The Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1995-04-28

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Minneapolis hosts national conference on
American Indian child abuse and neglect
By Gary Blair
The 13 th annual "Protecting Our
Children" National American Indian
Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect was held on April 25-27 at the
Radisson Hotel South in Minneapolis.
This year's conference was sponsored by the National Indian Child
Welfare Association (NICWA) of
Portland, Oregon and the American
Indian Institute-University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma.
In the welcoming statement, Terry
L. Cross, Executive Director of
NICWA, writes: "This year we examine family preservation and its role in
child protection. Too often Indian
children are removed from their families because we do not have the services or appropriate methods to protect them in their own homes. Too
many families reach a crisis because
the support they needed early was not
there. We hope that this conference
will inspire more tribes to develop
senices in this area, and for those
already doing family preservation to
share realistic solutions to the hard
problems faced by ICW caseworkers
today."
The conference offered over 90
workshops on various subjects that
presently impact the Native American family.
Native American firefighters receive
community support at meeting
By Gary Blair
Accusations that the City of Minneapolis is actively discriminating in its
hiring practices of Native American
firefighters continues.to draw attention. The city has been under fire for
claims that they employ nearly 30
Native American firefighters while
city employment records show only
nine of those firefighters have provided tribal enrollment verification.
That official verification is part ofthe
record keeping implemented by the
BIA more than a century ago to keep
track of Native Americans.
On Friday of last week the Minneapolis Fire Fighters Steering Committee (MFFSC) held its bi-monthly
meeting and this time the group was
joined by members ofthe Minneapolis Native American community.
The MFFSC was formed through a
federal court order to monitor the
hiring of minorities by the city's fire
department. The group is made-up of
ten members: two senior Native
American firefighters, Mike Beaulieu, and Leonard Thompson; senior
Afro-American firefighter John Griffin; Danny Davis, an Afro-American;
two Hispanics, Augustin Dominguez
and Brian Choen; Mary Ann Starks
and Brian Isaacson ofthe city's civil
services department; and John Merill,
assistant fire chief.
Ron Edwards, an Afro-American-
community activist who serves as
chairman ofMFFSC, guided the meeting through more than two hours of
heated questions and debate. "You
didn' t think the Native American community would come, but as you can
see they're here," he told city department heads who attended.
Comments made by Native Americans who attended the meeting were
similar to those nascent during the
civil rights movement ofthe 1960s.
Mike Beaulieu, told the group of reading an article in the Minneapolis Star
Tribune about the poverty rate amongst
Native Americans in the Twin Cities.
"They didn't say anything about the
cause of it, but this is part of the
reason," he said.
Leonard Thompson was even more
outspoken. "These people are stealing millions from us," he said.
Others who attended the meeting
added similar comments and questions. "The city government is like a
dysfunctional family,"Patrick Brave
Heart told the group. "I have worked
for St. Joseph's children's home in
south Minneapolisfor more than eight
years and it's a term we use there."
Larry Long, a Native American from
the Red Lake resen'ation, told MFFSC
Fire cont'd on pg 3
Court Cases Test Reach of Public Law 280
By Jeff Armstrong
Passed by the US Congress in 1953
as part of a strategy to "terminate"
the sovereign existence of federally-
recognized tribes, Public Law 280
granted broad powers for states to
enforce criminal laws on resenations. In Minnesota, one of six states
in which the application of the act
was initially made mandatory, PL-
280 has been cited as justification to
try Natives on their own lands for everything from traffic citations to murder. But indigenous resenation inhabitants are increasingly challenging state jurisdiction under the terms
of their treaties, and even those ofthe
act itself.
Leech Lake resident Tim LaRose is
one of many Anishinabe activists who
have argued that PL-280 itself specifically excludes state enforcement
of civil laws such as hunting and fishing regulations and child protection
statutes. LaRose must now prove his
point in court, as he faces a petition
to remove two of his sons from the
home for truancy.
In what LaRose claims is a politically-motivated attack on his family,
Leech Lake Family Senices filed
Child in Need of Protection or Services (CHIPS) petitions in Cass
County court alleging that David and
Sidney LaRose were chronically absent from the Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig
school and in need of state intenention. Both the social senice agency
and the school are directly under the
control of the kesenaiion Business
Committee, and the CHIPS petitions
were filed shortly after LaRose sought
Leech Lake's support for his wife's
attempts to regain custody of her children. David LaRose had received
school awards for both attendance
and academics the preceding quarter,
before his attendance began to decline, a fact which Tim LaRose attributes largely to the prevailing so
cial and educational environment of
the school.
LaRose's attorney, Ted Lundrigan,
filed a motion for dismissal April 17,
arguing lack of subject matter jurisdiction. "The crime alleged under
these facts is victimless. It has been
an established tradition that interaction between Indians, within Indian
country, is a tribal concern," the brief
states. Civil jurisdiction under Public Law 280 requires "the consent of
the tribe occupying the particular Indian country or part thereof which
would be affected by such assume-
tion. None of the Anishinabe
Ojibwe treaties cede jurisdiction over
anything but major crimes.
Although the federally-established
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe has apparently forged an agreement with trie
state on child custody, that pact has
never been approved—or even seen—
by the majority of tribal members. It
Public cont'd on pg 3
BIA Official get 10 months in prison
By Matt Kelly
ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP)_ A Bureau
of Indian Affairs official who accepted
about $7,000 from a Sioux Falls
businessman will sene 10 months in
federal prison, a judge ruled Monday.
But the BIA is still deciding whether
to fire Charles Hacker from his job as
a transportation analyst or pay him to
leave.
Hacker showed no emotion as U.S.
District Judge Lawrence Piersol
sentenced him for accepting an illegal
gratuity. He was convicted in January
of receiving the money from Francis
"Butch" Oseby, a businessman
involved in a scheme to obtain and
resell surplus government equipment.
Piersol also ordered Hacker, 43, to
senre one year on probation after he is
released. Hacker must report to prison
May 3.
Piersol rejected pleas for probation
from Hacker and defense lawyer Gary
Gellhaus. Hacker has not shown
sufficient remorse and does not meet
other conditions for a reduced
sentence, the judge ruled.
Hacker is the first person convicted
in connection with a scheme in which
businessmen used the names of
American Indian tribes to obtain
government equipment for resale.
Hacker gave Oseby blank, pre-signed
property requisition forms during the
time Oseby was giving him cash.
Three other men, including
Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribal
Chairman Russell Hawkins, are
scheduled for trial May 23 on related
charges.
In a statement before his sentencing,
Hacker repeated claims he was the
victim of BIA bungling, bad publicity
and vindictive prosecutors.
"I am paying for the bureau's
mismanagement of the surplus
property program," Hacker said.
Gellhaus said Hacker had suffered
enough, adding that the jury acquitted
Hacker ofthe more serious charges of
bribery and conspiracy.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ted
McBride said Hacker was not an
innocent scapegoat, noting that
Hacker asked his superiors for the
authority to sign equipment
requisition forms.
"He   was   part   of   that
mismanagement. He asked for that
signature authority," McBride said.
Hacker has threatened to sue the
bureau "for all the misery he has gone
through" if he is fired, BIA labor
relations specialist Kevin McNulty
said.
When BIA officials told Hacker
after his conviction that they planned
to fire him, he responded with a letter
threatening a lawsuit, McNulty said.
Hacker asked to take advantage of an
employee buyout program instead of
being fired.
"That means that we would give
him about $17,800 to resign 'clean'
from government senice," McNulty
said. "If not, he would sue us."
The decision ether to fire Hacker is
still pending, McNulty said.
Hacker had no comment after the
sentencing. Gellhaus has said he does
not plan to appeal.
The sentence satisfied the half-
dozen members of the Sisseton-
Wahpeton tribe who attended
Monday's hearing. They had signed a
letter asking Piersol to send Hacker to
prison and saying the scandal had
marred the tribe's reputation.
Urban plague reaches nation's largest res.
By Maria Dial
FORT DEFIANCE, Ariz. (AP) _
Beneath the red rock spires and pon-
derosa pines of the Navajo Nation,
the scourge of urban America is leaving its mark in the spray-painted insignia of gangs.
Here on the nation's largest Indian
resenation, young men in baggy pants
and bandanas strike a discordant note
amid the awe-inspiring canyons and
cattle grazing quietly under the open
sky.
More than 200 miles from the nearest big city, gangs are being blamed
for increasing beatings, stabbings,
drug trafficking and killings.
"I beat up a couple of Dragons _
stabbed a few," says a 19-year-old
Navajo who calls himself G Money.
The young man, dressed in black
with a bandana on his head, speaks
unabashedly of his activities in the
Insane Young Cobra Nation during a
break from a family volleyball game.
He's never killed anyone but claims
to have come close once _ and he's
willing to try again.
"I'll shoot any Dragon," he says,
black eyes steeling in his roly-poly
face.
The Dragons are a rival group in
Fort Defiance, about seven miles north
of the tribal capital of Window Rock
in northeastern Arizona. Their spray-
painted trademarks compete with
those of the Cobras on concrete
bridges, red cliff faces and the abandoned shell of a house within yards of
G Money's ramshackle home.
Navajo police say gang activity
among the resenation's 160,000 residents has escalated far beyond vandalism since the problem surfaced
five years ago with a rash of beatings
in middle school bathrooms.
"It wasn't really fights, it was just
initiation rites in the bathrooms,"
Capt. Francis Bradley recalled.
Next came colors, increasing graf-
Urban cont'd on pg 3
Schedule of Indian Month activities/ pg 8
All of America is Birmingham/ pg 5
Fond du Lac Follies by Jim Northrup Jr./ pg 6
Mpls. hosts conference on child abuse/ pg 1
Court cases test Public Law 280/ pg 1
Voice ofthe Anishinabek (The People)
1
Fifty Cents
Ojibwe
News
We Support  Equal  Opportunity For All  People
Founded   in 1388 Volume E    Issue 44 April 2B, 1995
A weekly publication.
\
Copyright, The Ojibwe Mews,  1995
qfe 1995 Ojibwe Art Expo was held in the TalleyArt Gallery at BSU during the month of April.
..red is JJo'b  Punk " Wakaiiubo's uittd 'Mnnihg painting titled "SNEAK UP."
Photo bv J. Rainbird
Exchange program rescues U of M native student
It was spring 1994 and University
of Minnesota senior Robin Goodwin
was desperate for a change in scenery.
A medical field major, Goodwin was
having trouble in science classes and
the political turmoil in the American
Indian community on campus had
her thinking about quitting school.
Fortunately for Goodwin, she
applied for and was accepted to the
National Exchange Program offered
by the College of Liberal Arts Office
for Special Learning Opportunities
(OSLO) and has been on a one-year
stay at the University of New Mexico
at Albuquerque since fall 1994. She
spent the fall semester at UNM and
will return there for the spring
semester.
"It's a great program and I really
enjoy studying at UNM," says
Goodwin on her spring break in
Minneapolis. "It kind of recharged
my interest in education. I got an
opportunity to see how another part of
the country functions and to find out
that there are other things out there
other than Minnesota."
UNM, with a campus population of
23,000, is quite different from the
University of Minnesota, both
geographically and demographically.
The red rocks and sand ofthe deserts
contrast sharply with the Minnesota
snow and the population is much
more diverse.
"There aren't as many blonde people
there," Goodwin says with a laugh.
"There is a strong minority population.
It's great to see Indian people teaching
Indian studies classes and Indian
people in key roles. It's a great
experience."
Goodwin's story is a perfect example
of how a student can overcome
obstacles by looking for alternatives
among the opportunities available at
the university. A non-traditional
student who started college at age 37,
Goodwin encountered many
difficulties. "After high school I took
a lot of negative detours," Goodwin
recalls. "I was lost and didn't know
what I wanted to do." With the support
of her family and friends, Goodwin
decided to enter the University of
Minnesota. It wasn't smooth sailing
and she thought of quitting, but she
found liberation when she found the
National Exchange Program.
"I was having a hard time but I
decided to refocus," Goodwin
explains. "I knew the importance of
finishing school. Instead of quitting,
I got the system to work for me."
Now 41, Goodwin has defined her
academic and career goals and is having
the time of her life. She will graduate in
June with a bachelor of science degree
in photography, American Indian
studies and public health in June and
plans to attend the Institute of American
Indian Arts in Santa Fe, the only Indian
arts school in the country.
"I am excited to be graduating," she
says. "There are a lot of obstacles for
Indian people and I never thought it
would happen."
Schafer vetoes Indian gambling measure
By Dale Wetzel
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ Gov. Ed
Schafer vetoed legislation Thursday
that sought to open some Indian casino
gambling records to public inspection,
saying it threatened the state's
relationship with its Indian tribes.
Schafer said open records concerns
raised by the bill would be better
addressed by an interim study on
Indian gambling.
Indian leaders welcomed Schafer's
move, although Sen. Les LaFountain,
D-Dunseith, the Legislature's most
vocal critic of the bill, said debate
over the measure has fractured tribal-
state relationships.
"The tribes were juggled back and
forth," LaFountain said. "I think it's
going to take a long time for things to
heal."
David Gipp, president ofthe United
Tribes Technical College of Bismarck,
said the legislation would have created
"a major, major impasse between
tribal government and state
government."
The legislation's principal
advocate, Sen. Wayne Stenehjem, R-
Grand Forks, said he was
disappointed, but added that he
believes an interim examination of
the issue has merit.
"I do agree that working together
with all ofthe groups is preferable to
a court fight, or to two or three more
sessions of argument on this particular
issue," Stenehjem said.
The bill required the limited
disclosure of Indian gambling casino
records held by Schafer and Attorney
General Heidi Heitkamp. The attorney
general, in two separate letters, had
urged Schafer to reject the measure.
The records were provided under
terms of gambling compacts North
Dakota's five Indian tribes signed in
1992. Four of the tribes operate
casinos. All five agreements specify
that information provided to the state
should be kept confidential.
Tribal officials and Heitkamp
argued the bill would violate the
gambling compacts, although
Stenehjem contended Sinner had no
authority to sign away North Dakota's
open records law.
Twila Martin Kekahbah,
chainvoman of the Turtle Mountain
Band of Chippewa, and Standing Rock
Sioux tribal councilman Ken
Billingsley both promised a federal
court challenge if the bill had been
signed.
Schafer said the prospect of a court
battle was not "a huge influence" in
his decision to veto the measure.
It was Schafer's fourth veto of the
1995 Legislature. Lawmakers
adjourned two weeks ago, and no
attempt will be made to override his
judgment.
Schafer had initially described the
legislation as reasonable and a
"clarification" of the gambling
agreements. But on Thursday, he
embraced Heitkamp's argument that
it would break the compacts, and said
the legislation would force him to
choose between violating state law or
the agreements.
"Either way... I'm in a tough spot,"
Schafer said. "I don't think that's
appropriate."
Stenehjem said that despite the veto,
the principal point of the bill "has
been well made" _ that the Legislature
will not take lightly any perceived
intrusion into its authority. North
Dakota's Constitution gives
lawmakers the right to decide what
state records will be exempt from
public inspection.
"The interim process will give us
some time to work on this, outside of
the pressure cooker of the
Legislature," Stenehjem said.