal laws on tribal land. However, attorneys for the plaintiffs argue that the law doesn't apply to regulatory matters like cannabis, an industry that is regulated in California.
They also contend that Round Valley has the right to set and enforce its own laws. The result of the statute is that federal criminal jurisdiction became extremely limited in most reservations in the six states where it applied, while state jurisdiction was greatly expanded.
"He has a duty to enforce criminal law on the reservation," David Dehnert, another attorney for the plaintiffs, told Fox News Digital. "He has no authority to enforce California regulatory law on the reservation, which is what they were doing."
Dehnert said the tribe has its own marijuana law and that Kendall was aware of it before conducting the raids. He said he sent Kendall a cease-and-desist letter after the raids.
Marston said Kendall was out of his jurisdiction and that what his office did was the same as enforcing California laws in Nevada.
"He knew that the tribe had enacted a tribal law prohibiting the possession, sale and cultivation of cannabis, except for medical purposes," Marston said.
The raids were conducted in July 2024, with the plaintiffs accusing deputies of leaving homes and gardens in shambles.
James, a grandmother who suffers from arthritis and a degenerative disc disorder, makes her own medicinal cream with the cannabis she cultivates to ease the daily pain due to her disorder, the lawsuit said. She had two structures on her trust allotment where she grew cannabis plants, which were destroyed by a tractor by pushing the soil and all the plants and improvements into a pile of dirt and rubbish, the suit alleged.
At Swearinger’s home, sheriff's deputies showed up and destroyed her vegetable garden and tore out her plants, her attorneys said. Her grandchildren were present and watched as heavily armed officers stood guard, the lawsuit said.
Swearinger had a license to grow 10 plants on her property, Marston said.
Britton, a rancher, alleged that deputies destroyed cannabis plants, cultivation structures and equipment, fencing and an electric gate on his property.
In all three raids, authorities failed to produce a valid search warrant, the lawsuit said.
The Round Valley Indian Tribes did not return a Fox News Digital request for comment.
Kendall said he has a duty to drive protection in the county and pushed back on the notion that the raids had a racial component.
"That is a load of bull----," he said. "I'm not putting up with that. That is a flat-out lie."
He noted that he grew up in the Round Valley area of Mendocino County and did not personally decide which properties were raided, only that they targeted the "biggest and the baddest" grow sites.