A surge of 20 additional police officers fighting lawlessness on Standing Rock Sioux Reservation has been partly deployed to a reservation deep in South Dakota, because law and order there reached a crisis point in recent weeks.

The surge, "Dakota Operation Peacekeeper," brought relative calm and quiet to Standing Rock this summer.

The operation is now in its fourth month and has resulted in more than 1,000 arrests for juvenile offenses, drugs, crimes against children and domestic violence.

Pat Ragsdale, deputy director of justice for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said the surge on Standing Rock will be brought back to full force, but the situation down on Pine Ridge required immediate intervention.

A physical fight among tribal police officers and tribal council members - at, of all places, the Boys and Girls Club on Pine Ridge, Ragsdale said - caused a massive walk-off of police and the suspension of some officers.

Ragsdale said 30 officers walked off the job after the incident and it's not clear when or how many will return.

"We did what we needed to do," Ragsdale said. "We have two big operations going on."

Elmer Four Dance, BIA special agent for the surge project, said six surge police from Standing Rock were sent to Pine Ridge, the eighth largest and among the poorest of reservations in the country.

"They averted a complete breakdown in public safety," Four Dance said. The six officers were to be returned to Standing Rock this weekend.

Four Dance said he still has around 14 surge officers from the BIA and the National Park Service at Standing Rock who support 15 tribal police. He said he's also advertising for two more BIA officers to work in each of the two schools.

He said he needs 48 officers at Standing Rock to adequately cover all shifts 24-7.

The quiet on Standing Rock is precarious.

Last week, a woman being taken into custody at the surge command center in McLaughlin, S.D., on the reservation, managed to steal a tribal police car from the command center and drive it a short distance before crashing it into a pole, totaling the vehicle.

McLaughlin Mayor Arnold Schott said officers are enforcing a new 11 p.m. curfew in town, getting kids off the streets and out of the alleys.

"A lot of people are being picked up. They're really down on drugs and drunks," he said.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND, chairs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that held a recent hearing on Operation Peacekeeper in Fort Yates.

Dorgan said while it appears the surge is working, the BIA is still not using a $24 million appropriation for more law enforcement officers.

"He (Ragsdale) has the money to do what's necessary … instead of shifting officers around. He's shortchanged a very serious situation at Standing Rock," Dorgan said.

Ragsdale said the funding is stuck in the system, but Dorgan says that's not the case.

Meantime, Ragsdale said he's robbing Peter to pay Paul, by using BIA cops from other reservations at Standing Rock and now at Pine Ridge and paying their room and board.

Ragsdale said he intends to continue the surge on Standing Rock as long as possible and Schott said he's been told it'll extend possibly through October.

"Everything's going good here," Schott said.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 1-888-303-5511, or lauren@westriv.com.)