Posted by [EMAIL PROTECTED] : <+>=<+>KOLA Newslist<+>=<+> 2000 -24 Why is Leonard Peltier still in jail?! ========================= [article provided by Pat Morris. Thanks!] http://www.omaha.com/Omaha/OWH/StoryViewer/1,3153,262408,00.html Published Wednesday December 08, 1999 Action Promised on Indian Claims BY PAUL HAMMEL WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Rapid City, S.D. - After hearing more than 12 hours of complaints about the treatment of American Indians in South Dakota and neighboring Nebraska, a national civil rights official gave one promise. All that talk would result in action. Mary Frances Berry, chairwoman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, pledged that the panel would complete its report and recommendations within 90 days to address allegations of unequal treatment of Indians. Unlike a similar set of civil rights hearings held in Rapid City in 1976 after political unrest and violence on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Berry said the new report would not sit idly on a shelf. Steps are already being taken, she said, comparing the testimony that concluded late Monday to complaints the commission has heard at other "forgotten communities of America" like those in Appalachia and the Delta country of Mississippi. It was just worse in South Dakota and Nebraska, Berry said. "The sense of powerlessness, hopelessness and the number of complaints about police brutality were enormous compared to places we've been," she said. The commission visited South Dakota and nearby Nebraska communities of Whiteclay and Rushville to investigate a series of deaths of Indian men over the past several months. Indians told commissioners that the deaths - including those of two Pine Ridge residents near Whiteclay - illustrate an unequal standard of justice for Indians and whites in the region and lack of sensitivity to Indian concerns. Deaths of Indians are not investigated as vigorously and unsolved murders are soon forgotten, some testified Monday, leveling criticism at understaffed and undertrained tribal police and, especially, the FBI, which is widely distrusted by most Indians. White officials, meanwhile, acknowledged that there are problems in Indian-white relations in South Dakota, but conditions are improving. "Thirty-five years ago, if we found a drunk Indian on the street you'd put him in a garbage can and let him sober up," said Rapid City Police Chief Thomas Hennies. "I personally know that there is racism and discrimination and prejudice among all people," Hennies said, "and those of us who head these agencies are trying to eliminate that behavior. But it's not something that happens overnight." Complaints from Indians ranged much broader than recent events. Some speakers asked the commission to investigate the broken treaties of the 1800s that took western South Dakota away from the Sioux. Others said the panel should probe the dozens of unsolved murders in the 1970s following the occupation of Wounded Knee by American Indian Movement activists. Others gave more recent and more personal stories: A sobbing Wagner, S.D., couple said local authorities refused to investigate the alleged sexual assault of their 13-year-old daughter at the hands of a non-Indian; a wheelchair bound, 90-year-old Sisseton, S.D., grandmother said she was assaulted by a town and tribal cop. "We need justice today, not tomorrow, today," the Wagner woman said. "You've got to do something about it." As testimony continued, Berry left her chairwoman's seat and walked to the couple from Wagner, consoling them and directing them to provide nformation to an FBI agent waiting nearby. She said Native Americans need to realize that as depressing as conditions are, they have improved, and the visit of the commission has already resulted in some action. The FBI, Berry said, will immediately look into allegations of uninvestigated criminal matters, and civil rights staffers will explore claims of police brutality. She said she was encouraged to hear a Bureau of Indian Affairs official say Monday that it is looking at using $1.5 million in funds originally intended for prison construction to build a detoxification center at Pine Ridge. Berry and other commissioners said during a Sunday visit there and to nearby Whiteclay that an overnight detox center was sorely needed to get vulnerable intoxicated people off the streets. She was also encouraged to hear the attorney for one of the men killed at Whiteclay say that he expects arrests soon in the slayings. "Objectively, there has been some change," Berry said. "Twenty five years ago, people wouldn't have cared that eight men fell into a creek and died. Now, we have three agencies forming a task force to investigate." Eight homeless men - six of them Indians - have been found dead in Rapid Creek, which runs through Rapid City, in the past 18 months. As far as recommendations, Berry said it appears a reconciliation effort is sorely needed to improve Indian-white relations. Such an effort was begun under the late Gov. George Mickelson's administration, but was dropped when current Gov. Bill Janklow took office. Speakers suggested several things: more Indian FBI agents and police officers; formation of police oversight committees; better public- relations efforts by the FBI; investigation of unequal jail sentences and arrests of Indians; and forcing local judges to allow the use of bail bondsmen. Because judges won't allow the use of bondsmen, Indians lacking their own bail funds must remain in jail. Often, they plead guilty to a crime so they can be released rather than wait up to 180 days in jail for a trial, said Brad Peterson, a legal-services attorney from Fort Yates, S.D. "It's hard to explain that 'you have rights' as opposed to, 'I just want to go home to my family,' " Peterson said. He added that Indians are targeted by police. He said he's had clients pulled over by police for things as minor as a bent license plate and an air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. The actual civil rights report will be written by a South Dakota advisory committee with the help of federal civil rights staffers. The federal commission, headed by Berry, a Philadelphia college professor and lawyer and former University of Colorado chancellor, will decide how to proceed and suggest action by government agencies. <+>=<+> http://users.skynet.be/kola/ http://kola-hq.hypermart.net <+>=<+>
