Louis St. Germaine, Senior Criminal Investigator, Navajo Nation

Video Transcript

We see a lot of assaults. Homicides are quite frequent too. And sexual abuse, practically every day some new case shows up.

In cases of homicide we work hand-in-hand with the FBI. We try to respect one another’s functions.

And even when we’re doing interrogations in this particular office here you’ll see an agent sitting here, I’ll be sitting here, and you know we’ll be doing an interrogation. And the languages would just blend back and forth depending on who it is. They’ll be asking questions in English and I might follow up in my native language. Whatever works. And if you work with people long enough you establish a dynamic that works for you.

With Navajo Nation investigators, we’re here pretty much for a long time. So we’re quite familiar with the area, the crime, and the people, essentially. And the FBI is quite well skilled in doing investigations. So we combine both our skill-sets and that expedites cases quite well.

I’ve been in this business about, almost 30 years. You might say I have an interest here because I live here and I have relatives that live here. And we have to do the job no matter how short-staffed we are. We have to keep going at it.