Calif. tribal chairman denounces sheriff's deputies

A man and woman were killed late Monday in a shootout with Riverside County sheriff's deputies on the Soboba Indian Reservation on the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains, about 85 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

Two sons of a former tribal chairwoman have also been killed by deputies in recent years, including one who was shot May 8 after firing at deputies with an assault rifle.

Tribal Chairman Robert Salgado said Wednesday that deputies did not treat the tribe as a sovereign nation and withheld information from the tribe before and after the shootings.

"Right now they've got their own plan, and they use us as a practice area -they come out and blow people away," Salgado said. "If they've got a felon, they've got parole officers and ways of taking out the problem. You don't come in here and bring in the whole army."

He also criticized the deputy-enforced lockdown of the reservation after the shootings.

"We were hostage in our own homes, our own territory," Salgado said.

Officials with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department declined to comment on the specific allegations Salgado made Wednesday. But they say they have communicated as much as possible with tribal leaders, although the ongoing investigation into the shootings requires some information to be withheld.

The department identified the second person killed in Monday's shootout as Angelica Lopez, 30, of San Jacinto. Lopez was also known as Tamara Angela Hurtado, Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez said. He didn't know if Lopez was a tribal member or what her relation was to the other dead person, Joseph Arres, 36.

The two were killed during a gunbattle that began when deputies responded to reports that the suspects were firing at a checkpoint at the reservation's main entrance. Five deputies, four SWAT officers and a helicopter were involved in a pursuit and shootout miles inside the reservation. Two assault-style weapons were recovered at the scene, Gutierrez said.