That was the year the bodies of three Navajo men were found in nearby Chokecherry Canyon, burned and bludgeoned. The three white high-school students charged in their killings were sent not to prison but to reform school.
The violence and mild sentences incited marches by Navajos through Farmington's streets and exposed tensions between them and the town's largely white residents. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights eventually investigated and found widespread mistreatment of and prejudice against Navajos.
Now, more than three decades later, Navajo leaders here are again calling for federal intervention.
On June 4, the police said, three white men beat a Navajo man, William Blackie, 46, and shouted racial slurs at him after asking him to buy beer for them. The men were charged with kidnapping, robbery and assault, and are being prosecuted under the state hate-crimes law, which allows for longer sentences.
Six days later, a white Farmington police officer killed a Navajo man, Clint John, 21, after a struggle in a Wal-Mart parking lot. The police said John had assaulted his girlfriend and attacked the officer - grabbing his baton and moving aggressively toward him - before the officer shot John four times. John had a history of violence, the police said.
John's family claims he did not have the baton when he was shot and is filing a wrongful death lawsuit against city officials, the Police Department and the officer.
After an outcry from Navajo Nation officials, the U.S. Justice Department is reviewing the matter to determine if a federal inquiry is necessary.
Both events have rocked this commercial hub of about 42,000 residents on the eastern edge of the Navajo Nation. After John's shooting, the Navajo Council allocated $300,000 to study racial violence in the 11 towns that border Navajo land and to finance the John family's lawsuit.
On Sept. 2, amid growing unease, Navajo leaders organized a march that they said drew 1,000 participants. The march snaked along Highway 64, which leads to the Navajo community of Shiprock.
