/* Written 5:21 pm Dec 3, 1992 by nlns@igc.apc.org in igc:nlns.news */
/* ---------- "NLNS Packet 3.5 *** 11/21/92" ---------- */
4th Indian Killed on Reservation Since Wounded Knee:
"These Instances Are Indicative of Daily Life on the Reservation"
from LIBERATION News Service #570, November 21, 1973
PINE RIDGE RESERVATION, S.D.
(LNS)--"There's a war going on here," said one member of the Wounded Knee
Legal Defense/Offense Committee in mid-November. In one week, one man was
beaten to death and another was shot and is in critical condition. Both were
supporters of the Wounded Knee takeover and both opposed the corrupt tribal
government of tribal president Richard Wilson. This last killing brings to
four the number which have occured on the reservation since the siege ended
in May.
"These instances are indicative of daily life on the reservation," said
a press statement from the Defense/Offense Committee. "Those who are members
of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and others who are involved in the
Indian movement are prime targets of Richard Wilson's terror tactics. As the
Indian struggle on the Pine Ridge Reservation gains support, Wilson finds it
necessary to increase harassment and shootings in an effort to maintain his
control."
"It is Richard Wilson, his goon squad and the BIA police that use these
tactics and allow them to be used. Yet it is AIM members, supporters and
reservation residents who will be facing trials in a few weeks--for taking a
stand for Indian rights."
On Tuesday, November 13, Philip Little Crow was beaten to death.
Little Crow was the brother of Sarah Thunder Hawk, who acted as a liason on
the reservation to the Legal Defense/Offense Committee in their efforts to
document both conditions on the reservation and the brutality used against
residents by Wilson, his goon squad, the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs)
police and the government in general.
Little Crow's death was not revealed until November 17 and at first
the police reported that another man was killed. In an autopsy done by the
U.S. District Attorney's office, the cause of death was shown to be a
fractured skull.
Police have charged Irvy Hand, a member of Richard Wilson's goon squad,
with voluntary manslaughter in Little Crow's death. According to Del
Eastman, the BIA police chief, Hand was being held in tthe Rapid City Jail.
However, after the Legal Defense/Offense Committee checked, it turned out
that he was taken to the Rosebud Jail--about 100 miles from the reservation.
According to a message intercepted on police radio, Hand was to be held at
the Rosebud Jail until someone brought him a change of clothes. The clothes
he was wearing at the time were not to be released. The radio message also
said that Roy Black Lance was to question Hand. Black Lance is the BIA
investigator who shot Vernal Cross and shot and killed his brother Clarence
last July.
The killing of Little Crow is not the only recent attack on the
Thunder Hawk Family. A day before his death, in the early morning hours,
shots were fired into Sarah Hawk's home. BIA police arrived an hour after
they called and made no investigation of the incident.
Five days after Little Crow was beaten to death, Pat Hart was shot and
critically wounded. He underwent 10 hours of surgery for stomach wounds and
is in critical condition at the Pine Ridge Public Service Hospital. The
first night hospital authorities would not allow any members of his family
to see him. According to one source, Hart was shot by Clark and Art Hopkins,
both BIA police and one a former member of Wilson's goon squad. According to
Eastman, the FBI is "assisting" the BIA police and they have four suspects
but no one is in custody.
Pat Hart was a close friend of Pedro Bissonnette, a well-known and
well-liked activist on the reservation who was shot and killed by BIA police
October 17.
It was supposedly to investigate Pedro's death that a grand jury was
convined in Sioux Falls November 13. But it soon became apparent that his
death was not the main focus of the investigation but instead it was an
excuse for a "fishing expedition" into more people who had participated in
or supported the Wounded Knee takeover.
At least 30 people who were Pedro's friends or who had been supporters
of the takeover were subpoenaed to testify. All of them refused to testify
on the grounds of the 5th Amendent. However, unlike the strategy with the
previous grand juries, the Justice Department didn't offer them immunity
(thereby forcing them to testify). One person who was subpoenaed--Dr. Paul
Bow, a Lutheran minister, claimed clergy privilege and he was held in
contempt. He will have a hearing soon on whether he will go to jail.
After the 30 people refused to testify, the grand jury was dismissed
but not without issuing four secret indictments which haven't been opened
yet.
Whether there will be more indictments to be added to the over 200
already issued is yet unclear. Trials are already scheduled to begin. The
first group will be those coming from the protests which occured in Custer,
S.D., a few weeks before the takeover, beacuse of the government's refusal
to prosecute the white murderer of Wesley Bad Heart Bull, a resident of the
reservation.
Nineteen people are charged with such things as riot, arson, assault
and conspiracy. Among the people charged are Wesley Bad Heart Bull's mother,
several prominent AIM spokespeople and other Pine Ridge reservation
residents. One defendant faces seven consecutive life sentences.
January 2, the first of the first group of 19 Wounded Knee cases goes
to trial in Sioux Falls. The charges against people include interstate
transport and use of firearms, impeding a federal officer during a civil
disorder, burglary and larceny of the trading post, arson, as well as
conspiracy to commit the crimes. Like with the Attica defendants, the
government is planning on trying them as simple criminal cases.
At almost the same time, the conspiracy cases of the people the
government has picked out as leaders of the occupation (now minus Pedro
Bissonette) will begin with the trial of Russell Means and Dennis Banks.
Their trial has been moved to Minneapolis-St. Paul and is scheduled to
begin January 8.
They are charged with aiding and abetting assaults, arson, burglary
and larceny, as well as conspiracy. The Legal Defense/Offense Committee
call the charges "a legal first. People have been charged with aiding and
abetting an unknown person (usually when the government can't prove a
conspiracy) but never have six people been charged with hundreds of
people involved." The trials of the other people who have the same
indictments--Carter Camp, Leonard Crow Dog, Clyde Bellecourt and Stan
Holder, will follow, depending on the outcome of Means' and Banks' trial.
"The government will attack the defendants as lawbreakers," said a
statement from the Legal Defense/Offense Committee, "while the defense
will argue that the liberation was the only possible answer to the oppression
of the tribal and federal government on Pine Ridge. The trials will be long
and intense--a bitter battle over the acts and the politics behind those acts."
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