>> narrator: tonight-- a special investigation from "frontline" and the wall street journal. >> tre were allegations of drug misuse, stealing, sexual abuse and inappropriate behavior. >> narrator: decades of dysfunction inside the federal agency thaprovides health care to native americans. >> the indian health service ey just seem impervious improvement and they could not get it right. >>decause of the absolute n to fill positions we don't really get the best of the best. >> narrator: and the case of a governnt pediatrician moved from reservation to reservation... >> my concerns was that this man was sexually using children. >> narrator: despite the warnings >> there was obviously a lot of people that knew something wasin

g on and they didn't do anything. >> narrator: tonight-- the indian hselth ice and the failure to stop decades of abuse. >> what kind of cover up is this? this involves a lot of people in a lot of high places. >> narrator: "predator on the reservation". >> frontline is made psible by contributions to your pbs thank you.om viewers like you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. john d. and catherine ded by the macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. the ford foundation: working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. additional support is ovided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. the john and helen gssner family trust. supporting trustworthy spires.ism that informs and the heising-simons foundation: unlocking knowledge,

opportunity, and possibilities. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. and additional support from tom stair and lucy caldwell-stair. >> narrator: dr. stanley patrick weber was a pediatrician working for the indian health service.

>> narrator: his patients were native american children. >> narrator: allegationsr. followedeber from reservation to reservation. ♪

(sirens blaring in distance) (car horns honking) >> narrator: "wall street journal" reporters christopher weaver and dan frosch have been on the trail of dr. stanley patrick weber and the government ancy he worked for, thindian health service. >> weaver: starting about two years ago, we got interested in a federal agency called the indian health servic their hospitals have had an ugly track record in the last few years. they were missing diagnoses, patients were dying for no reason. and we found that the agency had failed for many years to take in hand a series of structural problems that had basically render these hospitals incapable of meeting their regulatory requirements. we found a bunch of doctors with troubled track records befored they joie ihs or once they got there. in some cases, people who had, who had been convicted of crimes

prioto their service with th ihs. >> and the ihs hired them anyway? >> wear: the ihs hired them anyway. >> frosch: we began looking into troubled doctors that had got in trouble during the course of their careers at ihs. and one of those doctors was a guy by the name of stanley patrick weber. >> weaver:pon finishing the residency, he immediately joined the indian health service.ti he was sed from '86 to '89 at a hospital in oklahoma, ada, oklahoma, that the ihs ran at that time. he was a pediatrician there. >> and have we tried to reach him? >> weaver: yes. >> and? >> weaver: and he hasn't responded. >> frosch: this doctor being accused sexual assault by patients. and we thought that warranted a broader look, both at dr. weber, but also at sort of wideread practice of hiring doctors who, who would get into trouble. >> weaver: we thought, "we got to find out, did the ihs know? did anybody have any inkling

that there might be an issue with this doctor?" ♪ >> narrator: in 1992, dr. weber arrived in the little town of browning, montana, part of the blackfeet indian reservation. ♪ >> frosch: blackfeet reservation is about 2,300 square miles. it butts up against canada. this stunningly beautiful ace. like a lot of indian reservations, there's high poverty rates, high rates ofab alcoholism, es, domestic abuse, et cetera. r and so this lly one of the most far-flung places that you coulgo if you were a doctor. ♪ r >> narrator: tervation's only hospital was run by the ihs, which struggled to find doctors.oi mary ellen lafrose was the hospital's c.e.o. at the time. >> we had been without a, a pediatrician for a while.

soere comes dr. weber. and all i could think of is, "he looks comfortable, huh?" he looked young. and just seemed like he was, would be a good fit for us. >> narrator: one of the first things dr. weber did was help expand the hospital's uth outreach programs. >> they were talking about, "w want to do some things in the school. you know, we have some programs that would blend really well with middle school." i just thought, "wow, here's something that the hospital can offer the community. we'll put dr. weber out there in the community." ♪ >> narrator: almosfrom the start, concerns began to emerge. tim davis is the chairman of the blackfeet tribe.se >> running wis my indian name. >> narrator: but in 1992, he worked in the hospital's facilities department. >> that green house, 105 is it? that's the one weber was in.

>> narrator: part of his job was to inspect government-owned houses, including the one where dr. weber lived alone. >> so what we did, each annual walk-through, we'd come through each house, and i'd do the inspection of the roof, the floors, the walls, the windows,e the doors, andgo through the basement, check out for any leaks. when i went downstairs was when i wakind of, like, floored, because of what i saw there as a... to me, a signal of something that wasn't right. the gentleman had a lot of food items, candy, pop, cookies, and then toys, games, videos, gameso that boys d play with. i mean, it wasn't just a small, it was stacks of stuff. i mean, they werstacked. i mean, i'm a dad, i got boys, i got eight boys, and, i mean, i buy my kids stuff, but it's not stacked up in the basement like, like that was. you know, and that, to me, siroaled there's something wng with this guy. >> narrator: davis sayhe shared his concerns with mary

ellen lafromboise, who at the time didn't see it as cause for alarm. ♪ ♪ >> the comments that were coming from maintenance about how there's a lot of traffic of young people in and out of dr.be s, um, quarters. and i think somebody had asked him about it, why there were so manyoung people. "oh, they, we just like to get together, you know, to have pizza or pop." you know, things tt kids like to do. he seemed to be genuinely interested in our young people.

he came with the idea of having a, a teen clinic area, you know, by having evening clinics, being more user-friendly to the community. ♪ >> narrator: others at the hospital were suspicious of dr. weber's inteions. psychologist dan foster and hise wife, becky, a mentath specialist, knew some of dr. weber's patients. they became increasingly uncomfortable with his after-hours clinic. >> normally, if you bring your parent is with them.ian, a or if a social worker brings aia child to a pediatr the social worker is with them, an adult is with them. but these boys were going in there alone. ♪ >> it was pre-pubesct, adolescent males. most of them teenagers, 12 to 15 years old. all of them vulnerable, high-risk.

many of whom we already had suspicions that they'd been sexually molested or, or abused. and so that, that was a red flag. and then later, one of ouran colleagues camtold me he had real concerns regarding this doctor's bringing a couch into eping young males in therehe was after hours, when most of the staff had gone home. ♪ >> narrator: while dr. weber was on the blackfeet reservation, no child is known to have come forward with a specificus allegation of but becky foster remembered one ncboy who she'd later had ns about-- joe four horns. he's now in prison for bank robbery, but spoke to reporter dan frosch by phone. ♪

♪ s >> narrator: js he never told anyone at the time what was happening during his visits with dr. weber. but on the reservation, the owing. and suspicions were >> he took the kids to great falls shopng, he took them to

basketball tournaments when our kids would qualify. to us, that was getting th community used to seeing him with these kids and thear implication oftal permission. >> this is grooming behavior. so you take kids who are high-risk, who are from difficult family circumstances, and who are poor. and you offer them new clothes,o and you offer them f and you offer them, you know, a home where the lights are on all the time, a child will gravitate toward that. ♪ >> narrator: dan foster says he decided to confront dr. weber. >> i had these concerns, and i wanted him to know that i was bringing these concerns forward. my hope was that if he weree doing something,uld stop. and if he weren't, he would be warned and would modify his behavior accordingly. but, but he did not. >> frosch: how did he respond to you? >> he was polite, he assured meo

thatd not harm a child, he was respectful. and then i just didn't see him after that. ♪ ♪

♪ n rator: finally, after years of suspicion and rumor, there was an incident that couldn't be ignored, involving a boy who'd been sleeping at the doctor's house. >> there was an incident reported to me wre a family member to a kid, you know, went over there and wanted to fight him and ended up smashing him in, smashing him in the face, breang his glasses. kind of black eye. i just thought, "you know, he's just going to be, he's going to be a problem." and then, you know, get with

the other staff, and they were,u like, "yeah,now, something's going on." ♪ >> narrator: lafromboise reached official, who summonedp ihs hospital's acting clinical director, randy rottenbiller, to his office in billings. ncerned that you have ai'm pedophile on your staff, and, and you need to get rid of him." ♪ and so i just said, "okay, i've got to dl with this task." ♪ the first thing i did when i got back to browning wascalled him and asked him to meet me in my office. and i said, "well, i've been told that you need to leave." and he said that he had had some threats made against him, and he was worried about his life, and

he was getting ready to leave browning anyway. and i think he packed up and left the next day. ♪ i guess the better response would be, launch an investigation. and, and yet the ihs response i typically to sweepder the rug, or, you know, or pass it on to some other place. ♪ >> narrator: the ihs would transfer dr. weber to its hospital on the pine ridge reservation in south dakota. ♪ t >> weaver: pine ridge indian reservation is notoriously one of the poorest places in the united states. the public health situation is dire; life expectancy is amonges the very lowt in the country.♪ ♪

♪ >> narrator: but within months, a parent was already complaining that dr. weber had inappropriately examined a child. the ihs took him off clinical duties as federal authorities looked into it. they didn't substantiate the complaint, and dr. weber went back to work. interactions with boys continued to raise suspicions. kelly brewer was a nurse who lived across the street from him. >> the tan house straight ahead, that was dr. weber's house. and then back here was where dr. weber's garden used be.

like, all this area here, where it's kind of mulched, that was all garden. he hired kids to work in it all the time, and they were always young native american boys, ten-ish to 12-ish in age. >> narrator: the kids coming and going would earn a nickname around the reservation. ♪ >> narrator: one of the so-called weber boys was named

paul. like joe four horns in montana, he is now in prison serving time for assault. (thunderumbling) (noise buzzing on phone line) >> narrator: paul says that in exchange for sexual favors, weber would give him money or prescripon drugs. like the other boys, he kept his encounters a secret, year after year.

♪ >> narrator: one night, he says, he pushed back. ♪ ♪

(woman talking on police radio)r >>tor: tribal police officer dan hudspeth was called to the scene. >> call came in, there was an assault. we chased e suspect down, located him not too far from the ihs housing. we took him into custody, sentm to juvenile detention. >> narrato as hudspeth took paul to juvenile detention, he asked him what was going on. >> narrator: the authorities now had a firsthand allegation of

ongoing sexual ase by weber. t on the reservation, the tribal authorities don't have jurisdiction over non-indians. a officer hudspeth could do legations to federals investigators. >> we forward it on to the o bureindian affairs, criminal investigations, but i'm not quite sure how they ran with it. all i do know is, personally, i took... i made sure my, my kids weren't seen anymore by that pediatrician. >> narrator: the bureau of indian affairs declined to comment, and paul says no one from the federal government foowed up with him. he kept quiet about what had happened after that. at the ihs hospital, one of wber's fellow pediatricia developing his own concerns. >> i'd hear him riffing through my charts cherry-picking the, the cute teenage boys. t

soat point, i started having some suspicions about didn't like seeing babies, didn't like seeing toddlers, didn'tike seeing girls, didn't like seeing teenage girls. so, so just professionally, i just kept butting heads with this guy. but i couldn't get anybody onl the mediaff to listen to me.

♪ >> narrator: in november 2006, paul did something that made it harder to look the other way. he wouldn't discuss the details over the prison phone line, but he had one of his friends on t reservation recount what happened. henry red cloud says he, paul,d other friend were out drinking and looking for trouble and en ran out of money. >> all of a sudden, you know, paul is, like, "you know, man," he was, like, "let's just go over to (bleep) doctor's house, man, that (bleep) (inaudible), man." i can't remember if he was (bleep) calling him a child molester or something like that. i can't remember, but i think i heard something like that. paul had it out for weber. maybe it was just because ofli their little deas. and i thought it was (bleep) up, too, 'cause he was my doctor and

(bleep). i knew of several people that used to go and getoney from him. w so we went up there,parked. as soon as he opened the door, i just kicked the door. he staggered back, and he dropped, and then i kicked him a few times, hit him a few times, and threw him into the kitchen area. and then he was fumbling around, and he started walking towards the back into that bathroom, and dr. weber was sitting there looking at himself in the mirror. his eyes were (bleeped) up, bloody mouth, bloody nose. he was pretty well done for, said, "you better get that money," so he pulled out a couple hund. and then he was, like, "here, here, here, here you go, take it, take it." he said, "just don't kill me." ♪ m >> narrator: dr. webe his

way to the ihs hospital. bill pourier, the hospital's c.e.o., says security guards called him and said one of his doctors had been assaulted. >> so i went up there. a gurney in the, in the on a, emergency room. he looked rather beaten and traumatized and so forth. so i asked him, "what's going on here?" i said, "who did this to you?" he wouldn't tell me. he wouldn't say nothing.ul >> weaver: he 't say anything at all? >> he wouldn't say nothing. and it was frustrating. >> narrator: pourier says that tohe reported what happene ihs's regional headquarters, but that h bosses never pursued the matter, and he was afraid to take it any further. >> i probably would have been suspended, maybe even fired. you know, pretty much, they can do what they want with you. >> when he waseaten to the point of needing skull x-rays, and no charges were fid for

beating up a commissioned officer on federal grounds to the point where he needed skull films, i thought, "what on earth is going on? what kind of cover-up is this?" i mean, this involves a lot of people in a lot of high places. ♪ >> narrator: outraged, dr. butterbrodt would become increasingly fixated on expong dr. weber. >> i think a lot of people thought i was overreacting.

and people would say to me, "you don't have any real evidence and that was always the indian health service line, too. you know, "we've looked at the data bank, there's no complaints on him. he's clean." ♪ and i learned that there was a psychogist who had worked with him at browning, and was aware of his aivities 95, when he came here.prior to >> narrator: it was dan and becky foster, who'd had concerns about weber's havior on the blackfeet reservation. >> frosch: when mark is telling you guysbasically saying, that crimes have been committed how did that make you gu feel? >> well, i think it... i think we just... so you get to be just so angry and frustrated and then just kindf numb.

because part of what happens isl that you can seef these young people being hurt and knowing that you've tried to do everything that you could do within the bounds of what's available to you, and then nothing happens. it says to me as a... indian woman, as a mother, is that your kids don't matter. >> i felt deeply hurt and very angry. the anger was because i felt it was preventable. >> narrator: in fact, years earlier, dan fosr had heard weber was working at pine ridge and contacted ihs leaders the to warn them. >> frosch: would you have said, in as explicit terms, "i'm worried this guys is a pedophile"? >> yes. oh, i was clear. my concerns was that this man was sexually using children.

♪ >> narrator: after the encounter, dr. butterbrodt was more determinethan ever that weber had to go. he complained to state medical boards and officials at the ihs. and he believed he'd finally found proof in a list ofer patients wad ordered tests on. >> so i looked at these charts, and therweren't any girls. they were all boys. on this page, there are 14 patients, and the's one female. one out of 14. i kept asking myself, "why would a pediatrician zero in oni a popu consisting of normal-weight boys and teenage boys?" it just seemed incomprehensible to me. ♪

>> narrator: dr. weber was suspended while the allegationss were igated. >> weaver: when dr. weber was suspended by the indian health service over allegations of misconduct i2009, one of the officials who was sent to look into this was this g ron keats. >> narrator: keats-- who was one of weber's superio at the time-- would soon leave the ihs under a cloud himself, and later be convicted of possession of child pornography. >> weaver: so effectively, they sent a guy who would go on to be arrested a year later of trficking in child porn to investigate suspicions that their pediatrician could be a pedophile. >> narrator: keats did not respond to requests for commen weber was ultimately cleared and went back to work, according to bill pourier. >>he higher-ups, i guess, basically told me there was... they couldn't find one reason to keep him on suspension. there was no facts or evidence to support what happened and so forth, and that's pretty much m what they ga the answer they gave me.

so we just... directed me to put him back to work. >> weaver: at that time, did you believe that dr. weber was, you know, potentially engad in some kind of misconduct towards children? >> kind of felt that there could possibly be something going on here, 'cause i startedn looking at every but i just never got nothing. i was frustrated, as well. >> narrator: in the summer of 2010, at the pine ridge hospital, dr. weber and dr. butterbrodt would clash over the care of a patient. dr. weber claimed he was threatened. >> within an hour, i'm sitting in the office of the acting clinical director in pine ridge. and finally, i said something really out of line. i id, "if i'd wanted to intimidate him, i would have cut his nuts off with a rusty knife." and that remark went right to washington. a i was branded iolent, out-of-control person, and within a few weeks was traveling

up to belcourt, north dakota, leaving my life and my career and family, everything. >> narrator: the ihs sent dr. butterbrodt to one of its most remote outposts, 575 miles away, on the canadian border. >> the nurses came up to me and said, "now you know why we don't ok what they've done to you." i was ordered to leave. i was chased off by pedophile and the people who chose him over me. ♪ >> narrator: months later, a new ihs chief medical officerhe arrived inegion. >> you, know, it just seemed like the perfect storm of issuef that kinrose. >> narrator: rod cuny determined that dr. butterbro had been unfairly punished.

>> you know, i credit mark butterbrodt, because he, i mean, he laid his career on the line in dng what he needed to do. really, he did the right things, and, you know, and he's a direct result of people fearing would happen, what might happen to you. i mean, it happened to him, and that's why people didn't come forward like he did. and that's sad that that attitude has to prevail, but, you know, people are scared to come forward. >> narrator: many the officials who ran ihs during the years dr. weber was there declined to be interviewed. but reporter chris weaver tracked down bob mcswain. >> weaver: m mcswain? >> yes. >> weave hi, i'm chris weaver. >> narrator: he worked at the ihs for more than 40 years,ts including two sts director. mcswain conceded the agency has long tolerated problem doctors like weber. >> it goes back to the, the very

heart of, they needed hisskillsd him around to, to maintain his, his contribution. it's fair to say that becae of the, the absolute need to fill positions, we don't really get the best of the best. we get someone who, um... they have a degree. (chuckles) they're licensed, and our requirement on licsing is at least licensed in one state in the system. there's a strange tolerance level, that, "oh, okay, the guy's a, a womanizer, or a guy's this, and a guy's that. but he comes in to see patients," okay? and the, the antithesis is, "what would it be if he didn't come in?

who's going to see the patients?" ♪ >> i'm going to call the hearing to order. this is a hearing of the indian affairs committee. >> narrator: in 2010, the dyunction at the ihs got attention in washingtonn at the senate'an affairs committee. senator byron dorgan was chairman at the time. >> we got a couple of employees here that are trouble. and not only does the employee not get disciplined, but the employee gets a bonus. weound people who were transferred from one to the other, despite the fact that drthere were allegations o misuse, stealing, sexual abuse, inappropriate behavior, a whole series of things that would, in almost every other circumstanc in life, require you to discharge someone, fire someone. instead, the indian health service moves them, they transfer them, they move them to the next service unit. and, "let's have somebody else ncve with the, the incompe and the mistakes." this system is not working.

this isn't worki. we tried to browbeat the ihs in every way we knew how, to getht them to stra out. and they just seemed impervious to improvement, and they could not get it right. ♪ >> narrator: in the case of dr. weber, warnings continued to go unheeded for years. in 2011, one of them reached wehnona stabler, then the c.e.o. of the pine ridge hospital. she says a caller complained about dr. weber but didn't provide her any specifics. the matter never went anywhere. stabler later received a gift of $5,000 from dr. weber and would plead guilty to not reporting it on a government ethics form. she didn't respondquests for comment. then, one day in 2015, it all started to unravel. a tribal prosecutor recalledrk

something dr. utterbrodt had told her years before. >> mark and i are really good friends. i've known him since i whi in school. so he was frustrated, i toremember, one day, and h me about dr. weber and how he was molesting kids. ♪ i was driving to work, and there was snow on the ground when i was thinking about the case. and i was, like, "i wonder if the attorney general even heard about this." >> she just asked, "there's some leads that i have on this. can i start looking into this and seeing what i can find?" so i said, "absolutely.ou ifan find something, let's track it down, and we'll take that information forward." >> narrator: as inhe past, it was hard to get anyone to talk. >> weber's alleged victims are all boys. so, you know, it's even that much harder to get a, a boy or a man to speak about sexual abuse so i think trust ig thing.

>> we felt it was a priority to at least identify a potential victim, so that it wouldn't be dismissed anymore, so that it would be taken seriously, and a full investigation would happen. ♪ >> narrator: they began to look into the assault on dr. weber ai decade e. >> i learned that he was beat up really bad. that he was so beaten th he had to get mris done. wh i think people should'v noticed was that he didn't press any charges on anybody. >> and those who circumstances just looked, um, odd. about that.omething not right >> and i did go looking for that police report, 'cause if he s beat up so bad, you know, the ambulances should have came, police officers should've came but... i couldn't find ything. >> narrator: after months of searching, she found aoman who said she knew the boys who'd done it.

>> but she didn't give me much detail. she just said, "yeah, they came to me that night after they beat up dr. weber." she gave me the name of one of them. and i was, like, "all right, fine, i have this one name to go on." we found out he was in prison, state prison. >> narrator: it was paul. h by then late 20s. >> and after we received thatin that potential victim' to, the bureau of indian affairs. ♪ >> narrator: federal investigators followed the trail the tribal authorities had

uncovered. it started with paul's name and led to dr. weber's door. >> narrator: the years

accusations had finally caught up with dr. weber. ♪ federal prosecutors would charge him with the abuse of four boys on pine ridge and two on the blackfeet reservation in montana. ♪ in september 2018, more than two decades after he was forced off

the blackfeet reservation, dr. weber arrived at the courthouse in great falls, montana, to stand trial. wi the first ess was joe four horns. now 35 years old. >> frosch: in walks joe, and he is this muscle-bound guy, tattoos on his face, shackled, very tough-looking guy. the prosecutor, in her opening statement, she puts up a picture of joe four horns when he was about ten or 11 years old, right arnd the time that he woul have been abused by dr. weber.nt she the jury to remember this little boy. >> narrator: recording was not allowed in the crt; this is the trial testimony voiced by actors. >> can i call you joe? >> yeah. >> frosch: joe answers thees ons. it's clear he does not want to be on the stand. h >> dever kiss you?

>> yeah. >> whereid he kiss you? >> the lips, my face, my neck, and my chest. >> did he touch any other part of your body with his hand? >> frosch: dr. weber iing there, emotionless... >> did you ever touch his penis? >> frosch: placid... >> yeah, yes. >> why did you do that? >> frosch: he looks more. like the little boy on the screen than he does the hardened felon that is sitting there.ki he's t about the most humiliating thing that he could ever imagine talking about. he breaks down crying. ♪ >> narrator: dr. weber's attorneyuestioned why joe had never spoken up before. >> frosch: joe reacts in a way that undercuts the defense's entire sort of line ofg.

question >> right now, i don't want to talk about this.do t ever want to talk about that. >> frosch: and explained in really sort of honest, gut-wrenching, visceral terms, h why never told anybody about this. >> i got molested as a little kid, man, i don't want to talk about that. all right, i'll tell you the truth: those pieces of (bleep), those child molesters, they ey don't deserve to be on the street. they deserve to get (bleep) (bleep) up andbleep) killed in prison. and that's what's going to happen. >> frosch: so during his testimony, and as he began sort of discussing in detail what had happened to him, his mom had to leave the courtroom in tears. >> narrator: marion four horns had lost custody of her son during those years. >> i never knew about any of this. and i feel bad for my boy, because i wasn't able to protect him.

i feel, i really feel... (sobbing) i really hurt for him,'t know what to do. (sniffling) ♪ >> narrator: the extent of the allegations against dr. weberrg would begin toe as the trial unfolded, with mormen describing what they said he'd done to them as boys. >> frosch: the prosecution brings several corroborating witnesses from pine ridge. and as was the case with joe, you see these tough guys sort of reduced to little boys. ♪ >> narrator: despite the testimony against m, dr. weber contind to shrug off the allegations. >> it's a nice day today. nice sunny d.

>> narrator: on the third day ot the trial, jury came back i with verdict: guilty on multiple counts of sexual abuse. ♪ weber is appealing, and later this year, he's scheduled to go on trial in south dakota for alleged abuses there. ♪ >> i'm very glad that he was caught. i still am frustrated that he was allowed to work for so long in that environment. i think i'm still frustrated that more peopleaven't been charged criminally. >> there was obviously a lot of people that knew something wasg go. and they didn't do anything. (sniffles) they just... let him go. (sniffles) i feel like somebody should pay for, for what all these boys went through, because people

knew. ♪ >> narrator: to date, no oneih else in thhas been held accountable. whand many of the official oversaw dr. weber did not respond to requests for comment. but following questions from "frontline" and "the wall street journal," the agency ordered an independent investigation of weber's tenure. the current head of ihs agreedk to talout it and asked tovi do the interew at the hospital pine ridge where weber worked. >> hello. >> narrator: rear admiral michael weahkee has been leadine the agency sin017. >> since this case has came to light, we've been doing a lot of checking internally, to, to see what people y or may not have known. if there are individuals who were aware that something was gog on, then you're

basically culpable and complicit in those actions. i'm in the process now of developing a new policy that willequire that every indian health service employee be a mandatory reporter. o >> weavewhat? >> of any potential child abuse, any sexual assaults, any, c anything potentialminal in nature. >> weaver: and what would be a satisfying resolution to the crisis around thcase of dr. weber? >> that he do his time. and that he pay for what he did. uh... r did a lot of damage to agency. we've talk a lot about the difficulties we have recruiting providers. this isn't going to help. >> weaver: where do you set the bar foyourself, in terms of leading the agency out of this crisis? >> i think the bar is extremely high. there are so many people depending upon us. my own family receives their health care through thindian health service, so i go home

every day and... (sniffles) the expectation is to fix this. (quietly): sorry. ♪ >> narrator: in january 2019, dr. weber-- now 70 years old--d was senten more than 18 years in prison. but haunting questions remain. >> you know, it doesn't sit well that somebody like this monster came in and did what he did. you know, and i didn't do much to prevent it. (exhales) i certainly could have done

more. >> well, at that time, you think of your caer and your job and your livelihood, so i probably would have got fired. i guess that was the risk i would've took. i couldn't afford to take the risk at that time, to lose my job. do i feel responsible for it? no-- no. >> i guess i have to blame the bureaucracy of indian health service. bu i have to say, it was on my watch that happened. i should have known better, but i didn't. that, that's still hard for me to... kind of deal with. ♪ >> narrator: after nearly 30 years, no one knows how many victims of weber's abuse are still out there, or how many other people in the indian

health service could have done more to stop him. ♪ >> go to pbs.org/frontline and wsj.com for the latest reporting on the story. and learn more from the reporters about investigating thindian health service. >> we found a bunch of doctors before they joined therords once they got there. where you can view more thane 200 "frontline" documentaries" connect to the "frontline" community on facebook and twitter, and sign up for our newsletter at pbs.org/frontline. >> narrator: it was a landmark ruling-- thousands of new yorkers with severe mental illness had a right to live on their own.as >> there huge question about whether people that had been institutionalized can live ccessfully in the community. >> narrator: and a right to fail. >> they just brought me there and said, "ta daaa!" ontline" and " opublica investigate.

>> did it feel like you were left alone? >> i had no mpany actually. >> the question is when do you take away somebody'liberty? ro >>line is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.d the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provided byhe john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to buiing a more just, verdant and peaceful world. the ford foundation:na working with vises on the frontlines of social change worldwide.ti adal support is provided by the abrams foundation, journalism.o excellence in the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues.e hn and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy journalism that inrms and inspires. the heising-simons foundation:ow unlocking dge, opportunity, and possibilities. and by the frontline jourlism fund,

with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. f and additional suppom tom stair and lucy caldwell-stair. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> for more on this and otr "frontline" programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline. ♪ to order "frontline's" "predator on t reservation" on dvd visit shop pbs, or call 1-800-play-pbs. this program is also available on amazon prime vide ♪

♪ you're watching pbs. ♪ ♪ -you've said you'd favor mi. -the front line is just up here. that's where the river... -she took me ouhose wetlands. -i think we're off to a great start. ♪

narrator: on this episode of "earth focus," how can we manage, protect, and nourish our natural resources wheting the growing global demand for food? a model of local control along the coast of madagascar provide a blueprint for ocean sustainability and community building, while in san diego, scalability is the goal as researchers work to build the first open-ocean fish farm in the united states. [film advance clicking]