Toughest policing job in Indian country?

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Special Constable Mike Blood has one of the toughest policing jobs in Indian Country.

While allegations of racism, cruelty and meanness by non-Native police towards members of the Blood Indian band have captured headlines for months in the province's daily and weekly newspapers, he's been patrolling the reserve.

Blood was one of the first to testify at the inquiry by Judge Carl Rolf into relations between Bloods and southern Alberta RCMP.

Members of the tribe ran from the Lethbridge-area reserve to Edmonton in June 1988, successfully petitioning Premier Don Getty to call the $2-million public inquiry.

Expected to wrap up this spring, the inquiry has looked into RCMP investigations of the deaths of several Blood Reserve members.

Const. Blood is one of two Native officers in the Cardston RCMP detachment, which borders the 355,000-acre Treaty 7 reserve, formally established in 1883.

It's a mixed blessing, but the 38-yar-old Blood man was born and raised on the reserve.

>From family members he draws his support. But he is often under fire or shunned by others.

"It's quite hectic for Native specials on their own reserves. You get really attacked," said Blood during a recent telephone interview.

"I've been attacked in public a lot of times verbally and threatened.

"I'm just doing my job," he says. "I still have a lot of friends here."

" You learn how to turn the other cheek and just ignore it. If I charge one person, the whole family won't talk to me and I get attacked verbally in public," he says.

"If I talk back, I'm letting them get to me."

He admits he'd prefer to be working on another reserve where he doesn't have any relatives.

A special constable at Cardston since Dec. 1984, Blood does enjoy some aspects of his job like meeting people, especially children in the reserve's three schools and band elders.

The special constable program does help break down barriers between Natives and non-Natives, he says. At the moment he's teaching some non-Native officers the Blackfoot language.

And despite the pressures of policing, Blood hasn't had enough -- he hopes to become a regular constable in the force in the near future.