Here’s the initial story from the Associated Press:

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana tribal leaders, fed up with growing gang violence, have invited the Guardian Angels to open its first chapter on an American Indian reservation.

Curtis Sliwa founded the citizens’ crime watch group, whose members are known by their red berets. He arrives at the Fort Peck Indian Reservation this weekend to help kick off the chapter.

Sliwa calls it a breakthrough that traditionally insular leaders from the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes invited the Guardian Angels to the reservation.

Chauncy Whitewright III, vice chairman of the Wolf Point Community, helped organize the chapter. He says teens on reservations across Montana are at risk and vulnerable to gang recruitment, and the Guardian Angels should help give them an alternative.

Read the expanded version, here.

In it, Whitewright tells Matt Volz of the AP that “there are all kinds of gangs roaming around up here. Our kids are in danger, they’re being influenced, they’re being targeted. It’s going on every day of the week … and they’re busy recruiting.”

And, he adds, “”It’s not just an Indian problem, it’s all our problem, and we’ve got to deal with it before it gets out of control.”

Tags: Assiniboine, buffalo post, Chauncy Whitewright III, Curtis Sliwa, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Guardian Angels, Gwen Florio, Native American news, Sioux, Wolf Point Community