WILLISTON -- A permanent Federal Bureau of Investigation office here will likely be operational later this year, the agency announced Thursday.
The office will be built into the Badlands Town Center, a complex under development in Williston that includes a new post office and other retail space. Developer Triland Holdings LLC in Williston plans to break ground in May and complete the 6,000-square-foot office by September, according to a press release from the office of Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.
As the oil boom attracted workers and new development -- leading to rapid population increases -- criminals, too, began to see opportunities. Federal investigators in recent years have gone after large and complex cases, like those of human and drug trafficking. Amplifying the issue is overrun and often novice local law enforcement, agencies too busy responding to calls to dive deep into investigations and the struggle to recruit and keep talent.
U.S. Attorney for North Dakota Tim Purdon said having the office at the “ground zero of the oil boom” will improve coordination between the FBI, the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation and local law enforcement.
“Having these guys working and living in the community, it will certainly improve just because of the fact that they’re there,” he said.
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Previously, the FBI would send agents to western North Dakota temporarily, sometimes just for two-week assignments
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., who with Hoeven has pushed for a permanent FBI office, said she’s happy the satellite location will bring agents closer to the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation compared to where they are now, across the Montana border in Sidney, a fellow, albeit smaller, boomtown.
“Having these enforcement agents all the way in Sidney took them even further away from the work that needs to be done in Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara (nation),” she said.
The FBI investigates major crimes on the reservation.
Heitkamp doesn’t see this as the end-all solution to fighting major crimes in the Oil Patch.
She said she heard so far there will be two agents based there, but “it’s gonna depend on what we see.”
