And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Link supplied by Mary M..thanks..:) (and good morning..<G>) Kidnapping charges may take boy from roots, dad By Joe Duggan -- Lincoln Journal Star http://www.journalstar.com/stories/neb/stox It was the summer a boy got to know his American Indian roots and a father got to know his son. For weeks, things seemed to be working out. Nico Mercier, the father, and Joseph Long Bow Mercier, the son, went to powwows and medicine ceremonies on the Santee Sioux Reservation in northeast Nebraska. "We were building a relationship," said Mercier, a member of the Catto Tribe of Oklahoma. "We were side-by-side all the time." But this week, in a flash of police lights and a click of handcuffs, it all ended a block from Mercier's Bloomfield house. One minute, the former Ponca Tribe housing official was driving with the 11-year-old son he hadn't seen in six years. The next, he was behind bars on a kidnapping charge, awaiting extradition to California. Authorities, meanwhile, won't tell him which foster home the boy has been placed in. From a Knox County jail cell Friday, the father said he was astonished by the charge. How could he kidnap a boy who was flown to Nebraska by the child's legal guardian? How could he kidnap his own flesh and blood, a child he said he's had legal custody of for eight years? "I didn't do anything wrong," he said. "She sent me out my son and the next thing I know, I'm going to jail." Mercier was referring to the boy's court-appointed legal guardian Dawn Campbell, the father's cousin who lives in Ridgecrest, Calif.. The boy has lived with her for six years, and she wants him back because, "I love him." Mercier said the relationship with Campbell soured when she recently criticized the boy for showing interest in his Indian heritage. Asked if there was a cultural issue involved, Campbell said "no comment." She also declined to answer other questions involving the legal matter. It's a cut-and-dried legal issue, said Ray Lopez, an investigator for the Kern County District Attorney's office in Bakersfield, Calif. On Wednesday, the office filed a felony child-stealing charge against Mercier, which could result in a five-year prison term. "Pretty much it's a parental abduction," Lopez said Friday afternoon. "Basically what Nico was doing was refusing to return the child, and he was hiding the child from the legal guardian." It's a complicated case with no simple answers, a story that begins in Seoul, Korea. A dozen years ago, stationed in Seoul as an Army military police officer, Mercier married a Korean woman. They had one child, but the mother did not want to return to America with her husband and son. After his return to the states in 1991, Mercier divorced his wife and said he was given sole custody of their 3-year-old son. For two years, he raised the boy on his own, but financial and personal problems left him seeking help. His cousin offered that help, agreeing to raise the boy. In May 1993, he said he signed a court paper agreeing to give Campbell legal guardianship of his son with the understanding that he retained custody. Bill Mercier, the boy's grandfather, remembered the agreement. "It was my understanding that they needed a guardianship to put him in school, for medical purposes and tax reasons," Bill Mercier said. "It was my understanding he maintained custody." Investigator Lopez said nothing in court documents indicates Mercier still has custody. For example, he did not pay child support, and once Campbell was given guardianship, his parental rights were cut, he said. In June, Mercier said he got a call from Campbell, saying she thought Joseph should spend the summer with his father. They agreed and she had the boy flown to Nebraska, where he was scheduled to stay until the third week of August. Not long ago, in a ceremony on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation north of Valentine, Joseph received a Lakota name. "He was real happy about it, and he called my cousin to tell her," Mercier said from the jail. "Then he came back crying because she said, "If you're going to start doing that goofy Indian stuff like your father, you may as well not come back.'" Shortly after, the boy called Campbell again and said he wanted to stay in Nebraska. Mercier said he thought it was agreed that both he and Campbell would abide by the boy's decision. Then on the evening of Aug. 11, one block from home, Bloomfield police pulled Mercier over and arrested him. On Tuesday, he's scheduled for a court hearing on his extradition, which he intends to fight. He said he's seeking assistance from the Ponca, Winnebago and Omaha tribes. He disputed allegations that he hid the boy from Campbell. Throughout the summer, he said the boy has been in regular telephone contact with the guardian. "I was set up, there's no other way to see it," he said. "He comes out here, and she reports me for child stealing. It wasn't even my idea for him to come out here, it was hers." Reached by telephone Friday afternoon, Campbell declined to answer questions about the case. All she would say was that she loved the boy, she raised him and she wants him back. Mercier said his first concern is his son. And he worries that if he gets tied up in California courts, he could lose his Nebraska home and family. In the end, he wants just two things. "I want to be cleared of any charges and I want my son." Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
