Challenges of the Crow Nation Police

A police officer chased a Native teen to his death. Days later, the police force shut down without explanation.

In 2020, Blossom Old Bull was raising three teenagers on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana. Her youngest son, Braven Glenn, was 17, a good student, dedicated to his basketball team.

That November, Old Bull got a call saying Glenn was killed in a police car chase that resulted in a head-on collision with a train. Desperate for details about the accident, she went to the police station, only to find it had shut down without any notice.  

“The doors were locked. It looked like it wasn’t in operation anymore—like they just upped and left,” Old Bull said. “It's, like, there was a life taken, and you guys just closed everything down without giving the family any answers?”

This kicks off a yearslong search to find out what happened to Glenn and how a police force could disappear overnight without explanation. This week on Reveal, Mother Jones reporter Samantha Michaels’ investigation into the crash is at once an examination of a mother’s journey to uncover the details of her son’s final moments and a sweeping look at a broken system of tribal policing.

This is an update of an episode that originally aired in April 2024. 

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