Calif. tribe, police reach truce after shootout

Gun violence left two dead, distrust between tribe and department

Ron Artest disagrees with backlash against Tiger

Georgetown students say campus satire is racist

White American majority to end by mid-century

Jesse Jackson grades Obama, weighs in on Tiger Woods

Tiger voted athlete of the decade

Slideshow

Breaking Barriers: U.S. minority leaders
From the first Hispanic governor (in 1853) to the first African-American to be elected president, learn about how ethnic barriers have been broken in the United States through the years.

more photos

Video: Race & ethnicity

More video

CNBC TV

Census 2010 outreach targets minorities
Dec. 16: Since the U.S. census has historically undercounted minorities, African American leaders met with top census officials in Washington on Wednesday to press for the means to ensure a more accurate count. NBC's John Yang reports.

NYTimes' 'of color' site under scrutiny

‘MTP’ reflects on MLK’s Nobel

Unemployment hits African Americans hardest

Meet Tiana, Disney’s first black princess

Slideshow

Martin Luther King Jr.
See the civil rights leader in speeches and marches from Alabama to Washington.

more photos

Black history quiz

AP	Take our video quiz and test your knowledge of black history

updated 9:34 p.m. ET July 7, 2008

SAN JACINTO, Calif. - Leaders of the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians and the Riverside County Sheriff's Department signed a federal mediation agreement Monday designed to improve communication and ease tension between them.

The agreement, brokered by the U.S. Department of Justice's community relations service, comes after three people were killed on the reservation in shootouts with deputies.

The most recent shootings in May led Tribal Chairman Robert Salgado to accuse deputies of coming to the reservation to "blow people away." He referred to the local sheriff's station commander as "General Custer."

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

The agreement calls for the tribe and deputies to designate emergency contact numbers and to establish a reverse 911 system so police can notify residents of emergencies.

The tribe will train deputies on Soboba history and culture, participate in the Sheriff Department's citizen academy and post visible street numbers on their homes.

On May 13, deputies killed a man and woman after the pair opened fire with assault rifles on a tribal guard station.

Click for related content

Deputies kill 2 in Indian reservation violence

The week before, deputies killed a man who opened fire on them on the reservation. That man's brother died in a gunfight with deputies in nearby Valle Vista in 2002. They were sons of a former tribal chairwoman.

The federal agreement is voluntary and does not admit wrongdoing by any party.