Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2005-09-23

              ■ .  '    -
INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY 2
NEWS BRIEFS 3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS 4-5
CLASSIFIEDS 7
No COLA at
Leech Lake gaming
page 5
What comes around
goes around!
page 4
Leech Lake "Katrina"
page 4
A call for humanity
page 4
Time for an
overhaul of federal
Indian policy -
| nothing less will do
page 4
Gang Fights break out at Red Lake High school
By Bill aLawrence
Press/ON learned of a series
of four gang related fights at the
Red Lake High school last Friday, September 16. The first fight
erupted about noon in the north
end of the building between
the 'Reds' and the 'Blues,' who
were identified respectively by
the color of their shirts.
We were told about 20 youth, all
males, were involved in the fights.
A security guard, according to one
caller, was badly beaten. Others
confirmed the story.
We heard from another source
that two individuals were taken to
jail. A caller said there were "a
ton" of tribal police at the school.
The caller said, "There were cops
everywhere." It's unknown how
many were present or who had
called for them.
The parents of the two jailed
youth were reportedly called into
the principal's office on Monday
following the incident.
Several sources indicated that
there seemed to be an expectation that a fight would break out.
There were noticeably more security guards on duty at the school.
One individual heard the principal
say he expected more to happen.
Press/ON attempted to get official confirmation of the above
events but was unsuccessful.
The above details have been
confirmed however by several
individual sources.
Evidently the Bemidji Pioneer
and the Minneapolis Star Tribune
did not feel the story warranted
publication as neither published
a related story.
On another matter, Press/ON
has also learned Ken Litzau was
released from employment at the
school district and his contract
was bought out. Mr. Litzau had
responsibility for filing Annual
Reports on Curriculum, Instruction and Student Performance for
2003-2004. We reported in July
of this year that the reports had not
been filed in a timely manner.
■iwwuriwiiiH'iwiiiriwiwi bwotwmh
Cass Lake
School Board
Member e-mails
animal porn
By Diane White
CASS LAKE, MN-Jennie
Wind Reyes, a member of the
Cass Lake School Board and
the Leech Lake Housing Board
sent animal pornographic pictures via e-mail to members
of the press and various others
from her Minnesota Chippewa
Tribe e-mail address.
The e-mail was dated August
18, 2005 from "Jennie Reyes"
mctjlr@paulbunyan.net, and
went to other met addresses:
mctbrf@paulbunyan.net,
mctlaw@paulbunyan.net, and
to the Leech Lake De-Ba-
Ja-Mon Editor "Patsy G" at
patsy@llojibwe.com. There
were several other recipients
of this photo extravaganza,
however, their addresses
will not be printed. The six
animal photos were entitled,
"Things you don't normally
see at the ZOO" and shows
animal copulation, a squirrel
drinking from a beer can, and
animals performing felltio and
cunninlingus.
Press/On received the e-mail
from a citizen who believed
this was unacceptable from an
elected school board official.
Gary Frazer, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Executive Director and the Cass Lake School
Board received a fax copy of
the e-mail and were invited to
comment.
Officer honors daughter through
his work with Indian youths
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS - Minneapolis
police sergeant Bill Blake has been
interested in violence prevention
among Indians for years.
But his daughter's accidental
shooting death in February 2003
drove him to do more, especially
after memories of her urging him
on kept floating back.
On Tuesday, police officers and
lawyers will meet in Hinckley for
Minnesota's first Native American
Law Enforcement Summit. The
two-day conference is a project
Blake has worked on for the past
year, largely in his daughter's
memory.
Getting the summit off the
ground wasn't easy. While Minneapolis Chief William McManus
supported Blake's idea, some officers felt he was planning it to
make himself look good. Tribal
officers thought it would hurt
community relations.
"One officer was afraid we'd
put our families at risk because
people in the community would
be angry," said Blake, a member
of the Red Lake Nation. "Doing nothing will get your family
killed. To not address the situation
is irresponsible."
Blake's eldest daughter, Erica
Rae Blake, was a 20-year-old college student when she was coming
down the stairs at a house party
on a reservation in Wisconsin. A
teenager shot her in the head with
a gun he didn't know was loaded.
An investigation determined her
death was an accident.
"She wanted to work with
Indian kids in crisis," Blake said.
"Even though she's not here, she
will be able to help people."
At the summit, 125 law enforcers and lawyers will attend training
sessions on Indian prison gangs,
substance abuse and a range of
other issues. The summit's goal is
to improve relationships between
urban and reservation officers and
prevent a cycle of crime between
the Twin Cities and reservations.
"Native American law enforcement can better serve the
communities in which they work
by having a better exchange of information about who is committing crimes," said U.S. Attorney
Tom Heffelfinger, who will speak
at the summit. "The only way to
effectively reduce crime is to coordinate this effort."
Blake said he hopes to set up a
Web site with information about
American Indian gang members
so that all law enforcement officers have access to crime alerts
and contacts. Tribal officers could
contact Twin Cities officers to get
information about a suspect. Sgt.
Herb Fineday of the Fond du Lac
Tribal Police Department near
Cloquet, said the Web site would
help.
"In the past, you may discover through investigation that
a suspect or witness fled to Minneapolis or St. Paul. It may take a
series of calls before you find that
person three or four days later,"
Fineday said.
Tribal offer of buffalo meat for hurricane relief advances
By Susan Gallagher
Associated Press
Tribes on Montana's Fort
Belknap Indian Reservation are
donating 5,000 pounds of buffalo
meat to Hurricane Katrina relief,
now that there are arrangements
to move the meat south by refrigerated truck.
A contribution of meat from at
least 10 buffalo in a tribal herd
was offered by the Assiniboine
and Gros Ventre tribes soon
after the hurricane, but came to
a temporary standstill for lack
of transportation. Now a Texas
company has stepped forward to
pay about $1,600 for trucking.
"Culturally, for the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes, the
buffalo are the staff of life and
historically they provided food
and shelter," Tracy "Ching"
King of the Fort Belknap Tribal
Council said Sunday.
"The council thought that it
would be only appropriate to
give to the victims of Hurricane
Katrina," King said. "The buf
falo provide us with life, so we
needed to do the same for the
people" displaced by the hurricane.
The buffalo will be butchered
at the tribal meatpacking plant.
The cost of transporting the meat
to Terrell, Texas, will be covered
by Dependable Auto Shippers Inc.
of Dallas, said Kenneth Phillips,
the company's vice president for
operations.
He lives 30 miles from Dallas
in Terrell, where hundreds of hurricane refugees are housed, and
is a friend of that community's
Chamber of Commerce president,
Danny Booth.
Booth said Sunday that through
a chain of events, a representative
of the Montana tribes, who knew
of Terrell's influx, contacted him
about the meat and the need for
shipping. Because of Phillips's
work in the transportation business, Booth asked him to find a
way of delivering the meat.
Phillips said he found a company to do the hauling, and with
only money standing in the way
of action, it was decided that Dependable Auto Shippers would
pick up the tab. The company is
in the business of moving cars,
sometimes as the result of Internet
vehicle sales or when corporations transfer personnel from one
part of the country to another.
"I've got, and I can give,"
Phillips said Sunday. "We want
to give back."
Booth, whose organization
provides daily meals to hurricane
refugees in Terrell, said the meat
could be used at any number of
places, given the dispersal of Katrina victims and relief workers. A
decision on exactly where to allocate the meat will be made later,
he said. Cold storage is available
in Terrell.
The tribes have hundreds of
buffalo in their herd, which King
said is maintained for cultural
reasons that include the serving
of buffalo meat at powwows. A
ceremony takes place before any
are buffalo is killed, he said.
Woman accuses Indian Health
Services doctor of sexual contact
By Carson Walker
Associated Press
SIOUX FALLS, S.D.-A civil
lawsuit filed by a South Dakota
woman accusing an Indian Health
Services doctor of sexual contact
has been transferred to U.S. District Court in Rapid City.
Tamara Star Comes Out, who
lives on the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation, filed the complaint
against Mohammad Ahsan of
Ohio and VISTA Staffing Solutions Inc. of Utah.
She went to the IHS hospital in
Pine Ridge on Nov. 24 seeking
treatment for abdominal pain.
During an examination, Ahsan
pulled up her blouse and touched
her inappropriately, questioned if
she was married and had children
and asked if she would return to
see him, according to the lawsuit.
"The physical touching by defendant Ahsan was not related to
any legitimate medical purpose,
nor was it necessary for treatment or diagnosis by plaintiff,"
the complaint states.
Star Comes Out was "disturbed and upset, she felt like
crying and felt 'dirty,' and had
difficulty sleeping," according
to the document. The incident
caused her to have bouts of crying, anxiety, nightmares, nausea
and loss of appetite, it stated.
VISTA, with corporate headquarters in Salt Lake City, is
named in the complaint because
it provided Ahsan to the hospital
as a temporary physician.
The four-count complaint
accuses Ahsan of battery and
intentional infliction of mental
distress. It said VISTA was negligent and liable for his actions.
The complaint seeks financial
compensation, punitive damages
and other costs, all to be determined at a jury trial.
An investigator from Kyle said
he could not discuss whether
criminal charges are possible.
Ahsan could not be found.
Lawyers for VISTA and Star
Comes Out said they could not
comment.
Cass Lake
Man Sustains
Bullet Wound
in Shooting
Cass Lake, MN~Cass
County authorities report a
Cass Lake man sustained a
bullet wound to his leg after
being shot at approximately
6:48 PM Saturday evening.
The shooting occurred on
Facility Center Drive North
of Cass Lake. The victim
has been identified as Steven Lyons, age 26, of Cass
Lake. Lyons received medical treatment at PHS and
was later transported to a
Fargo Hospital.
Sheriff Randy Fisher
reports officers from Cass
County and the Leech Lake
Tribal Police are continuing
their investigation into the
incident.
VOICE       OF       THE       PEOPLE
web page: www.press-on.net
HaWe «-
American
Press
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
A weekly publication.  Copyright, Native American Press, 2005
Founded in 1988
Volume 18 Issue 14
September 23, 2005
Monument honoring Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce bands.
Nez Perce historical park, Bear Paw Battlefield
By Bill Lawrence
As the month of September
draws to an end, taking summer with it, I am reminded
that it was about this time of
year that the Nez Perce were
captured in 1877 by the U.S.
Cavalry. After a trip of over
1100 miles, the Nez Perce,
consisting at that time of
about 100 warriors and 250
women, children and elders,
were pinned down by a much
larger force of cavalrymen.
The battlefield is located
at the edge of the Bear Paw
Mountains, sixteen miles
south of Chinook, Montana,
on County Road 240.
The four bands, led by Chief
Joseph, Looking Glass, White
Bird and Tulhuulhulsuit, were
camped in a dry coulee near
Snake Creek. This combined
band composed mostly of
women, children and elders,
traveled with a herd of 2000
horses and had successfully
eluded the U.S. Cavalry for
four months. They were
intent on escaping to Canada
rather then to be confined to a
reservation. They journeyed
from eastern Oregon, through
Idaho and into Montana.
By the time they reached
Snake Creek in Montana,
the weather was unseasonably cold with rain, wind and
snow. The bands were within
two days of crossing into Canada
and freedom.
One hundred warriors successfully repelled a surprise attack by
400 cavalrymen the morning of
September 30, but the horses were
stampeded. Ollikut, Chief Joseph's
brother, and other warriors faced
the soldiers as they advanced. The
Army was stopped, temporarily,
but Ollikut and many others were
killed.
Colonel Nelson Miles, fearing
the loss of too many men, abandoned active confrontation and
lay siege to the camp.
The Nez Perce dug pits for shelter using camas hooks and butcher
knives. The army surrounded the
camp for 4 days. The army had two
cannon aimed at the encampment.
One account tells of a cannon burst
at about noon on the last day of the
siege. "The bursting shell struck
and broke in a shelter pit, burying
four women, a little boy, and a girl
of about twelve snows. This girl
and her grandmother were both
killed..."
The Indians had little food. Dried
meat was passed around to the children first. A woman reports she had
nothing for 3 days. The children,
hungry and cold, cried. Water from
the creek was available only after
cover of dark.
Chiefs Looking Glass and
Tulhuulhulsuit were both killed
during the siege. The two remaining chiefs, Joseph and White Bird
discussed the possibility of surrender with two Nez Perce who have
sided with the government White
Bird distrusted these individuals
and escaped with 30 others to
Canada. Joseph stated to the Nez
Perce camp that he intends to
stop fighting in order to save his
people. At 2 p.m. on October 5,
1877, he handed his rifle over to
Colonel Miles. He stately, "From
where the sun now stands, I will
fight no more, forever."
In explanation he says, "Our
chiefs are killed. Looking Glass
is dead. [Tulhuulhulsuit] is dead.
The old men are all dead He
who led the young men is dead. It
is cold, and we have no blankets.
The little children are freezing to
death. My people, some of them,
have run away to the hills, and
have no blankets, no food. No
one know where they are, perhaps
freezing to death. I want to have
time to look for my children, and
see how many of them I can find.
Maybe I shall find them among
the dead."
Over the course of four
months, seven hundred fifty
non-treaty Nez Perce, a mere
250 of them warriors, fought to
defend themselves against about
2000 cavalry in 20 battles and
skirmishes. They suffered great
losses. They were captured just
short ofthe Canadian border and
NEZ PERCE to page 5
Interior Department defends accounting work on
Indian royalties
By Jennifer Talhelm
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) _
The Interior Department says
its own audits of accounts
it manages for thousands of
American Indians have found
few errors and little evidence
that anyone tampered with the
records.
The agency's position, in a
report to Congress on Monday,
runs contrary to that of Indians
who filed a 1996 class-action
lawsuit arguing that they were
cheated out of more than $100
billion due to mismanagement
of oil, gas, grazing, timber
and other royalties from their
lands.
A federal judge has ordered
Interior officials to account for
every dollar received and paid
to Indians since 1887.
In a glossy 24-page report
obtained by The Associated
Press, the department said the
audit the judge ordered would
cost $12 billion and that efforts
so far have found that errors
make up less than 1 percent of
the dollars reconciled.
"This picture is significantly
different from that offered by
Interior's critics," Interior Secretary Gale Norton said in a letter
opening the brochure.
The report comes days after
both the government and Indian
plaintiffs argued that a federal
appeals court should reverse the
district judge's accounting order.
The judges have yet to rule in the
appeal.
It also comes as Congress is
considering a bill filed in July
by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.,
that would settle the case for an
amount of money that is still being negotiated.
The Indians had offered to
settle for $27.5 billion. McCain
has said that is too high.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs immediately criticized the report.
The plaintiffs have argued the
department is using inaccurate
and, in some cases, incomplete
data. A judge has yet to rule on an
other claim that the department's
computer system is insecure.
"There's a reason they haven't
provided it to the court _ because
it isn't an accounting," said Dennis Gingold, the Indians' lead attorney.
Jim Cason, associate deputy
interior secretary, said Monday
that the department prepared its
report at a cost of $30,000 after a
Senate hearing in which McCain
asked for more information abouL
the accounting.
Several members of Congress
were traveling Monday and had
not seen the report, although the
Interior Department briefed staffers.
Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif.,
chairman of the House resources
committee, said he is convinced
Congress must settle the case.
"I am pleased that the department acknowledges this issue
deserves close examination," he
said. "This is not an easy task for
anyone involved."