MURRIETA – Riverside County Sheriff Stanley Sniff, citing the Soboba band's “propensity to violence” and apparent reluctance to allow deputies on tribal land, said Tuesday that the tribe should have its gaming license pulled.

Sniff told the county Board of Supervisors that he sent a letter Monday to the National Indian Gaming Commission, requesting that it suspend the gaming license for the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians.

“My recommendation was for them to suspend the license unless and until the sheriff's department has free and unrestricted access” to the reservation, Sniff said.

“This reservation has a long history of violence and a propensity to violence ... far above the others,” the sheriff told the board.

Tribal spokesman Mike Hiles said Soboba officials were working on a response to the sheriff's comments.

Sniff said deputies were being stopped at a guard shack, leaving them unable to serve warrants or do routine patrols.

Tension between tribal members and law enforcement has been building in the wake of three recent shooting deaths of Soboba Indians by sheriff's deputies on tribal land.

A series of meetings, mediated by officials with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, resulted less than a month ago in an agreement to work together. The agreement included provisions for deputies to get cultural sensitivity training and for the sheriff to appoint a lieutenant as a liaison to the tribe.

The agreement also called for tribal members to put addresses on their homes to make it easier for deputies to locate people.

Since the agreement was signed July 2, Sniff said the only serious problem had been guards slowing down sheriff's deputies trying to serve a warrant.

Sniff warned that anyone obstructing deputies “can be arrested for that, booked and charged.”

A forum is scheduled for Aug. 11, during which a discussion is to take place about the issues surrounding Public Law 280, which turned over law enforcement duties to local governments in 1953.

Sniff said last week that he understood 280 to give sheriff's deputies unrestricted access to the reservation. Permission from the tribe is not necessary to enter at any time, he said.