AKWESASNE – The St. Regis Mohawk Tribal police will be able to continue to patrol northern Bombay, sometimes called the Bombay Triangle or the Akwesasne Triangle, an area which sits on the …
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AKWESASNE – The St. Regis Mohawk Tribal police will be able to continue to patrol northern Bombay, sometimes called the Bombay Triangle or the Akwesasne Triangle, an area which sits on the northeastern corner of St. Lawrence County.
Legislation sponsored by Assemblyman Billy Jones and Senator Betty Little that would allow Tribal Police to continue to patrol and make arrests in the Triangle was signed into law Monday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The area encompasses more than 2,000 acres of land just south of the Akwesasne Mohawk reservation between Massena and Malone. The triangle abuts the upper northeastern corner of St. Lawrence County, and covers parts of state routes 37 and 37C.
Jones presides over a district which covers the northeastern portion of the North Country, including the towns of Brasher, Lawrence and Piercefield in St. Lawrence County.
“This law provides for the authority of the tribal police to continue their effective and important law enforcement in the Bombay Triangle,” Little in a news release.
Little had sponsored a law more than a decade ago that provided the superintendent of state police authority to certify members of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Police Department with state-recognized police officer powers on reservation lands.
Courts had held that, although regularly patrolled by state-certified St. Regis tribal officers, the grant of police authority to the St. Regis officers did not include the triangular-shaped piece of property, known as the Bombay Triangle or the Akwesasne Triangle.
Little sponsored a law in 2015 that authorized the tribal police to patrol and make arrests in north Bombay.
That law was due to expire later this year.
This newly enacted, which takes effect immediately, eliminates the sunset provision.