Elite American Indian tracking unit targets drug smugglers, narcotics

By Brady McCombs
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
photos by mamta popat / arizona daily star

SELLS — Shadow Wolves officer Sloan Satepauhoodle's patience is wearing thin.

She's been following tracks of four suspected drug runners for nearly two hours beneath a blazing sun and battling a hot, brisk wind that is sweeping dust over footprints, and blowing away broken twigs or burlap fibers that would provide signs. The latest tracks look too dry. They've probably already made it into the nearby village of Topawa, she says.

The lessons her training officers taught her when she began six years ago remain ingrained in her psyche: "Be patient, Sloan, be patient." But, she really wants to make a bust today.

"If I could just find something on the branches," says Satepauhoodle, who started with the Shadow Wolves in July 2001. "That would help me a lot."

Then, her radio buzzes to life with news: One of her fellow Shadow Wolves has found an abandoned truck full of marijuana on the northern edge of the Tohono O'odham Reservation. She claps her hands, smiles and turns around to begin walking back to her truck. Within a half-hour, she's driving north to help unload, weigh and process the bundles.