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Navajo Nation residents are worried too few police are covering too much land

There are about 250 Navajo Nation police officers covering an area larger than West Virginia.
Quinn Dombrowski
There are about 250 Navajo Nation police officers covering an area larger than West Virginia.

The Navajo Nation has around 250 police officers for some 27,000 square miles. That’s an area just larger than West Virginia. Throw jurisdictional constraints for county police in the mix and it means many on the reservation can’t depend on a speedy response to crime.

In November of last year, Utah’s Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls Task Force heard tribal residents’ concerns over a lack of law enforcement.

From KZMU in Moab, Justin Higginbottom visited those areas within the Navajo Nation in southern Utah to hear about the issue… and what residents want.