Some 200 people gathered for today's public forum organized by the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians to discuss a federal act giving sheriff's deputies the power to enforce laws on reservations in Riverside County -- but no sheriff's officials ttended.

The focus of the meeting, held at the Soboba Springs golf club, was
Public Law 280, which was passed in 1953.

Representatives of the Pauma, Pala, La Jolla and other tribes attended,
as well as officials from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Justice
Department and other government entities, but sheriff's deputies stayed away.

Riverside County Sheriff Stan Sniff said earlier he would not attend.

On Thursday, the tribal liaison with the sheriff's Hemet substation, Lt.
Patricia Knudson, clarified the sheriff's position.

``The sheriff doesn't have any misunderstanding about our authority
under the law,'' Knudson said in a telephone interview.

``We have nothing but respect for the tribe and its sovereignty,'' she
added. But she said sheriff's deputies should not be delayed at the entrance to
the reservation to answer questions from Indian officials about where they are
going and why.

``There's a criminal element to delaying a peace officer,'' Knudson
said. ``When we can, we will stop and let them know what we're doing.''

Tribal officials and the sheriff's department have been at odds over the
extent of the access deputies should have to the reservation.

Tribal Chairman Robert Salgado contends that sheriff's deputies have no
right to patrol the reservation and must check in with Indian security before
coming on to reservation lands.

He believes that Public Law 280 allows deputies to enter the reservation
without prior notification only during an emergency and has repeatedly said
the sheriff's attitude harks back to ``the 1800s when the cavalry came.

``White man speak with forked tongue,'' Salgado said earlier this month
at a news conference, just weeks after the sheriff and the chairman signed an
agreement of cooperation.

Salgado said at today's forum: ``Every time we stand up for our rights,
we're being condemned for it.''

Carole Goldberg, a UCLA law professor who wrote a book on Public Law
280, told the forum: ``It's an issue of civil liberties and civil rights.'' She described the reservation as ``the territory of a sovereign nation.''

Sniff has said the Soboba tribe has a ``history of violence and a
propensity to violence.'' He says violent crime at the reservation is as much
as three times what it is in neighboring communities, such as San Jacinto and
Hemet.

Last spring, three tribal members were killed in gun battles with
deputies in less than a week. Suspects allegedly used military-style assault
weapons and shot at a sheriff's helicopter.

Earlier this month, Sniff urged the National Indian Gaming Commission to
suspend the casino license for the Soboba, who operate the Soboba Casino at
the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains.

The commission on Thursday sent representatives to the casino on what
they called a routine inspection.

At today's forum, Michael Malone, 19, a member of the Torres-Martinez
tribe, said that over the weekend, he was harassed by deputies who mistook him
for a member of the Soboba tribe.

He said a stun gun was pointed at him during the encounter in Temecula,
and one deputy allegedly said, ``Yee-haw, boys, we caught us an Injun.''