BY CARSON WALKER The Associated Press http://www.journalstar.com/stories/neb/sto1 American Indian activists Russell Means, Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt plan to attend a rally Saturday at Pine Ridge, S.D., to protest the deaths of two Lakota men, according to the rally organizer. The bodies of Wilson Black Elk Jr., 40, and Ronald Hard Heart, 39, were found June 8 in a culvert about 1 1/2 miles south of Pine Ridge near the Nebraska border. They were reportedly last seen June 6. Autopsies were performed last week in Rapid City, S.D., FBI Supervisory Special Agent Mark Vukelich told the Scottsbluff Star-Herald this week. "This is being treated as a homicide," he said, declining to release details. "We're in major-league investigation mode on this. Our concernis, as we interview people, we're not getting fed back information people got from other sources or from the press.
"We're looking at all the possibilities and covering leads as they comeup. We're trying to keep an open mind to all possibilities." Vukelich saidall eight agents in the Rapid City office are working on the investigation. Despite that, Tom Poor Bear, Black Elk's older half-brother and Hard Heart's cousin, is organizing a rally Saturday to call attention to numerous unsolved deaths on the reservation.
Poor Bear, 43, said Tuesday in a telephone interview that he has spoken with Means, Banks and Bellecourt, and all three plan take part. The activists were not immediately available to confirm their plans. The rally is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Saturday near the Pine Ridge post office, Poor Bear said. Rally participants will march south,stopping for prayers where the bodies were discovered, then continuing into Whiteclay, Neb.
"I need to find justice for the murders of these two Lakota men. It is a rally for justice. Me personally, I don't want it to be stuck in the back of a file cabinet with "case closed' on it," said Poor Bear, sergeant of arms for the Oglala Lakota Tribal Council.
"I was in Wounded Knee with Banks and Means. After we found out mybrother and cousin were brutally murdered, I had no alternative but to call onthe American Indian Movement." For years, Indian deaths along the Nebraska border have gone unsolved, he said. Poor Bear helped identify Black Elk's body, which he said appeared to have been severely beaten.
"I could go on about the people that were murdered around Sheridan County (in Nebraska) and nobody has been arrested. I think we need to start finding justice for our Indian people," Poor Bear said. Because alcohol is not sold on the Pine Ridge Reservation, people usually go across the border to nearby Whiteclay, he said. The problem lies there, Poor Bear said.
"Our money made them rich, but yet we are treated with a lot ofprejudice. They respect our money, but they don't respect our Lakota," he said. Sheridan County Sheriff Terry Robbins said his department has had no reported cases of Indians being mistreated by store owners, SheridanCounty residents or even law enforcement agents.
"They're rumors, as far as I'm concerned," Robbins said Tuesday. He also denies Poor Bear's suggestion that Indians are killed in Nebraska and their bodies taken back to the reservation in South Dakota, which is under federal jurisdiction.
"I don't know how many unsolved murders they have on the reservation," Robbins said. "We don't have any in Sheridan County, unsolved deaths, you might say."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~" The sheriff has been arrested in the execution style slaying of both of these men. He is possibly responsible for the unsolved murder of seven others. We demand that justice be done and that these deaths not go unpunished..
To support the rally in a demand for justice by internet for those unable to attend this march Letters may be sent via e-mail to:
mjohanns@notes.state.ne.usjodee@mail.state.ne.us
Lt. Governor : maurstad@notes.state.ne.us
Attorney General's office email sbecker@notes.state.ne.us
Secretary of State email sos04@nol.org
Your participation is most urgently requested..Ish Original message posted to FN list by Red Dawn:
Rally for Justice June 26, 1999 10:00 a.m. Billy Mills Hall in Pine Ridge on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, SD Support the struggle. The Indian Wars are not over. The American Indian Movement, Denver is calling for all warriors and supporters for Ron Hard Heart and Wally Black Elk of the Oglala Lakota Nation. Both men were murdered execution style by a Nebraska Sheriff in White Clay, NB. A town whose sole purpose is to destroy the Oglala People through alcohol. A peace march from Billy Mills Hall in Pine Ridge to White Clay, NB will take place on June 26, 1999 at 10:00 a.m. Scheduled speakers include: Clyde Bellecourt, Dennis Banks, Russell Means and the families of the victims. A caravan will depart from the Texaco gas station at Colfax and Mariposa at 7:30 p.m. on Friday June, 25 1999. For more information concerning this event please contact: John OldHorse enrolled Oglala Lakota Nation member #U-37439 Interim DirectorAIM-Denver. 303-825-3305. Don't allow the deaths of our people to continue.
We need your support.
In SD, contact:
Tom Poor Bear 605-867-5821
Dave Clifford 605-867-5428
KILI radio 605-867-5002
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