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 leader of a Southern California Indian tribe and a sheriff’s department vowed Friday to work together to lower tensions after three people were killed on the reservation in gun battles with deputies.

Leaders of a Southern California Indian tribe are meeting with sheriff’s deputies to calm tensions over the killings of three people on the reservation.

The tribal chairman’s message to his members in the hours after deputies killed two suspects in a running gunbattle on the Soboba Indian Reservation was clear: Don’t trust the sheriff’s department.

A man and woman opened fire on guards at an entrance to an Indian reservation and fled into the hills, where they were killed in a gun battle with sheriff’s deputies and a SWAT team, authorities said Tuesday. It was the second deadly gunfight involving deputies on the reservation in five days.

Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed two people in a gunbattle on an Indian reservation in Southern California’s Riverside County.