Sep 252014
Sep 252014
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AUDIO LINK – Patty Twohearts, court secretary tells Bundy that the judge has stopped visitation until investigation is completed
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BELOW:
Emergency Visitation order, redacted April 25, 2014
Sep 252014
He died in a car wreck on Monday, Sept. 22, 2014. Just five hours earlier, he was talking to us on the phone, telling us the audios he had sent us a few days earlier were recorded during his meetings with social services and tribal court. He wanted his story to be public. He wanted others to know why child abuse thrives on the reservation.
He was a tribal member and BIA policeman at Spirit Lake. He had lived there all his life. He said he was raised to be a warrior – protecting women, elders and children… He said he can’t imagine doing anything else. He said, “That’s what warriors do.”
But too often, the tribal gov’t wants him to sweep abuse under the rug… He said lots of stuff on the Rez gets swept under the rug – because it was easier than investigating and dealing with it. He said too many on the Rez aren’t protecting the children – and many are upset with him because he keeps telling the truth and pushing for what it right, while many others just want to leave things as they are. Social services treated him like he was a pest.
Bundy was his nick-name. He was trying to protect his own children. He was bringing hospital reports and other evidence of his ex-wife’s abuse to social services to get them to DO something and protect his kids, ages 3 and 5. He had even taken drug paraphernalia out of his daughter’s mouth once after she had returned from visiting her mother. He turned it over to the crime lab, and has been waiting for three months to get the results back.
All he wanted was supervised visits. He made arrangements with SAAFE – a place near her house where she could easily visit with the kids. But tribal court wouldn’t make the order – and social services wouldn’t make the recommendation.
He sent us audio tapes between himself and a couple Spirit Lake, BIA social workers. The man in the audio, who is currently the superintendent for social services there, was telling him he looks like a fool for running around “yap-yap-yapping” all the time about his kids. “He said, “You seem obsessed. What is it that is REALLY bothering you. Is it because she left you?” He told Bundy, “I’m telling you this for your own good. Stop doing this.” “You have a ‘responsible position.’ You should think about what you are saying.”
Yes – he said that to him. We have the audio tape here on my computer.
The man who said that is currently the superintendent of Spirit Lake Social Services. We have his name – Bill McKie – his voice – and his effort to intimidate and shame Bundy.
But we don’t have Bundy. Most importantly, his children don’t have Bundy anymore.
The children were also in the car and are currently in the hospital.
God be with those children. We ask this in the Holy Name of Jesus.
Bundy wanted us to spread the documents. He had been asked to testify at the oversight hearing in June, but he was still too afraid at that time. Not for himself, he said, but because he was fighting for his kids and was afraid what would happen to them if he went against the tribe. But yesterday, he told us he had had enough. He was ready to talk to the world. He told me I could arrange a radio interview with one of the hosts we have gone on several times. He told me that just five hours before he died.
Bundy had sent the documentation to Senator Hoeven’s office last week. It was sent to Rep. Cramer’s office as well.
The pen – which Bundy brought to the Bismarck crime lab – is hard evidence. The hospital reports are hard evidence. The bruises, lice and scabies were hard evidence. The testimony of the dispatcher was hard evidence.
Yet, tribal Social services chose to ignore hard evidence and deride Bundy for attempting to protect his kids. That’s the whole point.
The BIA was called in two years ago to oversee, improve care, and protect the kids. Casey Family Services and the ACF were supposed to be overseeing, improving care and protecting the kids.
Tribal social services doesn’t protect kids, they protect neglectful parents. That is why we continue to see this cycle go on and on and on.
That’s why we need to honor Bundy’s request and publish his tapes.
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The following is a timeline we put together based on the documents he had sent us. We were able to ask him a couple questions pertaining to the timeline during our hour long talk the afternoon of Monday, Sept. 22nd. We didn’t get a chance to finish the questions.
Italicized events are from Bundy’s statements. Events with bold dates are backed by documentation he had given us.
We will be posting the Documents and linking them to this time line as we go through and finish redacting from the documents.
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(February 2, 2014 – Kids were dropped off by mom at Spirit Lake police dept. after a visitation. Daughter was chewing on hollowed-out pen. Bundy noticed the pen at a gas station on their way home. He told her not to chew on that kind of thing and took it from her. She said, “Give me back that pen. It’s mine. My mom gave me that.” Holding the hollow pen up to the light, white powder could be seen in it. Pen was brought to the Spirit Lake police dept., Criminal Investigator. Pen was put into evidence. 960 was never completed. Pen was left in desk drawer for months. 960 on the pen was never given to BIA In July, Bundy retrieved the pen and took it to Bismarck crime lab on his own. He has not yet gotten the results back. )
(February, 2014 – Kids treated by hospital for scabies after returning from visit with mother.)
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April, 2014 – AUDIO TAPED – Brief confirmation from Patty Twohearts, tribal court Secretary
– Bundy was told that the kids would stay with him until SS does an investigation.
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(June 3, 2014, custody/visitation court hearing)
(June 20, 2014, court order resuming visitation for mother)
(June 26, 2014, Mother took daughter to ER, alleging Bundy’s older child from a different relationship hit the daughter in the groin with a baseball bat. ER report states daughter had a UTI.)
(June 27, 2014, BIA Social Services Daryl Lebeaux told Bundy that the children will remain with the mother until the investigation is completed.)
(June 30, 2014, BIA Social Services Mark Fryer told Bundy he will look into it and find out why the children are remaining with the mother until the investigation is completed.)
(July 2, 2014, BIA Social Services Mark Fryer told Bundy he believes the case was closed as evidence was unfounded. will look into it and find out why the children are remaining with the mother until the investigation is completed. It appears the investigation was on Bundy, not on the mother. Bundy asked that the children be returned to him by July 6, 2014)
(July 8, 2014, Bundy got hold of Special agent Jerard Hoegar as he was told this was the person who needed to close the case. Hoeger stated it was closed on June 26 – the day at the ER – after an interview with the daughter – evidence was unfounded. He stated that BIA social services knew this and the children should have been returned to Bundy on the 29th as there was no documentation for the mother to keep the children. will look into it and find out why the children are remaining with the mother until the investigation is completed. It appears the investigation was on Bundy, not on the mother. Bundy asked that the children be returned to him by July 6, 2014)
(July 9, 2014, children were returned to Bundy. Daughter needed treatment for lice)
(July 10, 2014, met with BIA Social Worker Jesse Hunt concerning lice, bruises, and reports by children of physical abuse and gun under seat of truck. Bundy gave her full documentation, pictures, reports. Hunt took notes of what was said.)
(July 10, 2014, Bundy took children to Mercy where bruises were documented. Discharge report was given to BIA social services and tribal court.)
(July 11, 2014 – Mother called police dispatcher to say she won’t be picking up the kids that weekend.)
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July 11, 2014 – Document – 10 page statement by Bundy to the Spirit Lake Tribal court
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(July 29 court hearing?)
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July 15 or 16 – AUDIO TAPED – Judge Billy Dean Cavanaugh
– The judge says the court never got Bundy’s documents, med reports, 960’s. They need social services to send the documents.
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August 22, 2014 – AUDIO TAPED – Meeting with BIA Social Services Supervisor Fernanda Shay
– said documents are missing. Said visits have to continue. Shay tells Bundy to talk to the judge about the abuse and take strong evidence. Bundy needs to get the judge to order supervised visits if that is what he wants.
She also said Bundy has filed too many 960’s – and BIA Social Services will take the kids away if he and the mother keep filing 960’s. Shay seemed unwilling to actually investigate the situation and find out what is really going on. She seemed to just want the reports to stop.
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August 26, 2014 – Document – Additional Statement by Bundy to the court concerning BIA’s claim that his file – with its documentation – is missing. Abuse continues.
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This below, I was unsure about dates and he didn’t get a chance to clarify….
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August 29, 2014 – AUDIO TAPED – Meeting 1 with BIA Social Services Superintendent Bill McKie
– Said social services has to petition for supervised visits –Bundy can’t simply ask the court on his own for them.
Bundy responds that mother was told June 3rd that if there is more abuse, visits will be supervised.
McKie says Bundy has to give the mother her visits. He says there is no substantiation. McKie says, “Keep in mind we need “factual evidence” – physical, concrete evidence.”
McKie: “The court only made a recommendation. SW has to petition for supervised visits. And they won’t do it without physical proof.” The SW does not appear willing to investigate the allegations.
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August 29 – AUDIO TAPED – Judge Billy Dean Cavanaugh
Can’t find the judge or Patti the clerk – then judge comes in. He says he can’t get answers from Social services either. Judge says to get social services to recommend supervised visits and he will sign it.
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If anyone STILL has questions as to why abuse continues at Spirit Lake and other reservations, they only need to listen to this audio….
August 30 – AUDIO TAPED – Meeting 2 – BIA Social Services Bill McKie
– Bundy told him that the court wants recommendations for supervised visits from social services and they will change the court order.
McKie doesn’t appear willing – and seems to be accusing Bundy of having ulterior motive.
McKie appears to totally justify their lack of concern on the basis that Bundy has complained too much.
Finally says they will write a recommendation on Monday.
McKie appears to turns things around to blame the Dad. Also seems to attempt to threaten and intimidate, by telling Bundy he looks foolish and vindictive in his constant complaints – and that he has a “responsible position” and should think more about that before continuing with his complaints.
McKie also tells Bundy he is “obsessed” with the issue (protecting his own kids?) Tells him to take a different approach.
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CALL TO ACTION
A few people have asked what they can do to stand up for Bundy and continue what he started.
1. Bundy wanted these documents to be seen. He wanted to prove that Social services is not doing its job and needs an honest, genuine shake-up and change, not just fluffy talk and pretend. So – Please share his stuff so that the Media and Congressman in New York and DC can’t ignore it as they have been. Especially share this last audio, the longest one. It really shows the attitude of tribal social services and the BIA.
2. Senator Hoeven and Rep. Cramer were given this material the week prior to Bundy’s passing and have had time to look at it. Now we need to know now what they are going to do to push for genuine change in tribal social services. We don’t want more fluff talk and posturing from DC, the BIA, Casey family services or the ACF. We want the people of Spirit Lake to finally get some honest respect and real action.
So please call their offices and ask them what is going to be done to change tribal social services. Be persistent. Don’t allow anyone to snow you with nice words that are only meant to pacify.
Senator Hoeven: 202-224-2551
Rep. Cramer: 202-225-2611
Rep. Cramer was very good to call the BIA on the carpet in June. His office actually asked Bundy to testify at the hearing that month, but Bundy was nervous about the Custody battle and thought the tribal government might use his kids against him if he did that. That was very understandable – as many of us have seen that kind of thing happen.
We are very grateful to Rep. Cramer’s for what he did in June. He has been a hero doing things others have been too afraid to. But we can’t let our politician’s rest on their laurels. We want to know what Rep. Cramer’s next step is.
Aug 132014
Sage was 4-years-old and one of the first children to be hurt by the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978. She was 6-years when she and the family she loved went on the run to protect her from the law that intended to force to live with an abusive birth parent. She was 13 when she was finally forcibly taken from her family to be placed on the reservation with the birth mother who had almost killed her.
She tells her story of going on the run with her chosen parents, her trauma of being taken from them, and ultimate relief when she was finally released from the reservation and allowed to return home. To this day, thirty-some years later, she is upset by what the government and ICWA put her through.
– http://youtu.be/TEogtESN5Wo
Jul 052014
July 1, 2014
Ms. Mcmullen:
It is unfortunate that neither the leadership of my agency nor my department had the courtesy to inform me that I had been invited by the House Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs to testify about conditions on the Spirit Lake Reservation at the Subcommittee’s Hearing on June 24, 2014.
Associate Commissioner Chang’s testimony was, at best, confusing where it was not false. In the second sentence of her prepared testimony she speaks about the Administration’s concerns about child safety and well-being at Spirit Lake. Finally, after more than two years, 13 Mandated Reports and numerous emails to ACF leadership about the lack of safety for Spirit Lake kids, someone, other than me, is saying safety of children is of concern. Of course that contradicts an exchange I had with Mr. McKearn, Director of the Office of Legislative Affairs and Budget for ACF, back in July, 2012 when I was told that the safety of kids at Spirit Lake was not a priority. I guess the leadership of ACF never has to explain their position nor apologize when that position is proven wrong.
Ms. Chang’s claim that BIA has addressed, “…most notably the safety checks prior to placement” is simply false. If the BIA had addressed the safety checks prior to placement, Laurynn Whiteshield would be alive today, soon to celebrate her fourth birthday with her twin sister, Michaela. Instead she has been in the ground for more than a year, dead at the hands of her step-grandmother, who, it was well-known by most families on Spirit Lake, beat and abused her own children so badly they were removed from her home.
Ms. Chang goes on with the assertion about the strengths at Spirit Lake, saying, “Perhaps the most important strength is the commitment of the new leadership under Chairman McDonald and the work of the BIA.” Early on in this process the BIA and Tribal leadership were presented a list of 137 children who were in uncertain placements or unaccounted for at that time. At the Subcommittee Hearing Ms. Merrick-Brady, the Acting Director of Spirit Lake’s Tribal Social Services, explained that 66 children had been found and accounted for. That means that after 13 Mandated Reports, numerous detailed, factual emails about continuing abuse of children at Spirit Lake, 21 months after the BIA Strike Team arrived with much fanfare and ten months after Chairman McDonald was elected Chair there are still more kids unaccounted for than accounted for. How many of these unaccounted for children have been trafficked into the man camps of the Bakken oil fields, just a few hours down the road from Spirit Lake? If the safety of the children of Spirit Lake is our top priority, this performance should be called what it is, “weak and inadequate”.
Most witnesses at congressional hearings are told that if they don’t know the answer to a question, there is no problem in saying so and offering to provide the information requested in a few days. When asked a question about how often I had been at Spirit Lake, Ms. Chang seemed eager to offer her lying answer, saying that I had never been there, giving the impression we had discussed that question just the night before. Ms. Chang has never sought me out to ask me any question of any kind. Why would a woman of her stature lie so blatantly about me? Was she seeking to tarnish my reputation? As I cautioned the Spirit Lake Chair in an email last week, quoting the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan who frequently said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not his own facts.”
I have been to Spirit Lake three or four times in the last four years. Prior to that time each year I routinely met a couple of times a year in Bismarck with all of the child welfare directors from the four North Dakota reservations. I attended their meetings, spoke when asked and sought to assist them to develop more productive relationships with state human services staff to assist them in reducing their caseloads per worker to the levels prevalent in the majority community.
Thomas F. Sullivan Regional Administrator, ACF, Denver
TESTIMONY: CHILD PROTECTION AND THE JUSTICE SYSTEM ON THE SPIRIT LAKE INDIAN RESERVATION:
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Jul 052014
Chairman Don Young, Congressman Kevin Cramer, and other distinguished committee members, I want to thank you for this opportunity to address child protection and the justice system on the Spirit Lake Reservation.
My name is Elizabeth Sharon Morris. I am the widow of Roland John Morris, a U.S. citizen of 100% Minnesota Chippewa heritage who was born and raised on the Leech Lake Reservation, speaking only Ojibwe until he started kindergarten. I am the birth mother, grandmother, foster and adoptive mother to several enrolled or eligible members, and an aunt and sister-in-law to dozens. I was an accepted ICWA home for seventeen years.
I am also the Chairwoman of the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare, a national non-profit founded by my husband and myself in 2004. CAICW represents children and families across the nation who have been hurt by federal Indian policy – most notably the Indian Child Welfare Act – and who, as U.S. citizens, do not want tribal government control or interference in their family’s lives.
Our interest in Spirit Lake stems from not only having been contacted by several Spirit Lake residents asking for our help and prayers, but from a very personal level as well. My husband’s 16-yr-old grandson was shot and left for dead in a field at Spirit Lake on July 26, 2013. To this date, no one has been charged for the attempted murder of my husband’s grandson.
Family members have their own story of what happened and who shot him, but just as with so many traumatic abuses happening at Spirit Lake, Leech Lake, Red Lake, White Earth, Pine Ridge, Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Flathead Lake, Blackfoot, Warm Springs, and many other reservations – family talk is all there is. Violent crime goes often unreported, or when it is reported, nothing is done. While details of the shooting of my husband’s grandson remain unclear, the fact is that another child was hurt in the ongoing violence without anyone being charged for it – despite Spirit Lake being under the direct oversight of the BIA, FBI and U.S. Attorney. We look forward to and request an investigation into the real facts.
Drug and Gang Activity:
The family talk is that Jr. possibly stole drugs or money from his father, who is a member of a Minneapolis gang dealing drugs on the Spirit Lake Reservation. The two started physically fighting in the field, and family members report that Jr. was “getting the best” of his dad when he was suddenly shot. It is unclear whether it was his Dad or uncle who shot him.
Some might say that Jr., nearly an adult, asked for trouble. Others point out that his Dad is a member of a gang, selling drugs openly at Spirit Lake despite the ongoing presence of the BIA, FBI, and U.S. attorney – and that Jr. is another young person caught up in the climate of crime and violence so many children are threatened with in Spirit Lake and other reservations.
A 2013 ABC news article about gang activity on reservations reported:
“In the latest case, investigators said they were targeting a criminal enterprise that used intimidation and violence to maintain power. Prosecutors said the case was important not only because of its size, but because the racketeering charge is rarely used against gangs.
“The 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment called the Native Mob one of the largest and most violent American Indian gangs in the U.S., most active in Minnesota and Wisconsin but also in Michigan, North Dakota and South Dakota. It is made up of mostly American Indian men and boys, and started in Minneapolis in the 1990s as members fought for turf to deal drugs. The Native Mob is also active in prison.
“The Native Mob had about 200 members, with a structure that included monthly meetings where members were encouraged to assault or kill enemies, or anyone who showed disrespect, according to the indictment. Authorities said McArthur would direct other members to carry out beatings, shootings and other violent acts to intimidate rivals.”(KARNOWSKI, 2013)
Jr’s Dad was arrested and jailed for two days, but then released. As far as the Leech Lake family knows, nothing has happened since.
Misrepresentation of the Needs of Children:
So much for what many tribal leaders, along with their friends at the Casey Foundation, NARF and NICWA, glowingly refer to when they say family is the “single most important mechanism of [Ai/AN] culture.] (Cross, 1995a, p. 3) and separation most assuredly endangers the child.
It is these very organizations that, in our experience, are a huge part of the problem in Indian Country as they continually infer that leaving children in dangerous homes on the reservation rather than providing them with safety and stability is not only better for the children – but somehow an inherent need.
They advocate leaving defenseless children in dangerous situations, arguing that only tribal government truly knows what they need and can care for them. They have convinced society that interference is akin to child abuse on the rescuers part – and possibly even a form of genocide.
This argument is made even if the tribal government does not have a working system to care for the children. This argument is made so often and so forcefully that it is believed, even as real evidence shows to the contrary.
A July 12, 2013, commentary in North Dakota papers, attorneys rebuked a local politician’s outcry over the murder of Spirit Lake 3-year-old Lauryn Whiteshield. Rushing and Moddelmog stated, “studies showed that American Indian children who have been removed from their ethnic and cultural heritage often suffer a host of psychological and identity issues, not counting the damage caused by the initial removal.” (Moddelmog, 2013)
The study referred to by Mr. Rushing and Mr. Moddelmog, just as with a 2012 NPR series purporting to investigate ICWA abuse (Ombudsman, 2013), was seriously flawed and came to extremely questionable conclusions. Tribal government apologists claim that children of even minute heritage who’ve never lived anywhere near a reservation or with a tribal member are going to suffer identity issues, as if there is an inherent gene that makes these children different from any other. In some circles, that is referred to as “racism.”
Interestingly, without any concern for psychological effect, ICWA is frequently used to remove children from non-Indian homes that better reflect the cultural heritage they are most comfortable with (ethnicity does not determine cultural heritage) than a home on the reservation.
It is also often claimed that Native American children do not need to live “by European Standards.” In 2006, an attorney for the Tohono O’odham Nation of Arizona, in attempt to justify taking children from a home they loved and placing them in a potentially unsafe home with strangers, claimed in an Arkansas court that Native American children don’t need beds and are content sleeping on floors. (Morris, 2007)
That statement is not only offensive and insulting, but untrue. Again, as a mother and representative of many families, I can attest that most of the children we are connected to would prefer a bed over a floor. Sometimes in our family’s chosen poverty, our children have slept two to a bed – but they would rather that than sleep on the floor.
Rushing and Moddelmog conclude with a quote from Judge William Thorne that “more than 60 percent of American Indian children in non-native foster care who age out of the system “are homeless, in prison, or dead by age 20.” They neglected to quote comparison percentages for children raised in foster care chosen by tribal government. Further, these children were fostered due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Many suffer with fetal alcohol related issues. How can one assume the sole reason for struggle is due to non-native homes?
This line of reasoning appears to be believed even as it flies in the face of common sense. There is factually no DNA to make children need a particular heritage or upbringing. In fact, the Human Genome Project has proven that no separate classifiable subspecies (race) exists within modern humans. In other words, there is no genetic racial difference between a person of Indian heritage and a person of English heritage. There exists only familial genes for facial structure, hair texture, eye color, and similar individual traits. This means it impossible for any entity to know the emotions and needs of a child if they do not have active knowledge of or relationship with that particular child.
Therefore, there is nothing a tribal social worker inherently knows about a child simply due to the child’s ethnic heritage. This includes children of 100% heritage who have been raised totally apart from the tribal community. A qualified expert witness needs to be someone who has not only met the child, but has worked with the child, is familiar with and understands the environment the child has thus far been raised in, and has professional experience with some aspect of the child’s emotional, physical or academic health. This is far more important than understanding the customs of a particular tribe.
To believe that one group of children is inherently more comfortable with and accepting of less safety and security than any other group of children is the epitome of racism. Believing such things might make it easier for federal government officials to deal with the human crisis on many reservations, but it is not unlike the degrading claims made against persons of Jewish heritage as part of Nazi rationale for putting them in slums. It is shocking that these unfounded assertions are coming from tribal leaders and their supporters – the very people who claim to represent the best interest of U.S. citizens of Native American heritage.
This is a huge disservice to the well-being of children – including my own and those we represent – who are individuals, not tribal assets, and who have their own voices, feelings, thoughts, goals, motivations and needs – none of which appear to be described accurately by these entities.
As the birth mother to several children of heritage, I strongly attest that my children have needed and thrived on safety, stability, and love. Like most people, they have had some interest in the various heritages of ancestors, but there has been no inherent need to be raised within Native American culture any more than that of their German Jewish or Irish Catholic heritages.
As the chairwoman of an organization representing families across the country – I attest the same for the families we represent. Safety, security and love are the vital needs of their children.
Former ND Lt. Governor Lloyd Omdahl stated in a July 1, 2013 news commentary that ICWA is “sacrificing children to protect the heritage of the tribes.” This appears to be the case every time tribal sovereignty is used as the reason to keep a child in dangerous home rather than choose a non-tribal home. (Omdahl, 2013)
Lauryn Whiteshield of Spirit Lake is one example. Other examples around the country include:
1. A Detective in Bonney Lake, WA, was forced by ICWA social workers to leave a toddler he’d been raising at the home of suspected drug dealers. The child was forced to stay there about 6 months before he was moved somewhere else. (Belford, 2012)
2. Because social workers believed ICWA demanded it, the Rodriguez boys of California were taken from the home of Hispanic grandparents and placed with their maternal grandmother on the Ute Reservation – a woman who’d abused and lost custody of her own kids. Within three weeks, the oldest was permanently brain damaged from being beaten. (Smart, 2004)
3. Sierra McGaughey, who joined us in DC in February, 2013, told Congressional staff she was torn from a safe home outside the Leech Lake reservation at the age of nine and placed in a relatives’ home, where she was given to a man as a sexual partner. She begged to return to where she felt loved, but wasn’t allowed to until she tried to hang herself at age 16. (Tevlin, 2013)
These are just some of the many stories.
Quoting Mr. Omdahl, “It is time to take another look at the federal foster care and adoption policy that keeps Indian children in homes that threaten their well-being while safe homes are automatically ruled out.”
Changing Demographics:
Criminal elements have taken over whole communities on many reservations because state and county law enforcement can’t reach them as easily within reservations boundaries. Further, casino money on reservation land is more profitable, and money can be made with drugs on the reservation. As these criminal elements moved in, many non-criminal tribal members have purposefully taken their families and moved out.
According to the last two U.S. censuses, 75% of tribal members DO NOT live in Indian Country – and many, like our families, have deliberately taken their children and left in order to protect their families from the rampant crime and corruption of the reservation system.
As a result, it isn’t just the lack of licensed foster homes plaguing Spirit Lake and other reservations – it is the inability to meet the mandates of the Indian Child Welfare Act in the form of safe, willing, relative homes. The lack of safe homes of relatives is what brings tribal governments to make placement in the homes of unsafe relatives.
– Thomas Sullivan concerning unsafe relatives:
Thomas Sullivan, Regional Administrator of the Administration of Children and Families in Denver, stated in his 12th Mandated Report concerning Spirit Lake to the ACF office in DC, February 2013:
“In these 8 months I have filed detailed reports concerning all of the following:
1. The almost 40 children returned to on-reservation placements in abusive homes, many headed by known sex offenders, at the direction of the Tribal Chair. These children remain in the full time care and custody of sexual predators available to be raped on a daily basis. Since I filed my first report noting this situation, nothing has been done by any of you to remove these children to safe placements.2. The 45 children who were placed, at the direction of Tribal Social Services (TSS), BIA social workers, BIA supervised TSS social workers and the BIA funded Tribal Court, in homes where parents were addicted to drugs and/or where they had been credibly accused of abuse or neglect. Since I filed my first report noting these placements, nothing has been done to remove these children to safe placements. I trust the Tribal Court, with the recent resignation of a judge who failed a drug test, will begin to be responsive to the children whose placements they oversee.
3. The 25 cases of children most of whom were removed from physically and sexually abusive homes based on confirmed reports of abuse as well as some who still remain in those homes. Neither the BIA nor the FBI have taken any action to investigate or charge the adults in these homes for their criminally abusive acts. Many, of the adults in these homes are related to, or are close associates of, the Tribal Chair or other Council members.
“Since I filed my first report detailing these failures to investigate, charge, indict, prosecute those adults, my sources and I have observed nothing to suggest this has changed. Those adults remain protected by the law enforcement which by its inaction is encouraging the predators to keep on hunting for and raping children at Spirit Lake.
“When was the last time the US Attorney indicted a child rapist at Spirit Lake? How many child rape cases from Spirit Lake has he declined to prosecute during the last 18 months? How many Spirit Lake child rape cases have been prosecuted during those same 18 months? (Sullivan, 2013)”
Why had NICWA, NARF, NCAI and the Casey Foundation – all of whom make a large amount of money off what we have begun to call the “Indian industry” – not noticed that these children were living in such dangerous circumstances? What action did they take to get these children into immediate safety? How many children on other reservations is this happening to?
JULY 2014 NOTE:
– An attempt appeared to be made to discredit Mr. Sullivan during the oversight hearing Jun 24, 2014. It was claimed, for example, that he had never been to Spirit Lake Reservation, or at the least, was there only once 6 years ago, when in fact he had been there 3 or 4 times in the last 4 years (See attached July 1st letter). It was further omitted that he’d attempted to go meet with members of Spirit Lake in August of 2013 at the request of said members, who attested he was the only one they trusted to talk to. But his superiors in DC refused his travel request. (See attached email correspondence between Mr. Sullivan and ACF Superiors.)
– On July 3, 2014, Mr. Sullivan sent a letter to his superior expressing disappointment that he had never been informed by ACF that he had been invited to testify at the oversight hearing on June 24, 2014. (See attached June 25th letter)
Many families who have consciously left the reservation system in order to raise their children in a healthier setting have also become – due to the Indian Child Welfare Act – overly burdened with the need to raise the children of extended family members who had not left the system.
ICWA has scared some of us into taking children into our homes out of fear of what will happen to them if we don’t.
We were one of those families, overwhelmed raising four troubled grandchildren along with our five, but retaining custody of the four out of fear of what the tribal government might do with them.
All four grandchildren in our home suffered from varying degrees of fetal alcohol as well as some crack exposure and desperately needed was a loving, therapeutic home of any heritage. The “race” of the home should have been irrelevant in the face of their need for structure and strong, nurturing guidance. They were not given that gift.
In early 2013, I was asked to take a niece’s child. I was first asked to take him when he was just a few weeks old but declined at the time. I received several more calls about him throughout 2013, and was finally called in December by an ICWA worker from Leech Lake. I was later told by a county worker that I was the last hope and if I didn’t take him, he would be placed in the home of a relative where another child had died. So, of course I considered taking the now 14 month old baby. But after lots of thought and prayer, I decided I just can’t go through that again – taking a child out of fear. It had been too emotionally difficult. So after being assured they would not place him in the home they had mentioned to me, that they would keep me in the loop as to what was happening and that I could always change my mind if things went south for him, I gave them the final answer “no.”
This is the ridiculousness of the current situation for many children of tribal heritage. The county as well as the tribal ICWA worker, in this case, were considering placing a baby for adoption with a 53-yr-old non-native widow (me), rather than allowing the child to be adopted by a non-native father and mother who were a healthy, twenty years younger, and actively looking to raise a child.
What all these children have needed – but weren’t allowed to have – was licensed, trained, loving foster or adoptive homes that were open and ready to take them.
Many children at Spirit Lake and on other reservations, like it or not, are suffering from drug and alcohol exposure and need the gift of homes that can deal with the complex issues that come with that. In our extended family, we have several fetal alcohol adults raising fetal alcohol children. There is no wonder so many in the community struggle. The effects of alcohol on the brain are well-documented in relation to impulsivity and fearlessness of consequences. It’s time to quit putting our collective heads in the sand, pretending all of today’s issues are totally “the white man’s fault”. There is a whole lot more going on than just that.
Frankly, many in our extended family and those we represent in our organization do not know what NICWA, the Casey Foundation and others are referring to when they claim “formal foster care services are still foreign to Indian culture” (Cross, 1995b, P. 3) – as if our children are locked in some time warp.
What some in the tribal elite describe as the emotional needs of children with Native American heritage do not reflect our children at all. If they are unable to accurately describe the needs, thoughts and feelings of our children, they are most certainly unable to speak for them.
Why are Tribal Governments doing this?
According to Chrissi Nimmo, assistant attorney general for the Cherokee Nation, in 2012 the Cherokee Nation alone had over 100 attorneys targeting about 1,100 active Indian Child Welfare cases involving some 1,500 children across the nation.
Across America, children who had never been near a reservation nor involved in tribal customs, some with extremely minimal blood quantum – as well as some with maximum quantum – have been removed from homes they know and love and placed with strangers chosen by tribal governments.
What has become apparent is that several tribal governments have made control over children paramount. The child’s best interest has become secondary to a belief that tribal government has an inalienable right to whatever child they deem “theirs.” Some tribal governments, once they have decided they want a particular child, appear to pursue that goal whether or not there is an appropriate home available. Once obtained, the child is placed with whomever is willing to take them.
Federal dollars are connected to the U.S. Census and tribal rolls and tribal governments benefit financially from increased membership.
– According to Jack C. Jackson, Jr., Director of Governmental Affairs, National Congress of American Indians, “…American Indians and Alaska Natives have a significant stake in the outcome of the 2000 census…A significant portion of this federal aid is based on the information collected in the census.” (Jackson, 1999)
– According to the Administration For Children and Families, “Tribal Child Counts – For funds that become available in FY 2008, ACF will calculate grant awards based on the number of children under age 13. A Tribe must submit a self-certified Child Count Declaration for children under age 13 (not age 13 and under), in order to receive FY 2008 CCDF funds.”…“Levels vary from year to year. Child count does not reflect the number of children who actually receive services.” (ACF, 2007)
– According to QUILT, “Originally, ACF used existing, nationally published data for children under 16 … as the basis for tribal child counts. The change to self-certified counts of children under 13 was challenging for many Tribes …the Child Care Bureau gradually implemented the self-certification process over a number of years. (Quilt, 2004)
It is common sense that abuse happens when you put a price on people’s heads. Abuse happens when humans are put in the position of chattel.
Our organizations experience with Spirit Lake:
1. A Spirit Lake grandmother sent us a picture of her little girl and said the girl is living in the home of a sexual offender and is being abused, but her attempts to talk to Spirit Lake tribal social services about it have been met with hostility. She faxed what appears to be some documentation from the off-reservation Devil’s Lake Police and social services in the past. (attached)
2. I attended the Spirit Lake town hall meeting in February, 2013, where one member after another stood up to tell the panel of tribal and federal officials tragic stories of abuse, and how they had tried to get tribal police, the BIA and the U.S Attorney to pay attention and do something. As they told their stories of continuing abuse of children, officials on the panel claimed that everything that can be done, has been done. “Investigations take time” U.S. Attorney Tim Purdon said over and over.
• Concerning the many reports of abuse that Sullivan had written to his superiors, U.S. Attorney Purdon claimed at the town hall meeting that Sullivan had “misrepresented the facts. Mr. Purdon failed to realize when saying this – that he was saying it to the very people who had been reporting the abuse to Sullivan.
• An elder got up at the end of the meeting and tried to tell the panel about abuse she had witnessed, but was shushed by the tribal chair and not allowed to speak. He said, “We all know your story already. Tell it to someone after the meeting.” He closed the meeting without her telling her story. As I rose to leave, I asked others around me what it was she had been trying to say. They said she had seen a 6-year old and 8-year old having anal sex on her front lawn. She called the police, but no one ever came to take her story. To that day at the meeting, law enforcement had never taken her story. The children were related to a council member. A few days later after the hearing, the children were seen on a school bus involved in another sexual act with each other. The tribal chair had stated that everyone knew her story. If so – why was nothing ever done?
3. In June 2013, we were asked to write about and post the story of 3-year-old Lauryn Whiteshield, who, under the BIA and US Attorney’s watch was murdered after having been taken from a safe home in Bismarck and placed with her grandfather, who was living with a woman known to abuse children. The woman abused both her and her twin sister and murdered this little girl within a month of her arrival. This case did get media attention in North Dakota, and as a result, the perpetrator was quickly arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned all within five months. Jeanine Russell, the non-native foster mom for the surviving twin, was asked by the FBI to write and read a victim’s impact statement for the sentencing of Hope Whiteshield, the murderer of Lauryn. We were told she asked the judge to hold her accountable but also hold a broken system accountable. She talked about the lost life of a little girl but also how the federal governed allowed it to happen, and said ICWA can be an evil law when twisted to fit the tribes wants or needs. That said, Spirit Lake is just a microcosm of abuse that appears widespread in Indian Country. About the same this happened to these twins in North Dakota, the same thing was happening to twin boys in South Dakota. As of this writing, no one has been convicted for the murder of that twin boy, although we are told much evidence points to the father.
4. Two foster mothers have written to us, concerned for the Spirit Lake children they were caring for and asking for our help to keep those children safe.
5. A birth mother who is an enrolled member of Spirit Lake contacted us in June, 2014, asking for help as she prepared to go before tribal court.
6. A law enforcement officer connected to Spirit Lake, who asked to remain anonymous, contacted us just prior to the June 24th oversight hearing to tell us additional stories of abuse and his concern that in many cases, he and others have felt their hands were tied having to submit to whatever the tribal government wanted done with abused children or other victims.
It is impossible for us to wrap our heads around how and why this can continue to be allowed. How can our country – our government – stand by while a certain segment of children are routinely abused?
Our Congress didn’t stand by when the best interest of children in Russia was in question. Late Tuesday night, January 1st, 2013, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed S. Res. 628, expressing disappointment over a Russian law banning adoption of children by American citizens. Senator Inhofe, one of two Senate Co-chairs of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, stated,
“It is extremely unfortunate and disheartening that the Russian Duma and President Putin would choose to deprive the children, the very children that they are entrusted to care for, the ability to find a safe and caring family that every child deserves…It is nothing more than a political play…that ultimately leads to greater hardships and more suffering for Russian children who will now be denied a loving family.”
CCA Members of Congress have also sent a bi-partisan letter to President Putin urging him to veto the legislation, stating,
“We fear that this overly broad law would have dire consequences for Russian children…Nothing is more important to the future of our world than doing our best to give as many children the chance to grow up in a family as we possibly can.”
Further, on June 30, 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama stated in a letter to Speaker John Boehner that the children crossing our southern border are an urgent humanitarian situation and the U.S. has a legal and moral obligation to make sure they are appropriately cared for.
That being the case, and Native American children already wards of the United States government, why has so little been done to alleviate the humanitarian crisis within our reservation system?
Cause?
We are told the cause of crime and corruption in Indian Country is poverty and “Historical Trauma,” and that additional funding will solve the problems. Yet, crime and corruption are never made better and can never be made better by giving those responsible for the crime and corruption more money.
Despite claims by tribal leaders and entities such as NICWA, NARF and Casey Foundation, our families don’t suffer from “Historical Trauma.” If my personal family were to suffer from any type of historical trauma, it would more likely be due to relatives dying in the Holocaust in Germany.
However, if any in my immediate family, other than my father who experienced it, were to exhibit trauma related to the Holocaust, it would likely be regarded as unhealthy. Prolonged, delayed, or otherwise unresolved grieving over a long period of time is considered unhealthy – even more so if the trauma occurred to someone else, was not witnessed by oneself, and didn’t even happen in one’s lifetime.
We further disagree with the offensive premise by many that low income is the cause of crime simply because some people with little income have committed crime. Persons with middle incomes and even extremely high incomes have been known to exhibit criminal behavior as well. Criminal intention comes from within the heart, not outside of it.
Lastly, tribal members are not permanently destined to be forever victims, forever in need of government assistance. The very suggestion is profoundly insulting and paternalistic.
We all have varied choices in how we live our lives. Interestingly, many of U.S. citizens of Native American heritage have purposefully chosen not to live under the auspices of tribal and federal government – nor in the limited “cultural” box defined by entities such as NICWA, NARF and the Casey Foundation – despite the many attempts by these organizations to close people into that box.
It is often hard to hear the true voices of many tribal members. If there is one thing that seems to run culturally, it is the choice to remain relatively silent in the face of tribal government corruption. But social media has been opening people up across the nation. Note this public Facebook post by a tribal member on Friday, June 27, 2014. It is similar to what our organization hears from affected people every day…
Leech Lakers Unite
Good evening to all of you. Thank you for all your comments. There are many issues that seem so fixable if we would have one person willing to stand up and be the voice for the people and lead by example at the RBC level. We all see and know of individuals who are using company cars for their personal use. Driving their families and friends around. Yet even when employees are not held accountable for killing with tribal owned vehicles our infamous RBC still allows some to drive company vehicles. The white laws are the only ones holding these men accountable. Where is a public apology to these families from our leaders. Robbie Howe now wants severance huh? She already got her severance when she got paid for not coming to work. If she gets one, you can thank our so called leaders for that. We hear she is sick and if this is the case and it stopped her from performing her daily job functions she should have stepped down and our joke of a Chair, Carri and Secretary/treasurer should have asked her to step down. Here they come, Archies crew. Mike Myers, non band member. Randy Finn and Frank Bebeau, another non band member who has never won a single case for Leech Lake EVER! Yet has Archies loyality. It will never change people until you demand more out of of so called leaders. Vote count was lower and bravo to all of you who made a statement by not voting in someone you dont believe in. You should check and see if your name was used illegally just in case.
The facts are:
1) According to the last two U.S. censuses, 75% of tribal members DO NOT live in Indian Country – and many, like our families, have deliberately taken their children and left in order to protect their families from the rampant crime and corruption of the reservation system.
2) The abuses at Spirit Lake in North Dakota are well known, but it is also known that Spirit Lake is just a microcosm of what’s happening on many reservations across the country.
3) Gang activity involving drugs is heavy and rampant on many reservations. There are children dying within Indian Country whose names don’t make it to the media – and for whom justice is never given.
4) These abuses are rampant on many reservations because the U.S. Government has set up a system that allows extensive abuse to occur unchecked and without repercussion.
5) Many, many times more children leave the reservation system in the company of their parents, who have mass exited – than do children who have been taken into foster care or found a home in adoption. But tribal leaders can’t admit many parents are consciously taking their kids out of Indian Country in attempt to get them away from the reservation system and corrupt leaders. It makes a better sound bite to blame it on evil social services
It’s time to stop listening to those with a vested financial interest in increasing tribal government power, and learn more about the physical, emotional, sexual and financial abuse of tribal members by other tribal members and even many tribal leaders.
Every time power to tribal leaders is increased, tribal members – U.S. citizens – are robbed of civil freedoms under the constitution of the United States.
More power given to tribal leaders means less freedom and constitutional rights for tribal members. Equal Protection, for example, is a constitutional right.
To better protect children, we need to:
A. Guarantee protection for children of Native American heritage equal to that of any other child in the United States.
B. Guarantee that fit parents, no matter their heritage, have the right to choose healthy guardians or adoptive parents for their children without concern for heritage.
C. Recognize the “Existing Indian Family Doctrine” as a viable analysis for consideration and application in child custody proceedings. (See In re Santos Y, In Bridget R., and In re Alexandria Y.)
D. Guarantee that United States citizens, no matter their heritage, have a right to fair trials.
• When summoned to a tribal court, parents and legal guardians will be informed of their legal rights, including USC 25 Chapter 21 1911 (b)“…In any State court proceeding for the foster care placement of, or termination of parental rights to, an Indian child not domiciled or residing within the reservation of the Indian child’s tribe, the court, in the absence of good cause to the contrary, shall transfer such proceeding to the jurisdiction of the tribe, absent objection by either parent…”
• Under the principles of comity: All Tribes and States shall accord full faith and credit to a child custody order issued by the Tribe or State of initial jurisdiction consistent within the UCCJA – which enforces a child custody determination by a court of another State – unless the order has been vacated, stayed, or modified by a court having jurisdiction to do so under Article 2 of the UCCJA.E. Include well defined protections for Adoptive Parents.
F. Mandate that a “Qualified expert witness” be someone who has professional knowledge of the child and family and is able to advocate for the well being of the child, first and foremost.
G. Mandate that only parents and/or legal custodians have the right to enroll a child into an Indian Tribe. Because it is claimed that tribal membership is a political rather than racial designation, we are asking that parents, as U.S. citizens, be given the sole, constitutional right to choose political affiliation for their families and not have it forced upon them.
• Remove the words “or are eligible for membership in” 1901 (3)
• Remove the words “eligible for membership in” from 1903 (4) (b), the definition of an ‘Indian child’ and replace with the words “an enrolled member of”
Read more detail and citations for these points in the attached document, “To Better Protect the Children.”
It is time for balder-dash to end and genuine concern begin.
Thank you again for your patience and willingness to hear our concerns.
Elizabeth Sharon Morris
Chairwoman
Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW)
PO Box 460
Hillsboro, ND 58045
administrator@caicw.org
References:
ACF. (2007). Tribal Child Counts. Washington DC: Child Care Bureau, Office of Family Assistance. Log No: CCDF-ACF-PI-2007-02
Belford, D. (Director). (2012). Life with James [Video Clip].
Benedict, J. (2000). Without Reservation. New York: Harper.
Cross, T.L. (1995a). Heritage & helping: A model curriculum for Indian child welfare practice, Module II: Protective services for Indian children. Portland, OR: National Indian Child Welfare Association.
Cross, T.L. (1995b). Heritage & helping: A model curriculum for Indian child welfare practice, Module IV: Family-centered services for Indian children. Portland, OR: National Indian Child Welfare Association.
In re SANTOS Y., B144822 (Cal. App. 4th, Second Dist. Div. Two July 20, 2001).
Jackson, J. C. (1999, February 12). Director of Government Affairs. (U. C. Rights, Interviewer) Retrieved from Jack C. Jackson, Jr., Director of Governmental Affairs, National Congress of American Indians, Statement on the importance of an accurate census to American Indians and Alaska Natives, before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Washington, D.C., http://www.ncai.org/ncai/resource/documents/governance/cvrightcensus.
KARNOWSKI, S. (2013). Feds Say Native Mob Gang Dented but Work Remains. Minneapolis: ABC News.
Kershaw, S. (2006, February 19), Tribal Underworld: Drug Traffickers Find Haven in Shadows of Indian Country, New York Times
Lawrence, B. (2007). Publisher. Native American Press/Ojibwe News.
Moddelmog, T. R. (2013). Rebuttal. Grand Forks: Grand Fork Herald.
Morris, E. (2007). VIEWPOINT: Law could tear children from a ‘tribe’ they love . Grand Forks: Grand Forks Herald.
Morris, Roland John. (1998). Testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs. Seattle: Concerning Tribal corruption and Jurisdiction.
Morrison, S.K., (1998), Testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on tribal sovereignty and tribal courts, Choctaw Attorney; Wilburton, Oklahoma;
Omdahl, L. (2013, July). Commentary by Former ND Lt. Governor. Grand Forks: Grand Forks Herald.
Quilt. (2004). Child Counts. Warm Spring: NCCIC. http://www.nccic.org/Tribal/effective/warmsprings/childcounts.html
Smart, P. M. (2004). In Harm’s Way. The Salt Lake Tribune.
Sullivan, T. F. (2013). 12th Mandated Report. Denver: ACF.
Tevlin, J. (2013, February 12). Tevlin: Sierra shares lessons on Indian adoption. Retrieved from StarTribune.com: http://www.startribune.com/local/190953261.html?refer=y
SD: Indian Foster Care 1: NPR Investigative Storytelling Gone Awry
National Public Radio Ombudsman – August 09, 2013
My finding is that the series was deeply flawed and should not have been aired as it was. Also: S. Dakota Indian Foster Care 2: Abuse In Taking Children From Families?: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/186943868/s-dakota-indian-foster-care-2-abuse-in-taking-children-from-families?ft=1&f= Also: S. Dakota Indian Foster Care 3: Filthy Lucre: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/186943952/s-dakota-indian-foster-care-3-filthy-lucre Also: Indian Foster Care 4: The Mystery Of A Missing $100 Million: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/209282064/s-dakota-indian-foster-care-4-the-mystery-of-a-missing-100-million Also: S. Dakota Indian Foster Care 5: Who Is To Blame For Native Children In White Homes?: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/209528755/s-dakota-indian-foster-care-5-who-is-to-blame-for-native-children-in-white-homes Also: S. Dakota Indian Foster Care 6: Where It All Went Wrong – The Framing: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/203038778/s-dakota-india
Full NPR Ombudsman Report: http://www.scribd.com/doc/159252168/Full-NPR-Ombudsman-Report-South-Dakota-Foster-Care-Investigative-Storytelling-Gone-Awry
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/186943929/s-dakota-indian-foster-care-1-investigative-storytelling-gone-awry
Attached:
A Pilot Study of Compliance in North Dakota, (December 2000) by NICWA and Casey Family Programs
BIA ICWA Guideline Changes (April 30, 2014) by Elizabeth Morris
Documents from a Spirit Lake family asking for help with Granddaughter (2013)
Domestic and Sexual Violence outside the Reservations in North Dakota get lots of attention from the ACF. (September 2013) Email Correspondence between ACF Officials
Feds Say Native Mob Dented, but Work Remains (2013), by Steve Karnowski
Routine Cruelty (2001), by Thomas Sowell
Testimony of Roland John Morris Sr. before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (1998) – Concerning tribal corruption and jurisdiction
Tom Sullivan’s attempt to go to Spirit Lake, (August, 2013) – email correspondence between Tom Sullivan and his DC Superiors
Tom Sullivan’s Response to Chairman McDonald’s Hearing Testimony (June 25, 2014) by Thomas Sullivan, Regional Director of the Administration for Children and Families
Tom Sullivan’s Response to ACF Superior Ms. McMullen, (July 1, 2014) – by Thomas Sullivan, Regional Director of the Administration for Children and Families
To Better Protect the Children, by Elizabeth Morris
Numerous letters of pain from Families across the U.S.
Jun 102014
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Sullivan, Thomas (ACF)
Subject: Criminal Corruption Reaches New Heights at Spirit Lake
To: “Mcmullen, Marrianne (ACF)”
Cc: “Greenberg, Mark (ACF)”
Ms. McMullen:
One month ago I wrote a four page email documenting the level of control exercised by the criminally corrupt at Spirit Lake.
This was not the first time I had raised their control over events at Spirit Lake. Almost two years ago, in my First Mandated Report, dated June 14, 2012, I quoted favorably from a letter composed by former Tribal Judge Molly McDonald who had written, “I grew up on this reservation and witnessed many acts of violence and abuse. This is normal to us. Our tribe has adopted this as a way of life, violence and hopelessness. When does the cycle end?…The abuse is reported but nothing is done by Social Services or Law Enforcement. Where do we go from there?…. Please consider that if an investigation had been done, many children could have been saved from further abuse, and possibly, they would have been alive today…..our tribe is attempting to cover up these issues that plagued our reservation for many years……Whatever picture our tribal council or chairman want to paint, it simply is not the case. There is a dire need for professionals …that know their boundaries and will not overlook issues at the request of Tribal Council.”
When former Tribal Judge McDonald wrote that letter in the Spring of 2012, the criminally corrupt controlled the levers of power at Spirit Lake. They still do. Now, however, after going unchallenged by anyone in authority for so many years, they may have gone too far for most responsible people.
In item # 2 in my December 19, 2013 email to you I referenced the allegation that a 13 year old little girl was being raped by a known sex offender, that this had been reported to the Tribal Chair and Council, BIA and Tribal law enforcement. The child’s non-custodial father was told by the BIA that they would not be able to investigate this allegation for another thirty days at the earliest. I have periodically referenced this child’s situation in my subsequent emails to you. To my knowledge, more than 6 months after this allegation was first reported to the BIA, no investigation has yet been conducted. This is how innocent victims are treated at Spirit Lake! Would such a failure to investigate these allegations, to stop the abuse and to protect the innocent victim be tolerated in Devils Lake, ND, the nearest off reservation majority community?
Clearly the criminally corrupt do not control Devils Lake. Even though the alleged rapist, referenced above, resides on the Spirit Lake reservation, the State’s Attorney for Ramsey County (Devils Lake is the county seat for Ramsey County) has obtained four felony indictments against this man for child abuse, endangerment for actions he engaged in off the reservation in Ramsey County. My sources and I suspect these indictments are for child sexual abuse but have not thus far been able to obtain confirmation of our suspicions. Nevertheless, these are felony level charges involving the abuse of a child. I believe most thinking adults, knowing this, would consider those to be serious charges. This is not an opinion held by the Spirit Lake leadership because they are refusing to allow this alleged rapist of a 13 year old little girl, the subject of four felony indictments involving child abuse, to be extradited to Ramsey County.
Apparently this is how it works at Spirit Lake: the allegations of little girls who report they are being raped are ignored while their alleged rapists the subject of four felony indictments for child abuse is shielded from the law. If this isn’t a new extreme in criminal corruption what is?
Thomas F. Sullivan
Regional Administrator, ACF, Denver
May 062014
.
To: Various Legislative Staff – 1:33 PM
I am forwarding to you a letter written today by Administrator Tom 
Sullivan. I was aware of an 8-month-old passing away last week at Spirit Lake, but this was the first I heard about the newborn.
We are very distressed by this letter. What it says is beyond comprehension.
Some of whom I am writing to are genuinely concerned. Others don’t appear to be or don’t believe he is telling the truth. Yet – more than a few independent media reports have come out over the last couple years verifying and supporting exactly what Mr. Sullivan says is happening.
An April 28, 2014 report from the Associate Press notes new FBI statistics that show the “Navajo Nation [pop. 180,000] saw a sharp increase in the murder rate in 2013 and finished the year with 42 homicides, eclipsing major metropolitan areas like Seattle and Boston.” It said the 42 people killed “surpassed 40 in Boston and 32 in Seattle, both cities with populations of more than 600,000.”
No mention of how many of those in the report were below the age of 18. We won’t hazard a guess.
People – we are talking about children. We realize how difficult the problem is. But we are talking about children. Shame on all those who continue to cover up horrific crimes happening on reservations all over the U.S. simply because standing up to a tribal government complicates their jobs or reelection opportunities. We are talking about children.
Our org and many others will not go away until ALL children in the United States – no matter their heritage – are afforded safety, respect, love, and equal protection. Our government must quit treating children of tribal heritage as if they are worthless, expendable political pawns.
Our children are U.S. citizens first and foremost, and have constitutional rights. Begin to recognize that. We are not going away.
Regional Administrator Sullivan’s letter –
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Sullivan, Thomas (ACF)
Subject: Criminal Corruption continues at Spirit Lake
To: “Mcmullen, Marrianne (ACF)”
Cc: “Murray, James (ACF)”
Ms. Mcmullen:
The criminally corrupt remain in charge at Spirit Lake. By this I mean that whenever a decision is to be made where there is a choice between the welfare and safety of children and the welfare and safety of abusers, rapists and sodomizers, the latter always seem to prevail. This is evidenced by the following eleven facts:
1. In the first week of February, 2014 the Spirit Lake Tribal Council fired Spirit Lake Associate Judge Jennifer Cross. Former Judge Cross had apparently incurred the wrath of the Council by several decision she had rendered during the prior few weeks, decisions to remove children from the homes of convicted rapists and abusers. These rapists and abusers went to the Council and prevailed on them to fire Judge Cross. They did. The Tribal Chair and another council member opposed this action but they were outvoted. The Chair does not normally vote unless there is a tie vote. How does this action of the Tribal Council contribute to the welfare and safety of Spirit Lake children?
2. The reason given by the Tribal Council for the termination of Judge Cross’ employment was that she had not passed the Bar. Judge Cross is a graduate of an accredited Law School and had been preparing for the Bar exam when fired. I understand the current Chief Judge of the Spirit Lake Tribal Court has taken and failed the state bar exam on two different occasions. Judge Cross’ replacement on the Tribal Court has only a high school diploma, no education beyond high school. How will the replacement of Judge Cross with this man contribute to the safety and welfare of the children of Spirit Lake?
3. After Judge Cross was fired these same families asked the Chair and Council to return the children who had been removed from their homes. One of those former foster parents, a twice-convicted rapist, was overheard outside the Council chambers telling the BIA Spirit Lake Superintendent how to handle the paperwork returning the two pre-teen girls back into his full time care and custody by placing only his wife’s name on those documents and keeping his name off of them. How does the placement of these pre-teen girls back into the home of a twice-convicted rapist contribute to their safety and welfare?
4. When Judge Cross applied to the Tribal Chair and Council for reinstatement, she was told by Councilwoman Brownshield, in an open meeting of the Council, “I don’t agree with your decisions.” All the other Council members nodded their heads in agreement. The Tribal Chair spoke on behalf of Judge Cross being retained. Since the vote was 4 to 0 against Judge Cross the Chair did not even have an opportunity to vote. Has this Tribal Council adopted a policy that they will fire any tribal employee who takes actions inconsistent with their desires? How does such a policy contribute to the welfare and safety of the children of Spirit Lake? How will such a policy effect the willingness of competent, qualified staff to come to Spirit Lake to work under such uncertainty?
5. One senior tribal official told me that several years ago former Tribal Social Services (TSS) director Kevin Dauphinais left two children at his home. They were a 4 year old girl and a 2 year old boy who, according to Mr. Dauphinais, needed a place to stay for a few days. They are still in that home. It was immediately obvious that both required medical attention. Subsequent review at the Grand Forks Advocacy Center (GFAC) revealed that the little girl had been being raped by her biological father. When the mother learned this, she kicked the bio dad out of their home. Shortly thereafter the bio mom brought a live-in boyfriend into that home. The live in, soon after arriving in that home, sodomized the 2 year old boy and fled the home immediately. Both BIA law enforcement and FBI were on hand at the GFAC when the rapes and sodomy were confirmed. In the intervening several years there has been no investigation of these sexual assaults on these two little children. There has been no prosecution of these monsters who sexually assaulted these two children. These monsters remain free to walk the streets of their communities, raping and sodomizing little children with no apparent fear of prosecution or imprisonment. I understand no rehabilitative services have been provided to these children to help them overcome the trauma they suffered. How does acting as though nothing bad has been inflicted on these two children contribute to the welfare and safety of children at Spirit Lake?
6. Even though it has been almost four full weeks since the four of you returned from your brief “fact-finding” visit to Spirit Lake, I have yet to see a report of your findings. I am going to receive a copy, aren’t I? I was deeply disappointed to learn from my sources and others who you met with that you had an exceptionally “rosy view” of conditions at Spirit Lake and that you really did not wish to hear any details about the abusive conditions many children have been placed in there, where they are available to be raped and tortured on a daily basis, and the failure of all supposedly responsible adults whether in positions of responsibility in tribal, state or federal government agencies, advocacy groups, religious leaders or the media to stop the carnage. If that is “fact-finding” as you define it, that is most unfortunate. How your “rosy view” and how your refusal to listen to the factual details about the continuing abuse and rape of children contributes to the safety and welfare of those children of Spirit Lake escapes me. May I ask how all of you arrived at the conclusion that your “rosy view” of Spirit Lake was a more accurate descriptor of conditions there than the detailed facts provided to you by my sources and I? What information did you rely on to reach your “rosy view”? Who provided that information? If that information is in written form, may I see a copy of it? How were you able to substantiate the accuracy of that information? How does your “rosy view” of conditions the children of Spirit Lake have been placed in contribute to their welfare and safety? Doesn’t that “rosy view” just spread a little powder and perfume around to cover up the stench emanating from the homes where these Spirit Lake children are available to be tortured and raped daily?
7. In my Tenth Mandated Report I provided detail about the father who was found by the local police in a Devils Lake motel naked in bed with his then 10 year old daughter who was also naked. The Ramsey County Attorney investigated that allegation in my Report and brought an indictment against the father for a class two felony of Gross Sexual Imposition. I find it fascinating that a county attorney receiving a single report from me is able, with only limited resources as compared to those available to the FBI, US Attorney and the BIA, to investigate and indict on facts made available in one of my Reports. There are hundreds of comparable allegations made in my thirteen Mandated Reports which fall into the jurisdiction of the FBI, US Attorney and the BIA. How odd that not one of those resulted in an arrest, indictment or tribal warrant! How does one justify your “rosy view” under these circumstances? How does one explain such gross failures by federal law enforcement?
8. I understand from my sources that you clearly stated that you are drawing a line in the sand in order to restrict the issues you will deal with to those occurring after your brief “fact-finding” visit to Spirit Lake. That means that the hundreds of those children who were placed on the orders of the prior tribal chair in homes with those who neglect, abuse and rape will be ignored in any future efforts at Spirit Lake. This also means that nothing will be done to find those dozens of children who have simply disappeared from the reservation, perhaps trafficked into the Bakken oil field man camps or into other forms of sexual slavery. This also means you will do nothing to help those parents who have been caring for undocumented children without any pay for at least two years and who now will be left to fight the county, state and tribal governments to get the papers allowing them to register these children in school, qualify for Medicaid, etc.. This also means that those young children who have been professionally evaluated, identified as being subjected to unspeakable physical and sexual abuse and who have been prevented from receiving necessary rehabilitative services by the tribal Council will continue to be ignored. Nothing will be done for them to help them to heal! How does leaving all of these Spirit Lake children behind, ineligible in your universe to receive any services, contribute to their welfare and safety? It is clear that your line in the sand will cast a broad, protective net over all those abusers and rapists who have had their way with the children of Spirit Lake for years and, in your universe, will continue without any fear of exposure, prosecution or imprisonment for their prior abuse, rape and torture of these children. Sounds like amnesty to me. By whose authority have you declared that amnesty?
9. It is my understanding that all of you have passed the word to your staff, grantees and contractors that nothing negative about conditions at Spirit Lake will be tolerated in any reports, etc. submitted to you. How sad. Children are in the full-time care and custody of predators available to be raped daily and you are whitewashing any report you get that factually describes conditions at Spirit Lake so no one’s sensibilities will be offended by any word contrary to your “rosy view”. How does such a cover-up contribute to the safety and welfare of the children at Spirit Lake?
10. The Spirit Lake Tribal Chair at a General Assembly meeting on April 29, 2014 in Fort Totten rebuked a local TV reporter for reporting on the death on Thursday, April 24, 2014 of an 8 month old who, reportedly, choked to death on a baby bottle. The reporter was excluded from the meeting as well by the Chair. Unpleasant news is never easy to handle but attempts to cover up such unpleasantness have, in my experience, lead to even more unpleasant publicity. At the same meeting one Tribal Council member tried to ban one of my sources from the reservation. No vote was taken on this matter that evening. It is intriguing that within the space of a few weeks’ time, we have conditions at Spirit Lake described in terms of a “rosy view”, I hear of an organized federal effort to stop any negative publicity about Spirit Lake and the Tribal Chair and Council openly speak of silencing the media and my sources. What a coincidence! Or as a poster I saw recently proclaimed: “Sometimes a coincidence is a plan in disguise.” Whether all of this is a plan or just a coincidence, please tell me how does any of it contribute to the safety and welfare of the children at Spirit Lake?
11. Facts do have a way of interfering with stories that are false. Within the last week, I understand there have been two infant deaths at Spirit Lake. The first was on April 24, 2014 when an infant boy, eight months old, choked to death on a baby bottle. On Tuesday, April 29, 2014, I understand, an infant less than a week old was found dead in his home in Fort Totten. This child had been born in Minot and had been brought home to Fort Totten by his 17 year old mother over the weekend. Dead bodies of infants are difficult to sweep under the rug, especially when there are two of them in five days. It is difficult to maintain that “rosy view” under these circumstances. Reports can be manipulated, if that is your intent. The press can be intimidated and people barred, if that is your intent. If you are able to do all of that, you are still left with two dead babies, hundreds of children in the care and custody of abusive and predatory biological and foster parents, available to be raped or tortured daily and dozens of children who have simply disappeared from the Reservation. What will your “rosy view” and all the rest of your efforts to minimize any discussion of the harsh conditions these children are living in contribute to the safety and welfare of these children?
How many more Spirit Lake children will never grow up because of this continuing criminal corruption? How many more Spirit Lake children will grow into adult lives of severe dysfunction as a result of the abuse, rape and torture imposed on them by the criminally corrupt?
Thomas F. Sullivan
Regional Administrator, ACF, Denver
—
Elizabeth Sharon (Lisa) Morris
Chairwoman
Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW)
PO Box 460
Hillsboro, ND 58045
administrator@caicw.org
https://caicw.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/CAICW ( @CAICW )
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fbCAICW.org
May 012014
On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 CAICW wrote the following letter to BIA officials:
Ms. Cave and the committees involved with transforming ICWA guidelines;
Thank you for allowing input concerning the Indian Child Welfare Act guidelines.
The hosts of the listening session on Thursday, April 24 stated that only tribal leaders have a stake in the ICWA and are thus the sole “stakeholders” in what happens with ICWA. I realize this is what the BIA as well as many in Congress believe.
However, tribal members who have rejected tribal jurisdiction, non-member persons of heritage who rejected the reservation system and/or have never lived under it, and hundreds of thousands of non-Indians across the nation are in fact “stakeholders” in this law – whether government wants to admit it or not.
Non-Indian stakeholders would include the non-Indian birth moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins of children adversely affected by the Indian Child Welfare Act. There are hundreds of thousands of them. You can not say that these families are not “stakeholders” if they are having to fight a tribal government over rights to their own children.
And yes – we have current cases of birth family having to fight tribal governments for their own children. We had a grandmother in Colorado last month who won her case to keep her 7-year-old grandson – but would not have won without help from good attorneys. Sadly, we have a birth mother in Michigan right now who is losing against tribal court because she had no money to hire an attorney who could stand up and say the tribal court isn’t following ICWA, let alone regular family law.
When government passes a law that mandatorily gives jurisdiction of ones family to a political entity – and that law affects not just persons who have chosen to be part of that political entity, but everyone of 100% certain blood heritage – Government has approved a law based on race and has way overstepped its bounds. It gets even worse. Bad enough that many persons and families of 100% heritage are forced unwillingly into this political situation due to their race, but our federal government went further – forcing everyone down to 51% heritage to be included in the law – as well as hundreds of thousands of people with even less than 5% heritage. This means families who are predominately non-native – many of whom are unconnected to the reservation system.
Government has lost sight of the reality that 75% of those who are considered Native American do not live within the reservation system and appears to be blind to the reality that the vast majority of people affected by ICWA are predominately of non-Indian heritage. These affected children have OTHER extended family, roots, traditions, and worldviews – all equally important and acceptable.
I am speaking as a birth mother, grandmother and aunt. I am also speaking as representative of our national membership. I and the people I represent are undeniably stakeholders.
Below are some of the issues brought up by tribal officials in the listening session last Thursday. Tribal leaders are talking about ways to strengthen their jurisdiction over our children. We were very dismayed at the suggested ICWA changes.
Some of the upsetting points of change requested by tribal leaders and their attorneys are listed here. I have summarized reasons for our objections in italics.
1. ‘Make it easier to transfer children to tribal court’ – (Thus harder for families such as ours to protect themselves)
2. ‘Tribal decisions concerning eligiblity should be conclusive’ – (Dominating the feelings and decisions of the birth family, who might have purposefully left the reservation system due to prevalent crime and corruption. Parents and primary caregivers should have the final say as to whether their children are enrolled.)
3. ‘A tribal committee should make revisions to the guidelines and those guidelines should become binding law.’ – (Despite the legislative record, which shows that the guidelines were never meant to be binding. Further – ALL stakeholders should be invited to the table, not just those who have a financial and power stake in having possession of our children.)
3. ‘Make it easier for kids to be eligible. Allow for combining the heritage from two different tribes to help a child reach eligibility.’ – (We are obviously talking about children here who are primarily of non-native heritage. Are tribal governments grasping at straws to keep control over other people’s children?)
4. ‘Require complete ancestry charts for BOTH parents’ – (No tribal government has any right to see my ancestry chart. I am not a tribal member – they have no right to demand any of my personal documents or a right to inspect my lineage.)
5. ‘Eliminate all language referring to “delay” being a problem, the advanced stage of proceedings, or the undue hardship of transferring to tribal court.’ – (OUR children have a right to be respected and protected. There are laws in every state limiting how long a child must wait for permanency BECAUSE it is well documented that children have an emotional need stable and permanent homes as soon as possible. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, our children are no different from any other child in America. It is extremely racist to claim that OUR children are somehow different than other kids and do NOT need permanence as early. What this is essentially saying is that it is okay if children of heritage have their lives disrupted and pulled apart – it doesn’t matter how long they cry or pine for the people they knew and loved best – because they are not as important or valued by our government as other children are. Our government is willing to deeply hurt our children simply because they have Native American heritage. Does the government consider them not as worth protecting as other children?)
6. ‘No more talk about a child not being connected to the tribe – as if the child isn’t “Indian” enough. Eliminate use of the Indian Child Doctrine nationally.’ – ( It is extremely racist for tribal governments to claim that they know my child, who they have never met, better than I do – and that it is more important for my child to be connected to the tribe than it is for my child to have a permanent, safe, and stable home. It is extremely offensive for Tribal leaders to make racist statements like this – completely denying the rights and feelings of non-Indian families as well as Indian families who have purposefully distanced themselves from the reservation system.)
7. ‘Acknowledge that a parent who has not had custody is still a parent with continuing custody.’ – (Would this acknowledgment apply to non-Indian parents as well? Will the government consider the non-Indian mother in Michigan as one with ‘continuing custody,’ even though the tribal court has ripped her 13-yr-old daughter away from her – against the daughter’s wishes? Or is the suggestion that only non-custodial parents of tribal heritage will always be considered a custodial parent? Why? Does the U.S. government continue to view U.S. citizens of native heritage as somehow incapable? Is there an underlying racist notion that parents of heritage are somehow different than their non-native counterparts – despite the vast majority of citizens of tribal heritage living average, mainstream lives off the reservation? To many parents of heritage who choose to live outside of Indian Country, it is offensive that our government continues to pigeon hole people. Further, to non-native parents of eligible children, it is appalling anyone would suggest the other parent be considered to have had custody simply due to a percentage of heritage. Parents without custody are non-custodial parents, period.)
8. ’24-months isn’t long enough for some parents. ex – One dad wasn’t the one with custody because most young children are raised by the mothers and so it is not his fault. He wasn’t responsible for the current situation and needs more time.’ – (The best interest of the child – the need for permanence, safety and stability – needs to be of utmost importance. The needs of Dads who haven’t been in the picture – many times by choice, although they might regret it later – must be secondary. Our society needs all parents, no matter the heritage, to be responsible and accountable, not blaming. We need to make the emotional needs of individual children priority and quit making excuses for adults who should know better.)
9. ‘What one culture deems normal, another culture might not.’ – (This is true. But many ICWA workers seem to ignore the cultural norm an individual child has been raised in – as well as ignore any other heritage of the child – for the sake of the culture tribal leaders and ICWA workers deem necessary and solely important. This appears to happen even when a child has been completely raised and feels comfortable in an alternate culture. Among many ICWA workers, there appears to be a complete disregard and even antagonism for the equally good and acceptable cultures many children living outside of the reservation system have been comfortable with.)
10. ‘States should be required to give the tribal gov’ts a list of all their licensed foster homes so they tribal gov’t can identify preferred families.’ – (Foster families have a right to privacy. This expectation and demand is frightening.)
The following are a list of proposed ICWA changes we would like to see:
1. Children of tribal heritage should be guaranteed protection equal to that of any other child in the United States.
a) Children should never be moved suddenly from a home that is safe, loved, and where they are emotionally, socially and physically comfortable simply because their care-givers are not of a certain heritage. The best interest of the child should be considered first, above the needs of the tribal community.
b) State health and welfare requirements for foster and adoptive children should apply equally to all. If there is proven evidence of emotional and/or physical neglect, the state has an obligation to that child’s welfare and should be held accountable if the child is knowingly or by Social Service neglect left in unsafe conditions. ( – Title 42 U.S.C 1983)
2. Fit parents, no matter their heritage, have the right to choose healthy guardians or adoptive parents for their children without concern for heritage and superseding wishes of tribal government. US Supreme Court decisions upholding family autonomy under 5th and 14th Amendment due process and equal protection include Meyer vs. Nebraska, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, and Brown v. Board of Education.
3. The “Existing Indian Family Doctrine” must be available to families and children that choose not to live within the reservation system.
a) In re Santos Y, the court found “Application of the ICWA to a child whose only connection with an Indian tribe is a one-quarter genetic contribution does not serve the purpose for which the ICWA was enacted…” Santos y quoted from Bridget R.’s due process and equal protection analysis at length. Santos also states, Congress considered amending the ICWA to preclude application of the “existing Indian family doctrine” but did not do so.”
b) In Bridget R., the court stated, “if the Act applies to children whose families have no significant relationship with Indian tribal culture, such application runs afoul of the Constitution in three ways:
— it impermissibly intrudes upon a power ordinarily reserved to the states,
— it improperly interferes with Indian children’s fundamental due process rights respecting family relationships; and
— on the sole basis of race, it deprives them of equal opportunities to be adopted that are available to non-Indian children and exposes them…to having an existing non-Indian family torn apart through an after the fact assertion of tribal and Indian-parent rights under ICWA”.
c) In re Alexandria Y., the court held that “recognition of the existing Indian family doctrine [was] necessary to avoid serious constitutional flaws in the ICWA” and held that the trial court had acted properly in refusing to apply ICWA “because neither [child] nor [mother] had any significant social, cultural, or political relationship with Indian life; thus, there was no existing Indian family to preserve.” Question: If current ICWA case law includes many situations where existing Family Doctrine has already been ignored, then have serious constitutional flaws already occurred?
4. United States citizens, no matter their heritage, have a right to fair trials.
a) When summoned to a tribal court, parents and legal guardians, whether enrolled or not, have to be told their rights, including 25 USC Chapter 21 § 1911. (b) “Transfer of proceedings [to tribal jurisdiction] …in the absence of good cause to the contrary, [and] objection by either parent…”
b) The rights of non-member parents must be upheld: for example; 25 USC Chapter 21 § 1903. Definitions “Permanent Placement” (1) (iv) “shall not include a placement based … upon an award, in a divorce proceeding, of custody to one of the parents.
c) Non-members have to be able to serve county and state summons to tribal members within reservation boundaries and must have access to appeal.
d) Under the principles of comity: All Tribes and States shall accord full faith and credit to a child custody order issued by the Tribe or State of initial jurisdiction consistent within the UCCJA – which enforces a child custody determination by a court of another State – unless the order has been vacated, stayed, or modified by a court having jurisdiction to do so under Article 2 of the UCCJA.
5. Adoptive Parents need well defined protections. These are the citizens among us that have been willing to set aside personal comforts and take in society’s neediest children. Adoptive parents take many risks in doing this, the least of which is finances. People build their lives around family. Adoptive parents risk not only their own hearts, but the hearts of any birth children they have as well as the hearts of their extended family. These parents have an investment in the families they are building and have a right to know that they can put their names on the adoption paper with confidence. If we, as a society, continue to abuse these parents, we will find fewer people willing to take the risk of adoption and more and more children will languish in foster homes.
6. A “Qualified expert witness” should be someone who is able to advocate for the well being of the child, first and foremost: a professional person who has substantial education and experience in the area of the professional person’s specialty and significant knowledge of and experience with the child, his family, and the culture, family structure, and child-rearing practices the child has been raised in.
7. Finally, if tribal membership is a political rather than racial designation, (as argued) than is it constitutional for the definition of an Indian child to include “eligible” children, rather than “enrolled” children?
a) 25 USC Chapter 21 § 1903. Definitions: (4) ”Indian child” means any unmarried person who is under age eighteen and is either
b) member of an Indian tribe or
c) is eligible for membership in an Indian tribe and is the biological child of a member of an Indian tribe;
However;
1. Tribal governments have been given the right as sovereign entities to determine their own membership at the expense of the rights of any other heritage or culture as well as at the expense of individual rights.
2. ICWA does not give Indian children or their legal guardians the choice whether to accept political membership in the tribe. Legal guardians have the right to make that choice for their children, not governments.
3. Non-member relatives are being told that these children are now members of an entity that the family has had no past political, social or cultural relationship with.
4. So IS it then the blood relationship that determines membership? Bridget R., stated, “If tribal determinations are indeed conclusive for purposes of applying ICWA, and if, … a particular tribe recognizes as members all persons who are biologically descended from historic tribal members, then children who are related by blood to such a tribe may be claimed by the tribe, and thus made subject to the provisions of ICWA, solely on the basis of their biological heritage. Only children who are racially Indians face this possibility.” Isn’t that then an unconstitutional race-based classification?
5. Keeping children, no matter their blood quantum, in what the State would normally determine to be an unfit home on the basis of tribal government claims that European values don’t apply to and are not needed by children of tribal heritage is racist in nature and a denial of the child’s personal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
6. Even with significant relationship with Indian tribal culture, forced application of ICWA runs afoul of the Constitution in three ways: (1) it impermissibly intrudes upon a power ordinarily reserved to the states, (2) it improperly interferes with Indian children’s fundamental due process rights; and (3) on the sole basis of race, it deprives them of equal opportunities to be adopted that are available to non-Indian children.
Thank you for listening to all the stakeholders – including us.
April – National Child Abuse Month. NICWA & Child Abuse
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Apr 012014
While we appreciate most efforts do something to address the severe abuse and neglect occurring on many reservations, we do not believe NICWA is willing to address the core of the problems. “Raising awareness” by sending packets to ICWA offices isn’t going to change anything – and hasn’t to date.
Further, continually blaming non-Indians – from past, present and future – will never stop child abuse. It is more likely to increase the abuse, because it allows abusers to play the victim and point the blame at someone else. As long as an abuser never has to take personal responsibility, they have no reason or impetus to change.
Reading the information NICWA has put on the website concerning their minor efforts to combat child abuse – while at the same time spouting additional misinformation and blame – it appears to be nothing more than a “fluff” effort – a show of effort – rather than a real effort to help children.
http://www.nicwa.org/child_abuse_prevention/
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Abused children, reported by Tom Sullivan 2 yrs ago, were ignored by officials
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Mar 212014
Senator Heitkamp,
I was just informed that the family in the Grand Forks story below is one of the families ACF Administrator Tom Sullivan included in his first Mandated Report, 21 months ago. That report, along with 13 subsequent reports, was ignored by his DC superiors and well as other officials.
These children in the story below were among the 40 children he had reported removed from safe off reservation care and placed with dangerous relatives on the reservation.
This appears to be one of the cases which US attorney Tim Purdon, ACF Director George Sheldon, Indian Affairs staffer Kenneth Martin and others said Mr. Sullivan was misconstruing at best – lying about at worst.
According to the person who informed me – These women will be prosecuted because they moved off the reservation and continued to abuse these children. If they were still living on the Spirit Lake Reservation, all of this would have been ignored by BIA law enforcement.
http://www.grandforksherald.com/content/grand-forks-woman-charged-felony-abuse-grandchildren
Again – we don’t need another 3-year task force to tell us again what we all know beyond a doubt to be true – particularly one that will be purposefully stacked with the same type of thinkers who put children into this position in the first place.
A study was concluded a few months ago by the DOJ and Senator Dorgan is currently doing a tour. Reports on the hearings Senator Dorgan has been holding include story after story of abuse.
Let me remind you again that my extended family is among the abused – and no one has yet been prosecuted for the shooting of my husband’s grandson at Spirit Lake in July 2013.
Our fear is that Senator Dorgan’s concluding report will simply call for MORE money to be given to corrupt tribal entities who are using our children as chattel.
What is needed is for laws to be enforced and children protected. Stop the waste of money and time and protect the kids.
– Further: Please hold actual oversight hearings concerning allegations that the BIA, FBI, ACF and US Attorney’s offices are ignoring the abuse of children. Either prove Mr. Sullivan is wrong that federal officials have been throwing children under the bus – or apologize to him for the way he has been treated by DC superiors.
I have been away from DC for a few months visiting families across the United States, but will be returning to DC shortly to continue our push for relevant and immediate action.
—
Elizabeth Sharon (Lisa) Morris
Chairwoman
Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW)
PO Box 460
Hillsboro, ND 58045
administrator@caicw.org
https://caicw.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/CAICW ( @CAICW )
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fbCAICW.org
Spirit Lake
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Mar 132014
February 2013, CAICW attended a Spirit Lake town hall meeting where one member after another stood up to tell the panel of tribal and federal officials tragic stories of how they tried to get the tribal police, BIA and U.S Attorney to help. But criminals continue to roam unchallenged. As tribal members told of continuing abuse of children, officials claimed everything that can be done has been done. “Investigations take time” U.S. Attorney Tim Purdon said over and over.
Tom Sullivan, Regional Administrator of the Administration of Children and Families in Denver, had written report after report to DC detailing the abuse and number of children who’d been removed from safe homes off reservation and placed into dangerous homes – even homes of sexual offenders – at Spirit Lake. At the town hall meeting, Purdon claimed Tom Sullivan “misrepresented the facts.
Yet, while Spirit Lake was under oversight of the BIA, FBI, and Purdon in 2012 and 2013:
• An elder witnessed two young boys doing something unspeakable on her lawn, but despite her many attempts to report it – it was ignored by tribal & federal authorities. The boys are related to a councilman.
• 3-year-old Laurynn Whiteshield was placed in a relative’s home where she was beaten to death in June, 2013.
• Roland Morris’s grandson was shot and left for dead at Spirit Lake in July 2013. No one has been charged, though it is common knowledge he was shot over drugs by relatives who are part of a Minneapolis gang.
In Tom Sullivan’s 12th Mandated Report to the ACF office in DC, February 2013, (https://caicw.org/wp-content/uploads/Twelth-Mandated-Report-Concerning-Suspected-Child-Abuse-on-the-Spirit-Lake-Reservation.htm). he stated:
“In these 8 months I have filed detailed reports concerning all of the following:
– The almost 40 children returned to on-reservation placements in abusive homes, many headed by known sex offenders… These children remain in the full time care and custody of sexual predators available to be raped on a daily basis. Since I filed my first report noting this situation, nothing has been done by any of you to remove these children to safe placements.
– The 45 children who were placed, at the direction of Tribal Social Services (TSS), BIA social workers, BIA supervised TSS social workers and the BIA funded Tribal Court, in homes where parents were addicted to drugs and/or where they had been credibly accused of abuse or neglect…
“…Those adults remain protected by the law enforcement which by its inaction is encouraging the predators to keep on hunting for and raping children at Spirit Lake.
Spirit Lake Child Abuse: Feb. 11 Letter from Sullivan to McMullen
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Feb 112014
Tom Sullivan’s response to offensive, child-endangering letter by his Washington DC superior, Ms. Marrianne McMullen
February 11, 2014
Ms. McMullen:
Thank you for sending me a copy of your response to Spirit Lake Chairman McDonald’s letter to me dated January 26, 2014.
Your email is heavy on conclusions but light on any rationale to support those conclusions.
1. You wrote, “ACF does not have the authority or expertise to conduct investigations of suspected child abuse, and thus Tom Sullivan will not undertake such an investigation at Spirit Lake.”
The latest version of the Administration for Children and Families 2014 Strategic Plan overcomes the “authority” issue you raise. Mr. Murray, in your presence, characterized this Plan version as just about final and did not think we would get far trying to revise it during the conference call with all the Regional Administrators earlier on the afternoon of February 5, 2014. The very same day you responded to the Chairman’s letter. The 2014 Plan states in its Introduction, “we seek to support national, state, tribal and local efforts to strengthen families and communities and promote opportunity and economic mobility.”
Later in that same section the 2014 Plan states, “we seek to advance a set of key goals” followed by a listing which includes, “Promote Safety and Well-being of Children, Youth and Families;” It is difficult for me to understand how we can do any of this if we are unwilling to address and seek to stop the mental, physical and sexual abuse of children, especially when we are being informed on a daily basis about such abuse.
You have from our first meeting sought to defame me, belittling my education, experience and skills. After more than 45 years of broad-based, senior work in the design, development, management and evaluation of health and human service programs at the highest levels in both the public and private sectors all across this country. I have an established reputation for both accomplishment and integrity that will be minimally influenced by your sniping.
I will let the testimony of those who have had an opportunity to observe my work all across this Region, especially in Indian Country, and who have taken the time to speak with me about my concerns for abused children and the lifetime burden they bear due to their abuse address the issue of my expertise in these matters. On March 12, 2013, Ms. Diane Garreau, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the Tribe’s ICWA Director and Founding Board Member of the ICWA Directors of the Great Sioux Nation, representing the nine South Dakota federally recognized tribes, called me and said, “I need to get someone who can speak as an expert on child abuse and neglect of American Indian kids at our Summit in a couple of months. You are the most knowledgeable person about this stuff who I know. But I also know that you have a big gag stuck in your mouth by your Agency’s leadership when it comes to speaking about this stuff. So, who would you recommend, if I cannot get you?”
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Ms. Suzanna Tiapula is an attorney and long-time Executive Director of the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse (NCPCA) who said on November 6, 2013, “I am really disappointed you have been denied permission to participate as faculty in our upcoming train the trainer course in Santa Fe, NM. We will not be as effective as we hoped because our best, you, will not be there.” This program,
as you know, was specifically focused on the development of a cadre of trained individuals from Indian Country who could go back to their homes and begin to address more effectively the epidemic of child abuse raging in their communities. This epidemic of child abuse has grown to its current size because our bureaucratic predecessors chose to ignore it.
This Santa Fe training was one of 11 three-day sessions which NCPCA had agreed to provide in Indian Country for essentially the same purpose all across this country as a result of my work with them. These sessions were provided at no cost to program participants, ACF or DHHS.
It has been clear to me that you have never wanted to admit that I had any expertise. You hoped that view would go unchallenged if you never allowed me to venture into the real world where children are being abused daily, available to be raped daily. Is that why you prevented me from making six trips last year, all into Indian Country and all dealing with these issues? Your actions facilitated the libel and slander of my sources and I by the criminally corrupt.
2. You also wrote, “Currently, the BIA is managing the investigations of incidents of suspected abuse at Spirit Lake and has referred some incidents to the Federal Bureau of Investigation”
My sources began reporting their concerns about Spirit Lake children more than seven years ago to the state, the BIA, FBI and US Attorney. Their reports were ignored. The documentation they provided went unread and then was shredded.
Is there something new to suggest these organizations will be any more responsive now? It seems clear to me that all law enforcement at Spirit Lake is engaged in the same do-nothing approach to their work as evidenced by the following five examples.
When a non-custodial father reported the suspected (she told him she was being sexually molested by a Level 3 offender living in her home) molestation of his 13 year old daughter to Tribal Social Services, Tribal Council and the BIA, the best any of them could do was to promise that the BIA would attempt to begin an investigation in 30 days. That was 60 days ago. It is not clear, after 60 days, that any investigation has even begun.
There have been three rapes of young ladies on the Reservation during the last three months. BIA law enforcement was notified in each case. In each case the young woman said she wanted to press charges against her rapist. This will be difficult because no victim statement was taken in any of these three cases.
There was no rape kit prepared in any of these three cases. No pictures of the bruises on the bodies of each of these women were taken. The FBI has, I understand refused to intervene and take responsibility for these three felonies. Each of these women is an enrolled Tribal member as are their rapists, The rapes occurred within the geographic confines of the reservation.
In the last 8 months there has been one serious beating of a young nurse who lives on the Reservation, allegedly by two female relatives of the former Tribal Chair. This victim too wants this case prosecuted and her attackers sent to prison. She has given the FBI and BIA law enforcement a statement describing her attack and providing the names of her attackers, pictures of the bodily damages she suffered and the names of several eyewitnesses to this attack. Nothing is apparently being done by anyone in the BIA or FBI to bring indictments in this matter. Both the victim and her alleged assailants are enrolled Tribal
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members. The assault took place within the geographic confines of the reservation.
The BIA knew the placement of those almost three year old twins in the home of their grandfather and step-grandmother in early May, 2013, was placing them in grave danger. This was proven less than 30 days later, on June 13, 2013, when one of the twins turns up dead, murdered by her step-grandmother. Despite knowing their own biological children had been removed from their care and custody, that they both had been charged with and convicted of child abuse of their own children, the BIA authorized the placement of these children in their full-time, unsupervised care and custody.
The BIA has apparently done nothing to insure the safety of that suicidal little boy who I brought to your attention on September 23, 2013. You assured me at that time that “Marilyn Kennerson with the Children’s Bureau is working with the BIA and the tribe to make sure that all appropriate measures are taken to assure the child’s safety.” Subsequent events made clear your words were hollow, The BIA has
also apparently done nothing for the two sisters who are placed in a foster home where “discipline” is administered by stripping these girls to their panties, duct-taping their hands in front of them and forcing them to sit on a stool in an uninsulated attic for hours at a time. The same can be said for the 13 year old
girl who told her Dad that she was being sexually molested by a Level Three sex offender. I gave Ms. Kennerson the names of these children as well as other relevant information about their placement more than three weeks ago during a meeting with her. It is hard to see how anything could have been done for these children if those who were supposed to be providing that help did not even know their names.
A few weeks after that meeting with Ms. Kennerson I requested an update on the condition of these children from her and have received nothing. It seems that if you have done nothing to protect children in these circumstances, the best strategy is to remain mute.
Tolerating such ineptitude from the BIA, FBI and other law enforcement especially when it results in a multi-generational failure to prosecute is troubling in light of a joint statement published on February 6, 2014 in the White House Blog by Lynn Rosenthal, White House Advisor on Violence Against Women, Jodi Gillette, Senior Advisor for Native American Affairs in the White House Domestic Policy Council and Raina Thiele, Associate Director White House Office of Governmental Affairs where
they wrote, “Improving the safety of our tribal communities is a priority of President Obama and his Administration….These important provisions remind us all that a victim is a victim, and that everyone is entitled to protection against any perpetrator.”
Attorney General Eric Holder in an article by Sari Horowitz entitled “New Law Offers Protection to Abused Native American Women” in the February 9, 2014 issue of the Washington Post is quoted as saying, “The numbers are staggering…It’s deplorable. …this is an issue that we have to deal with. I am simply not going to accept the fact it is acceptable for women to be abused at the rates they are being abused on native lands.”
If there is so much high level support for the thesis that all crime victims in Indian Country should be protected by aggressive prosecution of their assailants, why is so little occurring in Indian Country communities like Ft. Totten and St. Michael?
3. You also wrote, “The role of the Immediate Office of the Regional Administrator (IORA) is to provide leadership for ACF’s cross-cutting initiatives, emergency preparedness and response and administrative and communications support for ACF.”
On a conference call on February 5, 2014, just a few hours before you sent the response to Chairman McDonald you effectively endorsed the following language as part of or as an adjunct to the 2014 ACF
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Strategic Plan. Your endorsement was understandable since you wrote out the listing of the five functions of every IORA. That page and one-half started with: “Regional Administrators represent the ACF Assistant Secretary in the region, providing leadership, cross-program strategy and coalition building on the regional, state and local levels across government and advocacy centers. As a team they and their staff fill five distinct functions;”
“Function 1: Regional ACF Leadership
Regional Administrators maintain high-level relationships with state, tribal, territory and local government partners as well as university, philanthropic and other community partners and alert the Immediate Office of the Assistant Secretary if there are issues of concern in the states. They are the point of contact for State Commissioners/Secretaries, Governor offices; state Congressional and Legislative representatives. They represent ACF in regional, Federal Executive Boards, are ACF’s representative with the Regional Director’s office, other Federal Agency leadership, and they provide office based leadership through State Team coordination and coordination of other ACF-wide activities.”
“Function 2: Initiative Leadership
IORA lead high priority, cross-cutting program initiatives such as the Affordable Care Act, Hispanic outreach, efforts to combat human trafficking and homelessness and a number of other cross-program initiatives that do not belong to any single ACF program……..”
It is difficult to reconcile your description of the limited functions of a Regional Administrator in your letter to Chairman McDonald with your description of far more expansive functions discussed during that conference call and outlined in that page and one-half that you composed.
I recall when you stormed out of my conference room on the morning of Friday, June 14, 2013 abruptly breaking off a conversation about how best to address the issues I had been raising at Spirit Lake. You were clearly dis-satisfied with my response to the effect that such an effort would not be easy but was doable, would require the active participation of a broad coalition of Tribal, state, federal and local
organizations to begin to effectively address these issues and was consistent with the kind of efforts I had lead in the past. At a minimum I told you that every one of ACF program components had to be involved, not just Child Welfare, and that we had to partner with the Indian Health Service, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Health Resources and Services Administration, Departments of Justice, Interior, Education, Labor, HUD and the Small Business Administration. These agencies and departments represented only the federal; side of the collaboration which would be necessary.
You had a far more negative perspective, apparently frustrated in your efforts to convince me that the problems were unsolvable and were quite displeased to hear my positive recommendations on how to proceed.
4. You also wrote, “We understand that reporting of alleged abuse through non-official channels has contributed to unnecessary confusion and delay. We will continue to encourage official reporting through appropriate channels in order to ensure timely and professional investigations to protect the children of Spirit Lake.”
Since I have been the only person, other than my sources, who has been reporting suspected child abuse at Spirit Lake, I can only assume this is a not so subtle swipe at me.
Before I filed a single Mandated Report I asked our Regional Counsel where I should file them. He responded that they should be filed with the US Attorney for the District where I suspected child abuse was occurring. I did.
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All of my Thirteen Mandated Reports and supporting documentation were filed directly with the US Attorney for the District of North Dakota and with the individual the US Attorney identified for me at BIA. When Acting Assistant Secretary Sheldon prohibited me from filing those Mandated Reports, I had no choice but to file information I received from my sources with him or his designee. That is exactly what I have done. I have no control over what you do with them.
It is clear based on the case of the suicidal boy who I brought to your attention on September 23, 2013, that some, if not all, of those reports were never forwarded to anyone despite your assurances that the boy’s safety was assured due to the efforts of the BIA, the Tribe and the Children’s Bureau’s Ms. Kennerson. The fact that Ms. Kennerson had to ask me for the child’s identity three weeks ago, four months after my email from you on September 23, 2013, convinced me that your words were hollow, that you had done nothing to protect this child from self-injury or abuse at the hands of his abusive foster parents. You did not even know who this child was and neither you, nor BIA, nor the Children’s Bureau nor Ms. Kennerson did anything to determine his identity. What callous dis-regard for the safety of this suicidal little boy!
I will leave it for the citizens of Spirit Lake to inform you how ineffective it is to attempt to use the telephone numbers or resources you have identified in your letter. They can describe the number of hours, days, months, and years they have spent waiting for police to respond to a call, to answer a call so they may report a crime or for the return of indictments in especially vicious crimes.
I am attaching with this email a brief, three page write-up of a graduate of the Spirit Lake foster home system. It is entitled, “My Story”. Read it and understand the despair this now strong, resilient young woman felt as her reports of abuse, rape and neglect were ignored by those who were running the system then, when she was 5, 6 and 7 years of age. She went into the system between the ages of 4 and 5. She left it at 18. Now she is in her early 20s, an alcoholic with three children of her own and two step-sons. If she is able to achieve some level of normalcy in her life, it will be a remarkable achievement. If she can keep herself and her kids on the straight and narrow, avoiding having to put her kids into the care of
others, exposing them to the abuse she lived with as a child, she will be a great success. She recognizes the pitfalls she confronts on a daily basis and works harder than any of us to avoid them. The inter- generational abuse fostered by the corrupt criminals who must be removed cannot be allowed to continue. If it does, what this young lady has written will continue to be repeated many times over.
In one home where she was placed for several years, she was raped daily. No social worker looked in to check on her welfare during those years. What were those federal staff from BIA doing while this child was being raped daily? What kind of oversight did ACF’s Children’s Bureau provide? What kind of supervision did the state provide? Why did all of these adults allow this child to be raped daily?
If this or any other young woman slips up and has their children removed from their custody temporarily, why can’t they count on their kids being placed in a loving foster home where they will not be abused or neglected?
Thomas F. Sullivan
Regional Administrator, ACF, Denver
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Letter to McMullen 021114.docx
Mr. Sullivan Calls Superiors Out for Treating Kids Like Chattel
Comments Off on Mr. Sullivan Calls Superiors Out for Treating Kids Like Chattel
Dec 212013
Mr. Sullivan’s most recent letter to his superiors in Washington DC… please spread far and wide –
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Sullivan, Thomas (ACF)
Subject: Spirit Lake
To: “Mcmullen, Marrianne (ACF)”
Cc: “Chang, Joo Yeun (ACF)”
December 19, 2013
In my First Mandated Report of suspected Child Abuse on the Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota, filed more than 18 months ago, I wrote, “The children of the Spirit Lake Reservation are being subjected to actual abuse or the threat of such abuse due to the actions and inactions of adults who have responsibility to protect them from such abuse. These adults include their parents, neighbors, community leaders, Tribal program staff and directors, Tribal Council members, federal and state program leaders who have been notified and allowed the following conditions to persist. Thus, due to their inaction and excuses in some cases they have played an active role in fostering the development of conditions here.”
Testifying about Child abuse before Senator Dorgan’s committee, December 9, 2013
My fervent hope was that such a Report would lead to the development of a broad-based collaborative effort of tribal, state and federal agencies working with Spirit Lake community members as well as the private sector for the purpose of addressing the specific issues I had identified as well as all others that would emerge as we moved these Spirit Lake children to safety.
A collaborative effort did emerge not for the purpose I had expected but in defense of the status quo. That collaboration has devoted its’ energies against those of us who have spoken up about the problems at Spirit Lake. My sources and I have been subjected to an unremitting campaign of lies and threats. We have been treated as pariahs, outcasts, unfit to be heard or seen in polite society, fair game for whatever outrageous lies our opponents wish to spin. Those responsible for this campaign have tried to remain anonymous, relying on the spoken word in most cases, but some few have had the courage to emerge from the shadows and reveal themselves
All of our allegations have been in writing submitted through formal channels. The lies and threats have been, in most cases, made verbally and have been dropped into conversations so as to poison the minds of those who know little about conditions in Indian Country or Spirit Lake and who are too busy/lazy to dig into the facts of this case. These lies and threats have been calculated in every case to minimize the impact of the detailed factual Reports we have placed on the record. In practically every case when a source of these false statements has been publicly identified, I have written to them requesting a copy of their documentation of my “errors” so that I might correct the public record. None have been provided even though up to 16 months have elapsed since those requests were first made. This is quite surprising since I have made these written requests to the former TSS Director, BIA spokeswoman Darling, former Tribal Chair Yankton, US Attorney Purdon, former ACF Acting Assistant Secretary Sheldon and ACF Deputy Assistant Secretary for External Affairs Mcmullen.
Why should I risk my well-known reputation for integrity and accomplishment built over more than 45 years of service in the public and private sectors by lying about conditions at Spirit Lake?
I am deeply committed to seeing the unspeakable child abuse at Spirit Lake stopped. That is my only motivation.
As a result of these efforts to minimize the impact of our reports more than 100 American Indian children at Spirit Lake remain in the full time care and custody of sexual predators, available to be raped daily.
Who, among you, wants that crime to continue?
If you want it to stop, why are you establishing committees and study groups, delaying the movement of these children to safety for years?
If you want to stop it, just stop it!
There are an extraordinary number of contradictory statements made by those who oppose our efforts to assist the children of Spirit Lake to get into safe homes. There are essentially two types of contradiction in the following 9 examples. First, where two senior leaders of an agency or of different agencies take positions that are diametrically opposed to one another (Items # 1 and 4 fall into this category). Second, when agency leadership claims in broad general terms that everything has been solved and, by the way, many of those allegations were just exaggerations and an enrolled member or other informed citizen objects and factually challenges these claims (Items #2, 3 and 5-9 fall into this second category). The following brief examples outline these nine contradictions:
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1. On October 11, 2012 Acting Assistant Secretary Sheldon was in Denver for a brief visit to the Region. He spent a great deal of time telling me that I was being too hard on all those involved with the Spirit Lake Tribal Social Services program and that he had been assured by the Washington, DC leaders of the BIA and the Children’s Bureau that great progress had been made since I filed my first report, four months earlier. During that conversation, I responded to Mr. Sheldon’s claims with half a dozen examples of egregious systemic failures at Spirit Lake in the two weeks prior to his visit where children were being endangered by placing them in the care and custody of abusive parents or foster parents. He was unmoved by my examples that came directly from my sources living and working on Spirit Lake.
On November 5, 2012, less than 4 weeks after that discussion with Mr. Sheldon, then Spirit Lake Tribal Chair Roger Yankton was asked, during a General Assembly, by an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Nation, “Are there any lies in Mr. Sullivan’s Reports?” Mr. Yankton’s response was, “No, there are none.” He was then asked, “Do you have any proof that the conditions those children are living in and which are cited by Mr. Sullivan have improved?” Mr. Yankton’s response to this question was, “No, there has been no change.” Chairman Yankton’s statements were made almost five full months after I started filing my Mandated Reports, after seven of my Reports had been submitted. These seven Reports contained 90 – 95% of an unduplicated count of the factual allegations I have made.
I reported this exchange at the General Assembly to Mr. Sheldon but never received any word from him indicating he had changed his mind from what he had expressed on October 11, 2012. To most readers, however, the contradiction should be obvious.
2. In the November 4, 2012 issue, the Fargo Forum quoted BIA spokeswoman, Nedra Darling as saying, “The BIA is working hard to ….protect the youngest and most vulnerable members of Indian Country.”
How does that statement square with Spirit Lake Tribal Chairman Yankton’s statement one day later that he knew of no change in the conditions about which I had been complaining in my Reports during the prior five months?
A recent article from the October 28, 2013 issue of the Grand Forks Herald is even more damning of the BIA’s failures at Spirit Lake, “Lolly Diaz, a former member of the Spirit Lake social services board said there is little evidence of improvement since the BIA took the lead on child protection and foster placement. ‘Nothing has changed from putting it over to the BIA’, Diaz said. ‘There really isn’t any difference in my opinion. They’re on a revolving door basis’, she added, referring to BIA staff brought in to help. ‘We don’t have anybody permanent here.’
In the last few days the following situation has been brought to my attention by a former TSS staff member who lives in close proximity to the Spirit Lake Reservation: a 13 year old little girl is staying with her grandmother approximately 80% of the time. Another relative an adult male also lives with the grandmother. This male is a registered, violent sex offender. The conduct of the 13 year old has been regressing and she has apparently told her non-custodial father that she is being sexually abused by this registered sex offender. The father has gone to BIA, TSS, Tribal Court and the Tribal Chair to complain about his daughter’s placement. He has been told by the BIA that it will be at least 30 days before they can even initiate an investigation.
How many of us would be satisfied with Ms. Darling’s “working hard” when we understood it really meant at least a 30 day delay before any action would be taken to protect our 13 year old little girl from a vicious sexual predator?
3. Ms. Darling in her November 4, 2012 comments to the press is quoted as saying, “The BIA maintains standards of professionalism and public safety…..” and “the highest levels of integrity and accountability of its employees.”
Despite these claims the BIA ignored the domestic violence of their senior criminal investigator at Spirit Lake for more than a year even though during this time he mercilessly beat his wife on several occasions. Each of these occasions was public, known all across the Reservation and known to the former BIA Superintendent as well as to his Deputy (the current BIA superintendent). None of these people did anything to protect this defenseless woman from these beatings. When a friend of mine placed the victim’s affidavit into the hands of the number 2 person in BIA Law Enforcement in Washington, DC, BIA still did nothing.
How do these actions up and down the chain of command in BIA contribute to the “highest levels of integrity and accountability of its employees”?
4. Acting Assistant Secretary Sheldon in his April 15, 2013 letters praised both the BIA and DOJ for their efforts to address the situation at Spirit Lake and essentially condemned me for incorporating my “… own personal views” and that “those views might be misinterpreted or misreported as those of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) or the Department of Health and Human Services.” Mr. Sheldon went on, “after evaluating your reports, the Department does not share your view that the Bureau of Indian Affairs or the United States Attorney’s Office have (sic) been derelict in their duties….. We know that improvements have been made.”
In mid-August, 2013, you, Ms. Mcmullen, in a telephone conversation with one of my sources, Ms. Betty Jo Krenz, who was complaining about ACF’s refusal to allow me to attend a meeting in Bismarck, ND later that week said, “I don’t understand what could be gained by another meeting. We’ve been in meetings at Spirit Lake for two years and have seen little or no progress.” When I asked for a clarification four months ago, in late August, 2013, of the contradiction between these two positions, I was greeted with total silence.
When I asked both the Acting Assistant Secretary and you, Ms. McMullen for the factual basis for those April 15 letters, I have been stonewalled. Nothing has been provided. Perhaps that is because there is no factual basis for those conclusions. Given the facts on the record, however, most readers will agree there is a basic contradiction between what you said in August to Ms. Krenz and the letters, Acting Assistant Secretary Sheldon sent to me, Ms. Settles and Mr. Purdon on April 15, 2013, a contradiction that ACF leadership seems unwilling or unable to explain, despite my continuing requests for an explanation.
5. On June 19, 2012 in response to my First Mandated Report, Mr. Purdon, the US Attorney for North Dakota wrote, “the United States Attorney’s Office in North Dakota shares your concern for the safety of Native children as can be seen in our strong track record of prosecuting and convicting the hands-on perpetrators of abuse and neglect on the reservations in North Dakota.” When I read those words I was impressed and hopeful
Hopeful, that is, until I reviewed the record of charges filed, indictments sought, plea deals made, trials and convictions for child sexual abuse originating from the Spirit Lake Reservation and could find only 2 cases in the last 25 months. I have been told that in most recent years there have been on average 50 cases of child sexual abuse per year reported, investigated and confirmed by child protection workers on Spirit Lake and referred to the FBI or US Attorney’s office for criminal investigation and prosecution.
That dismal record of only two cases of child sexual abuse from Spirit Lake in a 25 month period can be explained best, I believe, by the alleged rape of a 12 year old little girl who had just turned 13 on September 29, 2012, who was home alone when a 38 year old male friend of her mother’s stopped by and raped her. (This account of what happened to this little girl was provided by an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Nation.) She called the police who, when they responded were given the alleged rapist’s name, address and physical description. BIA police did not take a rape kit. BIA police did not question the suspect for three weeks at which time he told them that, “She wanted to have sex with me. What was I supposed to do?” It was bad enough that the BIA police swallowed this line but so did the FBI and US Attorney Purdon. When statutory rape occurs in this manner with such an age discrepancy and these are the standards applied to determine whether to prosecute or not, it is remarkable that any child sexual abuse cases made it into Court during the last 25 months.
On February 27, 2013 US Attorney Purdon made the following statement, as told to me by an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Nation who attended that Hearing, in a public meeting on the Spirit Lake Reservation, “Many of Sullivan’s allegations are just false.” Since he had never communicated such a view to me or to my sources, I immediately, that day, requested by email that he give me the courtesy of identifying which of my allegations were, in his words, “just false”. Now almost ten months later I await the documentation of his otherwise slanderous, self-serving characterization of my Reports.
6. Both the BIA and US Attorney claim in many public statements that every allegation I have surfaced has been investigated. When I use the term “investigated” here, I assume this means that interviews with complainants and witnesses have been conducted, evidence has been gathered, reports filed with an appropriate supervisor and a determination made, based on that record, whether to recommend further legal action. I also assume that records of each investigation would be available for review by an appropriate independent, properly qualified reviewer.
I have listed below ten possible crimes reported to the BIA and US Attorney which, if they have been investigated, that has been done privately without the benefit of interviewing those who were responsible for filing those complaints.
Why has there been no investigation of my 14 month old complaint filed against FBI Special Agent Cima?
Why has there been no investigation of the 15 month old charges of Domestic Violence against BIA’s Senior Criminal Investigator at Spirit Lake by his wife?
Why has there been no investigation into the destruction of the Incident Report completed by the CI’s wife in the Devils Lake Mercy Hospital Emergency Room after a particularly vicious beating at the CI’s hands in mid-August, 2012 by the former Director of the Spirit Lake Victim Assistance Program?
Why has there been no investigation of the complete and total failure of the state, FBI and BIA to investigate charges that were credibly brought several years ago against each of these entities?
Why has there been no investigation into the withholding of critically needed intensive rehabilitative services from several Spirit Lake children who have been sexually abused and severely beaten? If the purpose of preventing these children from gaining access to this therapy is to prevent the names of their predators who damaged these children from being revealed to professionals who have a legal obligation to make this information known to law enforcement, is this obstruction of justice? If it is, the entire leadership of the BIA Strike team should be indicted.
Why has there been no investigation into the Spirit Lake school system’s retaliatory actions against two mandated reporters – firing one and giving the other a letter of reprimand, simply because they were attempting to help a young child having difficulties in his foster home placement?
The Tribal Elder who observed two little boys engaging in anal sex in her yard called police immediately when she observed this behavior. No one in law enforcement took her statement. She tried to tell her story at the February 27, 2013 Hearing but she was shushed by US Attorney Purdon, the BIA leadership and all those on the platform. The US Attorney did say publicly he would speak to her privately after the Hearing concluded. He did not. Nor did anyone from his office take her statement. Why has there been no investigation into this complete failure of law enforcement in this particular case at Spirit Lake?
One day later, on February 28, 2013, these same two boys were observed by two little girls engaging in oral sex on a Spirit Lake School Bus. The little girls reported this to the bus driver, their teachers and the school principal. All of these supposedly responsible people said and did nothing about this incident. None of them filed a Form 960 as required. Why has there been no investigation into the failures of these adults to fulfill their responsibilities? What else are they failing to do?
Why has there been no investigation of the decision to place a four month old, previously meth-addicted infant in the unsupervised full time care and custody of her meth-addicted mother. The mother had been required to complete a lengthy drug treatment program with periodic, unannounced testing to make sure she was still not using. She never completed that treatment program and refused to take any tests during it. Despite these facts this infant was returned to her full time care and custody by the Tribal Court.
Why has there been no investigation of the unexplained removal of a child from her mother’s home without cause in December, 2012, the perjured, sworn testimony of the BIA Social Worker self-identified as Gabrielle who swore that she had sought kinship care but could not find any kin willing to take this child. This child’s aunt is Ms. Molly McDonald, former Tribal Judge and one of my sources, and her grandfather is Leander McDonald, current Tribal Chair. Neither was contacted by this or any other BIA social worker. When this child was finally returned in April, 2013 her mother was told that she was prohibited from speaking to her aunt, my source, Ms. Molly McDonald. Why is the BIA resorting to such tactics? Is there some fear that the truth might emerge?
All of the information in these accounts of possible criminal activity which has not been investigated at Spirit Lake have been provided by sources who are enrolled members or former employees with close ties to a large number of enrolled residents of Spirit Lake.
The bias reflected in all of these non-investigations at Spirit Lake may well rise to the standard set by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in their decision in the Oravec case.
7. On June 27, 2013, a meeting was convened in Bismarck, ND in the offices of Scott Davis, Indian Affairs Commissioner for the state of North Dakota. The meeting was attended by Mr. Davis, congressional staff from the offices of the two senators and one representative and a delegation of enrolled members from the Spirit Lake Nation, including several Elders, former Tribal Judges, a former Tribal Chair and several former Council members.During the meeting Mr. Davis made several derogatory remarks about me and the Reports I had been filing. Mr. Davis has never made any attempt to me to speak with me or to discuss my Reports with me.
Ms. Molly McDonald, a former Spirit Lake Tribal Judge challenged Mr. Davis on his derogatory remarks about me. She said, “I have never met Tom Sullivan but he is the only fed we trust. After more than five years of complaining about conditions at Spirit Lake to tribal, state and federal government officials who did nothing in response to our complaints, he is the only one who returned our calls. What is in his reports are our stories told to him by us, faithfully recorded and reported by him. Tom Sullivan is the only one we trust in government at any level.” I am not aware of any response from Mr. Davis to Ms. McDonald.
Mr. Davis is a good example of those who have libeled and slandered me. They have never met me and apparently have not read my on-line bio available at the ACF Region 8 web site. Clearly most have done little more than skim thru my 13 Reports about Spirit Lake, if they have done even that. None have sought me out to discuss the basis for my strongly held opinions about the unacceptable treatment of so many Native American children at Spirit Lake. For many, like Mr. Davis, those children seem to be an after-thought.
8. I believe the highest obligation for every adult, whether working for government or not, who is aware of this situation is to insure the safety of those children who were abruptly removed from safe, off-reservation placements and returned to on-reservation placements in many cases to the full-time care and custody of known sex offenders where they were available to be raped daily as well as those children placed in unsafe homes in the care of addicts and abusers as a result of decisions made by BIA, TSS and Tribal Court.
The leadership of my agency has instructed me that my belief that the safety of those children is paramount in this matter does not reflect the policy position of either my agency or my department. Despite my request for the Agency’s and Department’s policy in these circumstances, no one in that leadership has provided any information on what that is.
From what my sources and I have experienced during the last 18 months the highest priority of the state, the FBI, BIA as well as other federal agencies has been to silence us, to label us as liars, as incompetents not qualified to identify the abuse of a child, to minimize the seriousness of this situation with their fabricated, self-serving claims. Among those claims are, “It’s a new problem.”; “This problem arose because the Tribe lost the person responsible for filing their forms.”; “If those whistleblowers would shut up everything would be fine.”; “Everything is fine.”; “They are making great progress.”; “You are expecting too much progress too quickly.”; “They are working hard.”; “it’s all fixed.”; “We’re doing a great job for kids.”; “You are not a subject matter expert.”
None of these claims were true when spoken. None are true now.
If that self-serving approach were held by those who served on the Grand Jury that indicted Jerry Sandusky on 45 counts of child sexual abuse, there would have been no indictments. It would have been decided that none of the witnesses against Sandusky were credible because Jerry would have told the Grand Jury all of those witnesses were lying and they would have believed him.
Are the children of State College, PA more deserving of protection from child rape than the American Indian children of Spirit Lake, ND? If not, why the lengthy delay in rescuing the children of Spirit Lake from their rapists?
It appears that every agency involved with Spirit Lake has elected to follow a path that leaves young, defenseless children in the full-time care and custody of addicts and sexual predators rather than getting these children into safe homes as quickly as possible. In doing this, these agencies and their actions track the same path followed by the leadership of both Penn State and the Catholic Church when these organizations sought to protect their institution’s reputation by covering up the rape of children. I believe such an approach is wrong, disastrous for those children and with the capacity to do significant long term damage to the reputation of the agencies involved.
If your son or daughter were in the full time care and custody of known addicts and rapists and had been for more than a year, would you agree with those public agencies which wished to study the issue to determine what course of action to follow, knowing the study would take another year? Or would you demand that your children be removed immediately from the care and custody of addicts and rapists and that those same addicts and rapists be indicted for their crimes?
9. Almost a month ago a good friend and supporter of mine sent me an email recounting a conversation she had just had with a congressional staff member by the name of Kenneth Martin who works for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Apparently, Mr. Martin had a quite strong reaction when my name came up during their meeting. I understand Mr. Martin to have said, “He no longer has that job.” “It would be illegal to prohibit him from filing Mandated Reports.” “Mr. Sullivan is a liar and that would be proven in a hearing.”
Mr. Martin has never attempted to speak with me. He has never sent me any written inquiries about my Reports. If he has copies of them, I doubt that he has spent much time in reviewing them. I can only assume his comments were driven by prior conversations with Washington, DC staff from BIA, DOJ or my own agency. Wherever they come from, he has made slanderous statements about me.
I still work for ACF as Regional Administrator in Denver.
I also believe prohibiting me from filing Mandated Reports is an illegal act. I trust he has initiated a congressional oversight investigation into this matter to determine whether there is a factual basis to proceed to indictments.
I would be pleased to appear before the US Senate Indian Affairs Committee if I were subpoenaed, placed under oath and asked to answer any questions about conditions at Spirit Lake. Then we would know who the real liars are.
Thomas F. Sullivan
Regional Administrator, ACF, Denver
###
Dec 032013
In October, CNN did a segment called “Sexual abuse rampant on Indian Reservation.” Questions were raised as to how and why our federal government could be turning its back on children on reservations across the country. Tom Sullivan, Regional Administrator for the federal ACF, had been telling his superiors about the horrific handling of children for over a year. We now have documents between Tom Sullivan and his superiors.
Had the ACF listened to him and done its job, toddler Lauryn Whiteshield would be alive right now.
Our children have been viewed as collateral damage in DC’s ongoing political games for far too long.
An email from Tom Sullivan to his superiors is below. More documents to follow.
—————————————————-
Congressman Issa,
Thursday morning, Mr. Kenneth Martin, senior aide to Senator Cantwell, Chair of the Indian Affairs Committee, made several disparaging remarks concerning ACF Regional Administrator, Thomas Sullivan and suggested a hearing would reveal lies.
What Mr. Sullivan had been pointing out in a series of mandated reports is that the ACF, BIA, FBI and US attorney have not been doing their jobs on the Spirit Lake Reservation. In fact, what many Spirit Lake tribal members have been saying is that our federal government is allowing tragedy to occur despite the pleas of people living there.
We want that hearing Mr. Martin suggested. We need our government to investigate Mr. Sullivan’s claims – and we need our government to investigate similar situations on other reservations.
Read the emails:
———- Forwarded message ———-
Lauryn Whiteshield, July 19, 2010 – June 13, 2013
Date: Nov 22, 2013 10:16 AM
Subject: Re: Mr. Tom Sullivan’s email concerning Spirit Lake
To: “Martin, Kenneth (Indian Affairs)”
Cc: “Thompson, Mariah (Indian Affairs)”
Thank you for your note, Mr. Martin. I appreciate it.I hope you will also concede at some point that we are not “cherry picking.” It is time to admit the depth of what is happening on many reservations. No more playing politics with the lives of a vulnerable community – let alone vulnerable children.
My sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews – at the very least – are worth much more than that, (if I can speak personally. It is after all, for personal reasons that my husband and I began this work in the first place.)
But I will not stop with just our extended family. Too many people have come asking for help.
We insist that the facts Mr. Sullivan and others have presented be acted upon.
Thank you again for your response.
—————
On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 8:31 AM, Martin, Kenneth (Indian Affairs)
Ms. Morris,
Thank you for the email. I apologize as I must have misspoke, as I have no information on the issues surrounding Mr. Sullivan and did not intend to insinuate otherwise. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.
Kenneth Martin
—————-
From: Elizabeth Morris [mailto:administrator@caicw.org]
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 8:15 PM
To: Thompson, Mariah (Indian Affairs); Martin, Kenneth (Indian Affairs)
Subject: Mr. Tom Sullivan’s email concerning Spirit Lake
Ms. Thompson and Mr. Martin
Shortly after our conversation concerning Mr. Tom Sullivan of the ACF, I received this email. It appears to address some of the very issues we had discussed.
Mr. Martin, you had suggested that a hearing would prove Mr. Sullivan had lied. I wonder if it might come to that.
I would appreciate your comments concerning the below. Thanks –
—————————————-
Begin forwarded message:
From: “Sullivan, Thomas (ACF)”
Date: November 21, 2013 1:45:05 PM EST
To: “Mcmullen, Marrianne (ACF)”
Cc: “Chang, Joo Yeun (ACF)”
Subject: Spirit Lake
Marrianne:
In the early evening of October 21, 2013, CNN broadcast a detailed and substantive report entitled “Sex Abuse Rampant on Indian Reservation” about the epidemic of child sexual abuse on the Spirit Lake Reservation. That broadcast ran a little more than 6 months after former Acting Assistant Secretary Sheldon’s April 15, 2013 letter to me prohibiting me, in my official capacity as Denver Regional Administrator for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), from filing any more Mandated Reports about child sexual abuse at Spirit Lake. Since that policy applied only to me, I believed it was retaliatory and discriminatory.
Your refusal to announce this new policy with any of the other 1500 ACF employees across this country is a clear signal to me that I have been singled out for this retaliatory and discriminatory action which, because of your silence, continues to this very day.
Your continuing exclusion of me from any participation in efforts to address the problems at Spirit Lake is further evidence of retaliation and discrimination.
Mr. Sheldon’s letter to me was accompanied by letters to the BIA’s Ms. Settles and US Attorney Purdon. Unlike his letter to me, his letters to them were full of high praise for their efforts in addressing the epidemic of child sexual abuse at Spirit Lake..
Since I had no contact with Mr. Sheldon after October 11, 2012 and since at that time he had made clear his displeasure with my Mandated Reports, and since I had responded to that displeasure with extensive factual documentation of conditions at Spirit Lake, I was surprised by his letter to me. His unqualified endorsement of the efforts of Ms. Settles and Mr. Purdon was and still is shocking, lacking, as it did, any factual basis for the high praise heaped on them. This contrasted sharply with the factual detail provided in my Mandated Reports.
Believing that Mr. Sheldon must have had some factual basis for the position detailed in his letters to Ms. Settles and Mr. Purdon, I have asked twice for those facts. None have been provided. My emails have been ignored by both you and Mr. Sheldon. I can only presume there are no facts available to justify your position.
My sources have been complaining to Tribal, state and federal agency leadership for more than five years about conditions at Spirit Lake and the maltreatment of children there. Their complaints have been ignored and continue to be ignored. Their documentation unread and then shredded.
I have filed 13 Mandated Reports. All have been ignored or characterized as rumors or exaggerations by Tribal, state, BIA, DOJ as well as other federal agencies. Facts and truth mean little to those charged with defending both the status quo at Spirit Lake and themselves. More importantly the safety of abused American Indian children at Spirit Lake appears to have meant even less. As a result of their misleading puffery more than 100 children remain in the full time care and custody of sexual predators available to be raped daily.
On September 23, 2013, I sent an email to Mr. Sheldon concerning the situation with a young suicidal boy who had fled his foster home. You responded that “Marilyn Kennerson is working with the BIA and tribe to make sure all appropriate measures are being taken to assure this child’s safety.” My sources inform me that nothing has changed for this young boy.
Claims have been made that every allegation in my Mandated Reports have been investigated. Many of my sources say otherwise because they have not been interviewed by anyone in law enforcement. This claim becomes even harder to believe when the US Attorney for North Dakota has indicted, sought a plea deal or prosecuted only one case of child sexual abuse originating on the Spirit Lake Reservation in the last 25 months. I have been told by experienced child protection workers from Spirit Lake that in a typical year there are, on average, 50 cases of child sexual abuse reported, investigated, confirmed and referred for prosecution. Why has the US Attorney prosecuted only one case of child sexual abuse from Spirit Lake in the last 25 months, a case where the actual sexual abuse occurred between 2007 – 2009. Just learned the US Attorney for North Dakota has filed one more charge of child sexual abuse in the last few days, doubling his numbers for the prior 24 months.
Law enforcement at every level at Spirit Lake, including the FBI, BIA, Tribal police and the US Attorney have allowed the Tribal Council to determine which criminal activities will be investigated and prosecuted. For confirmation of this fact please review the last page of the Spirit Lake Tribal Council Meeting Minutes for September 27, 2013, attached for your convenience.
The apparent unwillingness of government at any level to protect the children at Spirit Lake from abuse creates the impression there is a large, unannounced experiment being conducted at Spirit Lake to determine what harm, if any, would be done to abused children who are returned to the care of either their abusive biological parents or abusive foster parents before these parents have completed their court-ordered rehabilitation therapy. But in order for such an experiment to be conducted there would have to be a rigorous research design, with control groups, opportunities for informed consent and extensive data collection. No such safeguards are apparent but children continue to be placed with abusive adults. How strange, all we have is abused children being returned to abusive parents with none of the other elements required for a legitimate research project. Why is such experimentation on these children being tolerated?
Certainly, no one can claim the hypothesis that abused children can be returned to their abusive homes without harm to those children has been proven. Who is responsible for attempting to prove it at Spirit Lake?
A perfect example of this experimentation and the Tribal Council’s control of criminal investigation and prosecution at Spirit Lake is the Tribal Court order from 5 – 6 months ago returning to a biological mother her children even though she has been charged with and convicted in Tribal Court of sexual abuse of her children – she was discovered by police in bed having sex with a male friend while all her children, one of them totally naked, were in the same bed.
The biological mom lives with her children’s grandfather. The children were recently evaluated at the Red River Advocacy Center (RRAC) and it was determined that two of the girls, ages 6 and 7, were being sexually abused by that very same grandfather. The recommendation of the RRAC was that these children were “not to be left alone with the grandfather”. There is a young teenage son in this family who attempted suicide three times before his 14th birthday. The grandfather who has never been charged or prosecuted for his criminal sexual assaults on his granddaughters is the uncle of a Tribal Council member. There is no indication that anyone from law enforcement has launched an investigation of the grandfather’s alleged sexual abuse. It is likely that Council Member would oppose any Council Motion to refer this situation for criminal investigation of his uncle.
The father of these children has petitioned Tribal Court to assume custody. I understand his petitions have been routinely dismissed even though he is ready, able and willing to assume responsibility for his children, caring for them in a safe home. The mother of these children is an enrolled Tribal member. Their father is not.
Conducting an assessment at this point after more than five years of complaints from my sources and after my 13 Mandated Reports seems to simply delay the desperately needed corrective action to get those 100 children to safety. As one of my sources recently wrote, “…when will the government realize we are serious about this….kids are being raped and nobody in law enforcement gives a damn”.
Natalie Stites, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and former Project Coordinator in the Attorney General’s office on the Rosebud Reservation writing in LastRealIndians.com in December, 2011 speaks words that need to be considered here, “There are thousands of Lakota, Dakota and Nakota children experiencing abuse and neglect….. Over a third of women raped today were sexually assaulted as children. Sadly all too often abused and neglected children become perpetrators themselves as adolescents and as adults……..There are many complex reasons for the conditions facing the children today: lack of compassion, colonization, epigenetics, grief, violence, the feminization of poverty, the school-to-prison pipeline, organized sexual abuse, unemployment, mental illness, addiction, racism, cultural oppression. These are the roots of our current situation…………….
However, try explaining this to the 5 year old boy who hasn’t eaten a meal in two days, or a beaten 8 year old girl caring for an infant and a toddler like she’s the parent, or a 15 year old youth who faces and eventually joins his addicted parents and the drunken strangers they bring home to party every night. Try explaining to these children why family members, social workers, policy makers, police, courts, schools, health care providers cannot protect them, even after their own parents fail them, or abandon them, or hurt them. Who takes responsibility for this? We must.”
When will we take responsibility?
After your assessment? How long will that take?
How many more months will the Tribe allow this experimentation with their children to continue?
Have a great Thanksgiving.
Thomas F. Sullivan
Regional Administrator, ACF, Denver
———————————————-
From: Mcmullen, Marrianne (ACF)
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2013 6:22 AM
To: Sullivan, Thomas (ACF)
Cc: Chang, Joo Yeun (ACF/ACYF) (ACF); McCauley, Mike (ACF)
Subject: Spirit Lake
Good morning Tom: Attached and below is a memo about ACF’s work on Spirit Lake moving forward.
Tom, as a courtesy based on your expressed interest in matters at Spirit Lake, I wanted to let you know that Children’s Bureau has been actively working with the Spirit Lake tribe on improving their child protection services.
Currently, the National Resource Center for Child Protective Services, funded by CB, is conducting an assessment of Spirit Lake social services. As you may know, numerous assessments have been started over the past 18 months, but leadership changes have stalled and ultimately stopped these processes. Now, however, the new Tribal chair and the new social services director are moving forward with the assessment. Once this assessment is complete, it will provide a roadmap for the policies, practices, procedures and staffing levels that the Tribe needs to establish a successful agency. The Children’s Bureau will work hand-in-hand with the Tribe to follow that map and to ensure that all available resources are brought to bear for the Tribe to be successful in better protecting its children.
I want to be clear with you that the Children’s Bureau is leading this effort for ACF and will manage work with both the Tribal leadership and the Tribal social services staff moving forward. The Children’s Bureau will also be the principal liaison with the state of North Dakota, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Dept. of Justice to address child protective issues at Spirit Lake.
As the Immediate Office of the Assistant Secretary, the Children’s Bureau, and the Administration for Native Americans have worked to address concerns at Spirit Lake over the past year, it has become clear that Region 8 IORA involvement has damaged some of the most critical relationships needed for achieving progress for the children and families of Spirit Lake. It is our full intention to rebuild these relationships and move forward in a collegial and productive direction.
Tom, I know you share ACF’s goal of establishing a strong social service system at Spirit Lake that can act quickly and effectively to protect children who may be in danger. It is my expectation that you will refer all future inquiries to the Department concerning Spirit Lake to the Children’s Bureau and respect the Bureau’s role in leading and coordinating the Department’s efforts to achieve the goal of protecting Spirit Lake’s children.
————————————————————
### END FORWARDED MESSAGE
Collaboration Urged at Mohawks’ Child Safe Summit
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Oct 252013
Randi Barreiro
10/25/13
If people do not think about child abuse, they will not detect child abuse.
That was the primary message of Dr. Karyn Patno, a pediatrician and founder of the ChildSafe Program at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, Vermont. Dr. Patno’s recent collaboration with the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Police on a case of suspected child abuse was the impetus for the Tribe’s first-ever Child Safe Summit, a large collective effort held this month to educate service providers and community partners on specialized resources for abuse.
The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe hosted the first one-day conference on October 10 and a second on October 21 at the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino’s new conference facility. All told, over 250 child welfare professionals representing some 50 community, Tribal, county, state and federal agencies attended the summit. In addition to local and regional service providers, the summit drew representatives from the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Border and Customs Protection, U.S. Marshall Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“We’re here to form a web to catch all the children we can,” said Tribal Chief Beverly Cook. “To do that, we need to work together. We love our children and we’re willing to do anything for them.”
Chief Cook acknowledged the graphic nature of the summit’s presentations, including forensic photographs and x-rays of healthy anatomy and physical injuries resulting from accidents and abuse—burns, bruises, lacerations and fractures. It’s important to know what you’re looking at, said Dr. Patno.
“These images are uncomfortable to look at,” said Chief Cook. “That’s because what happens to many children is not right.”
Dr. Patno walked attendees through the methodology of the ChildSafe Program, a diagnostic clinic for any child suspected of any type of abuse. The child protection report is a summary of the evaluation performed at her clinic. It is a medical-legal document that includes reviews of behavioral and medical systems, past medical history, a family and social history, a physical exam and interviews with the child.
In her evaluation of child physical abuse for non-medical providers, Dr. Patno reviewed risk factors and injuries indicative of abuse. Attendees learned to recognize patterned bruises and burns, which imply an object came in contact with the child’s skin or that a specific hot object was inflicted. Physical signs of strangulation were also discussed.
Understanding normal infant growth and development, Dr. Patno pointed out, allows one to monitor children’s progress and to identify delay or deviance. An important rule of thumb is that “simple mechanisms result in simple injuries and complex injuries require a complex mechanism.” For example, “rolling off the couch can result in a skull fracture or broken leg. It cannot result in a subdural hemorrhage, retinal hemorrhage and rib fractures.”
Dr. Patno asks the parent to give a detailed history of how an injury occurred and then compares that mechanism not only to the developmental level of the child, but also to the severity of the injury. She says the next step is asking, “Can the proposed mechanism result in the injuries seen?”
Abusive Head Trauma (AHT) is “absolutely a complex mechanism,” she reported. AHT includes “shaken baby syndrome,” which is often coupled with impact. It accounts for 10 percent of all deaths due to abuse or neglect.
There are very specific risk factors associated with AHT for perpetrators and victims. For example, although some women commit this act, the majority of perpetrators of abusive head trauma are male (nearly 40 percent are natural fathers and about 20 percent are boyfriends of the mother).
The doctor pointed out that infant crying is the most common event prior to shaking an infant, accounting for the fact that nearly half of all AHT victims are under the age of one.
Finally, Dr. Patno shared important elements in the evaluation of child sexual abuse and what it means when an exam is deemed “normal.” She pointed out that most child exams do not result in a finding of sexual abuse, but they are important to determine mental health needs. And, it’s “incredibly helpful” to the child to be told he or she is “normal.”
The summit featured a segment on digital child exploitation, led by Special Agent Tim Losito of the Homeland Security Department. In addition to cyberbullying, which Losito says occupies most of his time, his office investigates child pornography. According to Special Agent Losito, the Northern District of New York prosecutes more child exploitation cases than anywhere else in the United States.
That shocked participants, most of whom live and work in the North Country region. For Chief Cook, it underscores the need for open communication with cross-border agencies.
“The magnitude of sexual exploitation that goes on in our area is not common knowledge to the average member of our North Country community,” she said. “Information sharing is extremely important. That our Tribal Police were instrumental in a multi-agency takedown of a sexual predator informs us that collaboration is essential.”
The seed for the Child Safe Summit was planted by Special Investigator Hawi Thomas, who deals with sex crimes for the Tribal Police Department. Having worked investigations involving agencies in several jurisdictions, Thomas wanted to improve the way cases were handled by fostering collaboration among those resources.
Thomas sought support from superiors within the Police Department, from Tribal Administration and other service providers who handle child abuse cases. The Tribe’s Onkwahwatsire Multidisciplinary Team, led by Family Advocate Jade White, supported the idea and formed an organizing committee.
“Collaboration is second nature to most women and service organizations,” said Thomas. “It’s how important work gets done.” Tribal Sub-Chief Michael Conners acknowledged that work, expressing gratitude for “the strong Mohawk women whose daily dedication to this tough subject is a benefit to our community.”
The Summit’s success has led organizers to try and make it an annual event.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/10/25/collaboration-urged-mohawks-child-safe-summit-151927
CNN reports on rampant sexual abuse of children at Spirit Lake, North Dakota
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Oct 222013
BIA response re: Sullivan’s citations of abuse – “They have been investigated.” Right. Sure. Someone moved a file from one drawer to another. Investigation over.
Not one honest person at Spirit Lake believes real investigations have ever been done. But notice as well that they say things have been “Investigated” and then leave it at that. So if things have been investigated, – when do the prosecutions begin? Everyone at Spirit Lake KNOWS the abuse is really happening – they have seen it with their own eyes. If the FBI has investigated and found nothing – then everyone knows that the FBI didn’t even try. Because nothing is hard to investigate. So much of it is right out there where everyone knows about it.
– Yet the BIA is trying to pretend it isn’t happening. WHY? What’s WRONG with the jerks at the BIA? Do they think tribal members are nobodies, so don’t have to be listened to? Do they think the rest of America doesn’t care about what is happening, and will tire of the story and forget about it? Do they think they can continue to sweep it under the rug?
WATCH THE VIDEO:
Sex Abuse Rampant on Indian Reservation
WE ARE HERE TO ENSURE THEY CAN’T CONTINUE TO SWEEP IT UNDER THE RUG. This WON’T be ignored.
…
Sep 142013
Yes, Veronica, there may be no Santa Claus, but there is a God and there is work being done to amend ICWA.
Washington DC, February 2013
Some very kind, concerned supporters of justice have begun a petition to amend the Indian Child Welfare Act. We appreciate the effort very, very much. But after having been urged several times to act on the petition, I need to explain why we an’t work on the petition.
Many of our newer friends are unaware that draft legislation to amend the ICWA has already been written and presented to various Congressmen. I am a little afraid of possibly a conflict in wording or goals.
This legislation was written by one of the best ICWA attorneys in the nation and introduced by the Coalition for the ‘Protection of Indian Children and Families’ to legislative offices last summer, 2012. The ICWA attorney based his wording on the primary reasons families are coming to him for help – the most noted issues with how ICWA was hurting children and families.
It has been on somewhat of a hold during the Veronica proceedings. Well… actually, the hold was only meant to be until the United States Supreme Court had ruled. Congressmen needed to know what the Justices had to say about the case before they could move forward further with the bill.
The court has ruled – but these last two months have been nuts, taking everyone’s time and energy. Further, Congress recesses in August.
BUT – it is now September. Thank you all for the reminder concerning the legislation. According to attorney’s I have consulted – because no real resources of our organization are being spent or used on the legislation – and because I don’t get paid by CAICW but am entirely volunteer, there isn’t much concern about my discussing it a little bit.
So it is time to get back into the saddle with the legislation. I will be rolling up my sleeves and leaving for DC as soon as I put various things in order here at home – hopefully within the next couple weeks.
For your information, here is the amendment wording as it stood last summer. There MIGHT be changes made following the Veronica events. I can’t say for certain as I am not an attorney. But this is what we stood on last summer.
ICWA Amendments 11-11-12
PLEASE join us in urging your Congress members – as well as the President – to change ICWA.
Washington DC, January 2011
Sep 092013
Baptism in Leech Lake, 2007
We are told time and again that the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) isn’t about race or percentages, but about preserving a dying culture.
There is much benefit in enjoying ones heritage and culture.
Everyone of us has a historical heritage. Some hold great value to it and want to live the traditional culture (to a certain extent. Few try to REALLY live traditional), others only want to dabble for fun – but others aren’t interested at all.
My children have the option of enjoying Ojibwe traditional, German Jewish, Irish Catholic, and Scottish Protestant heritage. We told them as they were growing up that each one of their heritages are interesting and valuable. (While at the same time making it clear that Jesus is the only way, truth and life.)
Most of us whose families have been in America for more than a couple generations are multi-heritage. Even most tribal members are multi-heritage. All individuals have a right to choose which heritage they want to identify with. If one of my children were to choose to identify with his or her Irish heritage, it would be racist for anyone – even a Congressman – to say that their tribal heritage was more important.
There are times to speak softly, and other times when people and situations need to be firmly set right. This is a time for firmness. For those who think I don’t have a right to speak because I am not “native,” think again. As long as you are claiming multi-heritage children, I have a right to and WILL speak.
Reality Check: It is up to families and their ethnic communities to preserve traditional culture amongst themselves if they value it. That is the same no matter what heritage is the question. Many groups do this by living or working in close proximity – such as in Chinatown, or Dearborn, Michigan – or even ethnic neighborhoods within a large town. It is a very normal thing for humans to do.
But no other community has asked the federal government to enforce cultural compliance to that community. The federal government has NO right to be forcing a heritage or culture onto an individual or family. Contrary to what Congress assumed, my children are NOT the tribal government’s children – nor are they “commerce” under the “Commerce Clause” the ICWA was based on.
To those who constantly parrot that “white people” are “stealing” THEIR children, Wrong: TRIBAL GOVERNMENTS are currently stealing OUR birth children.
To those who are accusing us of genocide for demanding that tribal government keep their hands off our kids – get something straight, you are free to raise your children in the manner you see best. You are NOT free to raise MY children in the manner you see best.
Targeting other people’s kids to bolster membership rolls might be easier than doing the work necessary to keep your own children within the reservation community – but that isn’t something we are standing for anymore.
Reality Check: 75% of tribal members, according to the last two U.S. Census’, do NOT live in Indian Country. Some continue to value the reservation system and culture, but by your own admission – with your own statistics, such as losing 4 Indian languages a year – that is individual tribal members choosing NOT to speak the language. To continue blaming it on “white” people is disingenuous.
How can that I say that? While taking Ojibwe language classes for a year to learn more about my husband’s culture – I attempted to encourage our household to speak it more. Boy, was I in for a surprise. My husband who spoke it fluently from birth, wasn’t interested in sharing it. His teenage nephews, who I was raising at the time, weren’t the least bit interested in learning it. And you know what? THAT was their choice! My husband was a man – my nephews were free individuals. No one has a right to force them to conform to what tribal government thinks is best.
If people are leaving Indian Country and turning their backs on culture and the reservation system – that is something YOU are going to have to look inward to resolve.
Reality Check: Tribal members are individuals with their own hearts and minds – not robots ready to be programmed by the dogma spewed in “Indian Country Today.” Further, they are U.S. Citizens – and many, despite the rhetoric of a few – value being U.S. citizens.
If people are turning their back on traditional Indian culture and embracing American culture — that’s life. (Go ahead and screen shot that and share it with your friends. They need to wake up to reality as well.)
Those yelling and screaming about it being the fault of “white” people who adopted babies and the fault of boarding schools from 50 years ago and the fault of everyone else – need to wake up. Free-thinking individuals have been taking their kids and leaving the reservation system in droves for decades. It is no one’s fault. It is life. It’s probably even the REAL reason ICWA was enacted. (blaming the exodus on White adoptive homes just sounded better – there was more of a hook in it than “our people are simply taking their kids and leaving.”)
Reality Check: Stealing babies won’t solve the problem because many of them will grow up and leave as well.
Extending membership criteria to match that of the Cherokee Nation – as 60 tribal governments are currently considering doing – won’t solve the problem either. It is only going to further open the eyes of the rest of America, and further anger those of us who do not want oppressive and predatory tribal govt touching our children, grandchildren, or great-great grandchildren.
You can NOT force other families to submit to your value system. That is why ICWA is totally unconstitutional. You are attempting to force many people of heritage to preserve something they have personally decided isn’t of value to them.
Now – I realize that you are going to turn that statement around and make it about ME – claiming I am out destroy tribal culture and commit Genocide and again totally ignore the fact that tribal members themselves are fleeing Indian Country.
Please note what I factually said. I said you can’t force tribal members who are not interested in preserving the culture to submit to the demands of the few who DO want to preserve it. You are forcing your values down the throats of people who have decided to live differently and have chosen to raise their children differently.
Example. I have a niece that is 50% Native American, 50% African American, who has decided to be Muslim and raise her children Muslim.
That isn’t me doing it. She knows her Uncle wanted her to know Jesus. That is an individual making her own decision – no matter how her uncle would feel about it – or how tribal Government feels about it.
If you want to believe it is “Un- Christian” to side with individuals, families, and human rights over horrific Government oppression – than so be it. I am tired of hearing the accusation that we aren’t being “real” Christians.
Are you suggesting that Jesus threw money-changers out of the temple and called Pharisees “Dogs” because he was timid and didn’t want to offend anyone?
Or that he was hung from the cross because everyone loved hearing what he had to say?
No, actually, this is what being Christian is about:
Ps. 82:3-4 (Psalmist to the kings) ”Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the week and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
Prov. 29:7 “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”
Prov. 31:8-9 “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
Isa. 1:17 “learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the fatherless , plead the cause of the widow.”
Isa. 10:1-3 (God, through Isaiah, to the Israelites) ”Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?
Jer. 22:16-17 “He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?’ Declares the Lord, ‘but your eyes are set on dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion.”
Acts 5:29 “Peter and the other apostles replied: ‘We must obey God rather than men!”
Jn. 15:18-21 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world., That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.”
Matt 5:10-12 “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Col. 3:24 “since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
My husband and I prayed for years about what we were saying and doing and long ago came to the solid conclusion that it was the right thing to do before God. This org can’t be bullied about it now. We are past it.
Roland Preaching a Sermon in Juarez, Mexico
Sep 082013
In response to Lisa’s Open Letter
by Anonymous – received Sat 9/7/2013 10:44 PM
Jeremiah 1
New International Version (NIV)
The Call of Jeremiah
4 The word of the Lord came to me, saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew[a] you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
6 “Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
7 But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.
9 Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.
As I read the passage above it occurs to me that like Jeremiah, God had chosen Veronica for this difficult struggle long before he formed her in her mother’s womb. For that matter, Ms. Maldonado, the Cs, the Browns, the attorneys and judges have all been chosen to execute his plan and in the end it will be God’s word and will that will prevail. As Christians this is all we have to understand in order to find comfort and peace as this struggle plays out.
A little over one year ago I too unwittingly joined the crusade to speak out for the injustices and the hurt that ICWA is increasingly causing to good families and helpless children of Native American descent. I feel this story has to be told, because unlike Veronica, it takes place on a reservation and similar stories happen with regularity, but no one ever hears about them. Like Veronica, these children also deserve to live with a permanent, loving family and be afforded all the privileges, rights and opportunities that other children of the United States enjoy as a result of being citizens of the greatest nation on earth.
My intimate struggle with ICWA began years ago when I befriended a Native family living on a reservation. The family was poor, the father having been raised in the bush by people living a very old, sacred traditional life. He came to be raised this way only after being abandoned by his birth parents and spending his earliest years on a work farm where he was physically, emotionally and sexually abused by the church people that ran the farm. As a result, this father never learned to read and write and only learned to speak English in adulthood. The mother of this family grew up on the reservation and experienced the same type of abuse as a child. As a result of their pasts, both of these parents had made a conscious choice not to have children. This was a rare decision indeed. When the wife’s niece and nephew were found to be severely abused in all unthinkable manners by their own parents, grandparents and extended family members, as well as members of the gang their family belonged to, social workers placed the children in this couple’s care. There were no background checks or formal transfer of the children. A year later a drug and alcohol addicted infant came to be in their care through a respite program. Again no background checks. Soon afterwards, the great grandmother of this infant, who was said to have custody of the child, came to them and said for them to raise this child as their own. And they did. In Indian Country, they call this a “traditional adoption.” The only catch was that the grandmother kept the child’s government subsidy. Another common occurrence with Indian foster families. The infant was nurtured and loved as it withdrew from the drugs and the other two children began to make positive progress as a result of the couple’s devotion.
Seven years later, after a long illness, the wife, who was a member of the tribe, passed away. By then, the two older children had been returned to the custody of their father even though he continued to live a bad life. The children were passed to many different caregivers and juvenile programs and most of the good work and progress they had made in the care of my friends soon was lost. The youngest child remained in the custody of the father, while the grandmother continued to receive the child’s check. She did not provide for the child in any way. The man was not a member of the tribe himself so the tribe did nothing to help him support the child. In fact, no tribal members came forward to help him when his wife passed. The father was very worried about how he and the child would make it, so I lent a hand. They both struggled at the loss of the wife/mother.
One year ago, as I was working to set the family up so that they could reside in a safer area of the reservation, the grandmother who had approved the plan, abruptly reclaimed the child who was by now 8 years old. Neither the father or the child wanted to be separated, but the grandmother told the father that he would never get the child back because she would loose her check. Apparently, my involvement and the death of the wife caused a panic.
In the entire 8 years there had never been any social workers involved or background checks or follow up on the well being of the child. That being said, virtually every doctor, teachers, mayors, judges, tribal lawyers, tribal council members and every so called “mandated reporter” knew this child was being raised by the couple and was considered their “legal” child by virtue of the traditional adoption. All of these same people turned a blind eye and refused to help the man and his child. They told him that he had opened a can of worms and to this day father and child are not permitted to see or talk to one another.
Imagine losing the only mother you have ever known and then just a year later being torn from the man you know as your father. What type of cultural was preserved by these actions? Without a question, the child’s best interests were not served. Tribal members burned the man’s property in an attempt to silence him. The man is now homeless and his life and his child’s life will never have the chance to see a happy ending as hopefully Veronica’s will.
When an ICWA injustice is served to you on a reservation, there is little recourse. ICWA children mean a check for the tribe and a check for the caregiver. The tribal government and tribal courts will do ANYTHING to strengthen the ICWA. They do not want stories such as this one (and there are many) to see the light of day because it will expose the uncomfortable truth that even within Indian Country, the ICWA isn’t about preserving culture or serving the best interests of children. The ICWA is the philosophical and financial cornerstone of tribal sovereignty and the fact that children are being sacrificed to further this agenda does not bother those in power.
I witnessed this child being torn from its father, crying “daddy” and trying to cling to him for dear life. The transition time was 3 minutes, not even the hour that the Cs and Veronica were allowed. Shortly after this happened, I found CAICW, and unquestionably, Lisa has been a huge support in a vast sea of people who actively advocate for the ICWA, but many who do so have no idea of what a life confined to a reservation means to a child. There are few if any adults willing or able to speak out against the ICWA. Knowing that regardless of gender, it isn’t a matter of whether a child living on a reservation will be raped, trafficked or abused, but rather when, is a source of constant fear and anxiety for me now because I can do nothing but turn the situation over to our all loving God and trust that He and his angels will see fit to watch over and protect a young child I had come to love and would have gladly offered my life, time, love and financial resources to so that the child could fulfill its full potential.
As the ongoing struggle to return Veronica to her parents continues to unfold, I continue to pray for the right words and the opportunity to speak out for ALL the special children who God has set apart to be his voice in this struggle. I ask all involved, those who support and those who do not support the ICWA, to take time to ask the children how the ICWA is working for them. Why haven’t we asked the children? If this law is meant for them, shouldn’t they have a voice too?
Before my story took place, I knew the ICWA existed and as a self-imposed student of Native American history, I was acutely aware of the historical precedent and destruction of the Native family that was the impetus for the passage of this law. In the past year, as I have struggled and mourned the loss of knowing and communicating with a motherless child, I have followed Veronica’s story, the plight of the children on the Spirit Lake Reservation (which mirrors the stories on the reservation I am intimate with) and I now understand how this law has been corrupted and abused to serve those in power. I have so many beautiful, yet tragic faces of children etched into my memory. I have reached out to some who say they are working to amend the ICWA and asked, “but what about all the kids on the Rez.” One such person told me I was crazy, that it would take a crusade. Well, I’ve been called much worse. I’m happy to be called crazy and to be part of a crusade if it means that just one child will be afforded the same opportunities and love that I have been blessed with in my life.
I thank Lisa and Roland Morris for their EXTREME bravery and courage to do what they felt was right for their family, and for Lisa to speak out about what both she and I know to be true about what it is like to live in Indian Country today. I am so grateful that Lisa is there for so many families struggling with the unintended consequences of this law. I urge people on both sides of this struggle to consider the needs and best interests of the children involved. I pray that we can start an open truthful dialog and that compromises can be reached and political agendas put aside so that THE CHILDREN have some hope for a better future.
In closing, I invite you to join Lisa and CAICW supporters in weekly prayer each Sunday (9 EST, 8 CT, 7 MT, 6 PST) as we pray for ALL children in Indian Country and those to whom their best interest is entrusted. As we pray Ephesians 6, we ask that God’s will be done, in his time and according to his plan. We pray for peace and love to fill the hearts and minds of all those involved in bringing truth, light, justice and permanent families to ALL of God’s children. Amen.
The Armor of God
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
Sep 042013
Some wonder why Capobianco supporters don’t side with a father whose child is being taken from him. Some have even questioned the authenticity of Christians who would support the Capobiancos. (Forgetting that even Jesus was raised by an adoptive father.)
One must understand that many Capobianco supporters have been there since the day they first saw, either in person or on video, the horror of not only having one’s child taken, but –
1) taken without the benefit of a caring transition, and –
2) taken solely due to 1% heritage, (as the father’s admitted abandonment of the child would have prevailed otherwise.)
Just 1.12% heritage.
Since then, the Cherokee Nation has put on a show, shaking signs that claim “genocide” and claiming that “white people” are stealing “Indian” babies.
1.12% heritage.
If a C supporter brings up the 1% heritage, their statement is twisted and they are accused of racism – despite that it was the Cherokee Nation that brought the 1% into issue.
1.12% heritage.
As much as the Cherokee Nation, ‘Indian Country Today’, NICWA, NARF, and others want to spin it as a “citizen” issue – it is not spinning. Very few people – including many tribal members in Oklahoma and elsewhere – are falling for the “citizen” claim – especially when “citizenship” is being forced on children.
At 1.12% heritage.
Ardent supporters of the Cherokee Nation, either purposefully spinning for PR or snowed by their own rhetoric, fail to see how disgusted many others are by the claim that “white people” are stealing “Indian” babies.. Many Americans can see that claim for the dishonesty it is – but few have wanted to speak it. While it is okay for a tribal entity to speak in terms of race and percentages, it is deemed “racist” for anyone else to. But I will say what is on the hearts of many. This was no Indian Child being stolen by “White” people.
It was a Caucasian/Hispanic child, stolen by a tribe.
That is the bottom line.
As the Cherokee Nation continues to encourage and assist Mr. Brown in defying state and federal law, it is an overtly obvious fact. And that is why the Cherokee Nation and tribal governments in general aren’t getting the traction on their genocide spin (outside of ‘Indian Country Today’) that they somehow thought they would.
When you are talking about OUR children – which this child was – NOT an Indian child – you should expect hostility when trying to claim that child as the Tribe’s.
AND if 60 more tribal governments attempt to lower their membership criteria – as 60 are talking about doing – to CN levels and begin to target children of minute heritage – as the Cherokee Tribe has – they should not expect to get sympathy. They should expect a strong push back.
They should expect push back because now, due to the Veronica horror – a whole lot of Americans who would have otherwise remained oblivious to the issue, have woken up to what is happening and are outraged by the ICWA stories they are hearing. Many now want ICWA to be repealed.
Americans’ are not buying the rhetoric that tribal governments should have jurisdiction over children of 1% heritage. It is hard enough to justify ICWA jurisdiction over a child who is 25% tribal heritage – as the child is still 75% another heritage. Even children of a parent who is 100% – such as my own – have a right to be free from tribal government jurisdiction. Even individuals of 100% heritage have a right to be free of tribal government interference in their lives and families – if that is what they choose.
So do we feel angry? Yup.
Is there a Christian purpose and righteousness in that anger? Absolutely.
– “And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.” (Mark 10:13-16 ESV)
Having raised nine tribal members, five of whom are my birth children, and seen much tragedy, child abuse, sexual abuse, suicide, and other horrors on more than a few reservations – and having an advisory board and membership of parents who have raised, adopted and witnessed the same – we know far too much about tribal governments seeking children for the federal dollars, then showing little or no interest in what happens to them once they have been “retrieved” for the tribe and placed with a member. We won’t be bullied or intimidated.
We have known of far too many kids abused in ICWA homes, and some even murdered.
(Don’t even try to argue that point with me; I had been an ICWA approved home myself for 17 years. I know how little the tribal social services paid attention.)
So, concerning this particular case, in summary – for those who are flabbergasted that we would not be supporting the father – understand this: from the get-go,
1) Mr. Brown has been seen as an extremely selfish man.
2) The Cherokee Nation has been seen as an extremely selfish organization – using this child as a political pawn.
What appalls us is that not only were Mr. Brown and the Cherokee Nation willing to hurt this child deeply the first time a transfer took place – by taking her without any concern for her need of a transition – but even worse, Mr. Brown and the Cherokee Nation are now willing to do it to her a 2nd time.
How in the world are we expected to sympathize with people who do that?
– https://caicw.org/2013/09/01/taking-veronica-from-a-loving-father/
Elizabeth Sharon Morris is Chairwoman of the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare, columnist for Women’s Voices Magazine, and author of ‘Dying in Indian Country.’ http://dyinginindiancountry.com a dramatic true story of transformation and hope.
Aug 222013
In June, 3-year old Laurynn and her twin sister were thrown down an embankment, then kicked in the head while their care-giver stood aside, smoked a cigarette and watched. Laurynn isn’t the first child to be murdered at Spirit Lake in the last two years. Several have been killed. Other children are being physically and sexually abused as you read this.
Yet federal and state bureaucrats continue to act as it this is a non-issue. Despite numerous pleas for help, the BIA, FBI and U.S. Attorney feign assistance while the abuse continues. When an official actually WANTS to do something to help, like the man below, permission is refused…
IMMEDIATE ACTION: NORTH DAKOTA BUREAUCRAT AND DC SHUT DOWN EFFORT TO HELP SPIRIT LAKE KIDS –“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
A gov’t official who has CARED about the deaths at Spirit Lake and sent documented report to DC calling for change has been DENIED permission to participate in a fact-finding meeting this week in ND. Please read the bureaucratic garbage he was sent in the letter below.
Further – while Rep. Kevin Cramer was willing to participate in the meeting and Senator Hoeven’s office was sending a rep, Senator Heitlkamp was not sending anyone – and Scott J. Davis, Commissioner, ND Indian Affairs, said he wasn’t going to show unless Senator Hoeven and Heitkamp were there as well! WHY are our state & federal gov’ts NOT addressing the severe abuse occurring on many reservations? Why does DC continue to set up roadblocks. We will NOT stand by and allow this to continue. Below is the letter in full.
It bloviates that a meeting is possible – but whether or not anyone makes any real effort to gather “leaders from multiple ACF offices – when it has been so clear that the DC office has ignored every single report that Mr. Sullivan has sent – is another question. Mr. Sullivan holds a non-refundable plane ticket to Bismarck this next week.
PLEASE CALL ASAP: Please ask these people to allow Tom Sullivan to travel to Bismarck next week to get documentation about the child abuse at Spirit Lake!
George Sheldon: Acting Director of ACF ~ 202-401-5383
MaryAnn: Travel Clerk – 202-401-9216
PLEASE insist that he be allowed to listen to the average people who want to speak to him, that Heitkamp’s office do their job and listen – and that the ND official get off his lazy butt and participate…
A couple more officials below as well….
From: Murray, James (ACF)
Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2013 10:11 AM
To: Sullivan, Thomas (ACF); Delgado, Carol (ACF); Rogers, Thomas (ACF); Ross, Sharon (ACF)
Subject: RE: Itinerary for THOMAS FRANCIS SULLIVAN on 8/27/13 to Bismarck (IGTOZC)
Tom,
Thanks for your patience. ACF’s response to the concerns at the Spirit Lake Nation will have to be generated through a collaborative effort by leaders from multiple ACF offices. Representatives from those offices will have to be included along with you in meetings like the one proposed below, to maximize ACF’s response. Your leadership will be critical in the work of the larger ACF group to address the issues. That being said, I have to deny the travel request at this time. We can revisit the topic once ACF has a chance to mobilize the larger leadership group to begin moving things forward. Let me know if you’d like to discuss it further and I can set up a conference call for tomorrow or early next week.
Sincerely,
James Murray || Acting Director || HHS/ACF/ORO || Desk: (202) 401-4881 || BlackBerry: (202) 253-0217 || Fax: (202) 401-3449 || Email: james.murray@acf.hhs.gov
LETTER RE: Scott Davis:
> From: “Sullivan, Thomas (ACF)
> Date: August 22, 2013, 7:57:01 AM CDT
> To: “Davis, Scott J.” <sjdavis@nd.gov>
> Subject: RE: meeting
>
> Scott:
>
> Thank you for your email.
>
> It seems that both your tone and attitude have changed dramatically in the last 24 hours. It is almost like you have been told to cancel our meeting and are searching for a way to make me pull that trigger so you don’t have to. That is troubling.
>
> I see nothing in my emails to you suggesting anyone interested in helping improve conditions at Spirit Lake should be excluded from this scheduled meeting. Who they are invited by is irrelevant as long as they are at the table.
>
> In my long career I have come to despise those who seek to create a straw man in order to achieve something they are unwilling to place their own hands on. Such folks, I have found, lack both courage and integrity.
>
> I have no idea why someone would wish to cancel this meeting which is being convened, as I understand, solely to discuss how we all might work cooperatively to improve conditions at Spirit Lake. It is hard for me to believe that any responsible person wishes to stop our meeting from occurring, effectively maintaining the status quo.
>
> All the best
>
> Tom
>
> —–Original Message—–
> From: Davis, Scott J. [mailto:sjdavis@nd.gov]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2013 4:20 PM
> To: Sullivan, Thomas (ACF)
> Subject: Re: meeting
>
> Tom,
>
> No that is not acceptable.
>
> As I said I am happy to meet with all of the stakeholders at the table.
>
> It is important to me to have everyone (federal agencies) who has a role in the solutions to these problems at such a meeting.
>
> Please let me know when you can confirm you have everyone lined up to attend.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Scott J. Davis
> Commissioner
> ND Indian Affairs
A Rebuttal:
Comments Off on A Rebuttal:
Jul 242013
In a July 12th commentary in North Dakota papers, attorneys Tobias Rushing and Robert Moddelmog criticized
former ND Lt. Governor Lloyd Omdahl for his July 1st column concerning the Indian Child Welfare Act.
Mr. Omdahl had stated that ICWA is “sacrificing children to protect the heritage of the tribes.” Rushing and Moddelmog noted that “the findings of Congress’s Indian Child Welfare Act Commission of 1973 show…the contrary.” I am certain it is not lost on readers that these findings are 40 years old. Now let’s discuss today.
I’m appalled that attorneys would make the absolute statement “An abusive Indian family does not take precedence over a safe non-Indian family, ever.” A three-year-old girl was thrown down an embankment and beaten to death in Spirit Lake just last month. Clearly, abusive extended family DID take precedence over a safe non-Indian family. Other examples:
- A Detective in Bonney Lake, WA, was forced by ICWA social workers to leave a toddler he’d been raising at the home of a suspected drug dealer.
- Because social workers believed ICWA demanded it, the Rodriguez boys of California were taken from the home of their Hispanic grandparents and placed with their maternal grandmother on the Ute Reservation – a woman who had abused and lost custody of her own children. Within three weeks, the oldest boy was permanently brain damaged from beatings.
- Sierra McGaughey joined us in DC, February, 2013, to tell Congressional staff that she was torn from a safe home off the reservation and placed in a dangerous relatives’ home, where she was given to a man as a sexual partner at the age of 10. She begged to return to where she felt loved, but wasn’t allowed until she tried to hang herself at age 16.
There are many stories from across the country.
Thomas Sullivan, Regional Administrator of the Administration of Children and Families in Denver, stated in his 12th Mandated Report to the ACF office in DC, February 2013:
“In these 8 months I have filed detailed reports concerning all of the following:
- The almost 40 children returned to on-reservation placements in abusive homes, many headed by known sex offenders… These children remain in the full time care and custody of sexual predators available to be raped on a daily basis. Since I filed my first report noting this situation, nothing has been done by any of you to remove these children to safe placements.
- The 45 children who were placed, at the direction of Tribal Social Services (TSS), BIA social workers, BIA supervised TSS social workers and the BIA funded Tribal Court, in homes where parents were addicted to drugs and/or where they had been credibly accused of abuse or neglect…
“…Those adults remain protected by the law enforcement which by its inaction is encouraging the predators to keep on hunting for and raping children at Spirit Lake.
Rushing and Moddelmog also state, “studies showed that American Indian children who have been removed from their ethnic and cultural heritage often suffer a host of psychological and identity issues, not counting the damage caused by the initial removal.”
Yet, without any concern for psychological effect, ICWA is frequently used to remove children from non-Indian homes that better reflect their ethnic and cultural heritage than a home on the reservation. Tribal apologists claim that children of even minute heritage who’ve never lived anywhere near a reservation or with a tribal member are going to suffer identity issues, as if there is an inherent gene that makes these children different from any other. In some circles, that is referred to as “racism.”
Rushing and Moddelmog include a quote from Judge William Thorne that “more than 60 percent of American Indian children in non-native foster care who age out of the system “are homeless, in prison, or dead by age 20.” Where are comparison percentages for children raised in native foster care? Further, these children were fostered due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Many suffer with fetal alcohol related issues. How can the sole reason for struggle be due to non-native homes?
Finally, while an American Indian grandmother who adopts a child qualifies for the benefits of any adoptive parent, most children are not “adopted” by extended Indian family. In Minnesota, those caring for unadopted relatives receive “Relative Custody Assistance,” which can be over $700 per child per month. I am speaking from personal experience having been an ICWA approved home.
Yup, I “raked in” thousands of dollars in state benefits as an ICWA home. Over 16 years, it added up to almost $90,000, not including medical care the kids received from the state. And I am first to say these children would’ve been better off had a therapeutic foster home trained to take care of special needs been allowed – no matter the heritage of the foster parents.
It is time for balder-dash to end and genuine concern begin.
Quoting Mr. Omdahl, “It is time to take another look at the federal foster care and adoption policy that keeps Indian children in homes that threaten their well-being while safe homes are automatically ruled out.”
Elizabeth Sharon Morris is Chairwoman of the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare and author of ‘Dying in Indian Country.’ http://dyinginindiancountry.com/
Jun 212013
Honorable Senator Hoeven,
A charge has been made in the death of a 3-year-old girl named “Lauryn’ who died last week after she and her twin sister were sent to live on the Spirit Lake Reservation, a community known for widespread violence, crime, tribal government corruption and sexual abuse against children. A member of the family has been arrested and accused of physically abusing the twins as well encouraging her children to beat and kick them.
This child’s death is not isolated. Three other young children have died and countess others have been abused while under the care of Spirit Lake Tribal Services. Thomas Sullivan, Regional Director of the Administration of Children and Families, has documented 40 children living with sex offenders at Spirit Lake after they were removed from safe homes off of the reservation. His mandated report was given to federal officials overseeing Spirit Lake tribal social services as well as DC officials and U.S. Senators. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) started overseeing tribal services last year to stop the crime and abuse. Yet, little has been done. Today most of these young children are still living with sex offenders.
One month ago, the twins were healthy and happily living with a foster family in Bismarck, ND, but were moved solely due to the Indian Child Welfare Act. Until this Act is significantly altered, many more children will needlessly suffer and even die. Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW) is calling for immediate action by Congress to ensure that the lives of children be elevated to higher importance than the demands of tribal government leaders. The Spirit Lake Tribe is not an anomaly. CAICW is frequently contacted by families being hurt by ICWA across the nation.
Our current reservation system rewards dependence on federal government rather than on an individual’s strength and God. It encourages strong people to embrace anger and hide under the mantle of victimhood. A large number of citizens living within Indian Country are dying from alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, and violence. The prevalence of alcoholism results in a percentage of Fetal Alcohol adults now raising Fetal Alcohol children. While many healthy tribal members move off the reservation to get away from crime, many of the neediest remain. Those who remain submit to a life amid a criminal element that retreats to the reservations to stay out of reach of state law enforcement. Sometimes the criminal element influences, or even becomes, the tribal government. Shockingly, this displays a similar sociological pattern to third world countries or small dictatorships around the globe.
Six months ago, in January 2013, our entire Senate unanimously voted on a resolution calling on Russia to put the best interest of children ahead of politics. The House followed suit with their own resolution. Why can’t we do the same thing for children who are citizens of the United States?
Further, we are asking you to no longer be taken in by the claims of tribal government that they are only demanding the right to their “own” children. Tribal overreach has been affecting multi-racial children and families across the nation. The current case, awaiting ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, Adoptive Couple vs. Baby Girl, involves a child of 1.12% Cherokee heritage. Her Hispanic mother had made a decision as to the best interest of her daughter, and our government turned around and robbed her of that decision.
But even parents of 100% tribal heritage have a right to decide to raise their children apart from Indian Country and tribal government. The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children is a fundamental right.
We, as an organization, are asking you to be proactive and put an end to this continuing violence against both children and adults. We are asking you what steps you will be taking to ensure the best interest of children over politics here in America.
Jun 192013
The below was written by “Cat” – also known as “Restless Spirit.
I will be taking the text of her article and sending it to our Senators on the Indian Affairs Committee and asking for both an explanation and action. I urge you all to do the same. This child was removed from a safe foster home only one month ago. How many more children are they going to allow this to happen to?
It also time for our churches to get involved. Many churches seem too afraid to speak up to this factual truth. But these kids can’t keep waiting.
Restless Spirit ~Cat June 17, 2013
Known and Unknown
One of the 3-yr old twin girls died. There is a lot of speculation as to how she died, and given the family history, I can see why the first conclusion that is jumped to, is that she was abused.
We don’t know.
The FBI and the BIA were investigating as soon as it was reported, early Thursday morning. The BIA and the FBI, the very ones who should be nowhere near this case, are investigating. The same FBI that destroyed evidence and ordered others to destroy evidence at the Dubois children’s murder scene. The same BIA that has ‘taken over Tribal Social Services’, ‘Strike Team’, and the same BIA that has more domestic abusers and outright rapists on their payroll, is ‘investigating’ this death. Anyone trust that the outcome will be the Truth? My expectations are very low.
What we also know is that this child, her twin sister and other siblings were in Foster Care up until a month ago. Their mother and father both in prison up until a month ago. The mother had been arrested for Felony Child abuse and it was horrendous. The twins in 2011, just infants, so badly neglected or abused that they had to be in hospital for two weeks before they could be released to Foster care, where they were lovingly nursed back to full health, vitality and had a chance at being healthy happy kids.
The mother and father are somewhere. I don’t know. My understanding is that they were not living in the home where the children were. They were in Fargo or Bismarck or somewhere. The Children were being raised by their grandfather, and no one has yet to contact me with a bad word to say about him.
What We Know
It will be awhile before we know what happened to the little girl. Her blood family is grieving this, and her Foster family must be sick with grief over the loss. It was just about a month ago when they had the children they had so lovingly cared for, ripped out of their homes, the way the Tribal Social Services likes to rip kids away. No notice, not transition, no reason — gone.
I know that no grandfather, regardless of how much he loves his grandchildren, is going to be able to keep up with twin 3-yr olds day in and day out. No matter how he tried.
We know that Suna Guy, registered sex offender and blood relative to the children, lived right next door.
I know that no child would be placed in an environment where there is not both adequate care and one which no registered sex offender would be permitted such close proximity to vulnerable children. Did Suna have anything to do with this? WE DON’T KNOW.
The remaining children were removed from the home, at around 10 PM that night, over 12 hours after the report of the death. Bentley GreyBear, an abuser himself, walked into the home, without so much as paperwork, and said he was taking the kids. He didn’t say where he was taking them. The family didn’t get to say goodbye. The children were dragged out of their beds and into his vehicle and driven away in the night.
Think about that. The children had just been traumatized by the death of their sister, and then, in their sleep, they were roused and packed off without so much as a hug goodbye. Tell me how that shows any consideration whatsoever for those children?
And, what IF, just IF, it turns out this child died from something that had nothing to do with the household? That family was just traumatized even more by not being able to say good bye or hug those kids to reassure them as they were leaving.
The kids out there? Ripped and flung around like emotional rag dolls. Good Job, Bentley. I always wondered what went wrong with your nephew, Linden GreyBear, and the more I get to know about you, the more that picture is coming into focus as well.
Does the BIA not even care to attempt to show professionalism in any aspect?
Sadly, not.
Now, the blood family knows what the Foster Family went through. More trauma, more abuse, and they were helpless to so much as comfort the children, crying and screaming as they were being dragged away. Despicable.
So, right now, until we know, there’s not much we can do except to wait for the autopsy results, witness statements, and whatever the clown car investigators come up with.
A news crew from Valley News came out to do a report on the death of the child and to interview people regarding the safety of children on the rez. The cameraman, a ‘ Six-foot-six Black Man’ had just set up his camera for an interview when he was jumped by… Suna Guy. Not sure how all that went down.
I heard one version that I consider preposterous: It basically said that the cameraman was looking for a fight and threw the first punch. What I find laughable about that is that no cameraman would do that. That camera is a BIG Ticket item. It is handled with care. I can’t imagine any cameraman, regardless of how big or black he is, putting that kind of equipment at risk. Cameramen never let go of their cameras. No one ‘starts a fight’ with one hand holding onto several thousand dollars of camera.
Plus, given the size of the man, it’s my guess that if he ‘threw the first punch’, Suna Guy would still be trying to guess what day of the week this is. That story just doesn’t make sense to me. Their claim that the Cameraman was trespassing makes no sense either. If that were the case, the Tribal Police would have moved them. Attacking was strictly an attempt to intimidate the news crew. They don’t want people looking in and asking questions.
They don’t want you or me or anyone else to know what kind of a place they are running out there.
Suna was arrested for the assault and Weenie Boy called up the cop shop and talked to Mary McDonald (the same Mary McDonald) and told her he wanted Suna released. A few hours later, Suna Guy, Registered Sex Offender, who had just assaulted a news crew, was released on his own recognizance. Yeah, Tribal Judges and Tribal Chairman, they can do anything.
Anyone who buys Suna’s version of this debacle, I have a bridge to sell you.
Why was it so personally important to Weenie Boy (Roger Yankton) to have Suna released without bond? People are upset and so am I. We all are.
Who To Blame
I’m looking at this from an over 2 yr view of now, 13 Mandated Reports from Thomas Sullivan’s Office, describing exactly the kind of dangers these children are being put in by the scam artists at the BIA, State, and Federal Officials, including Timothy Q Purdon, who assures us that there is no problem out there, and the children are safe because the BIA are ‘career professionals’ like himself.
They all ignored all 13 Mandated Reports and never once followed up, according to either protocol nor the law. I hold responsible the following:
- Tribal Council: Their corruption and incompetence as well as their history of abuse, led to this latest child’s death.
- Tribal Social Services: Whose corruption and disregard for the safety and the well-being of the children has been well documented and remains ongoing. Their abuses of these children by taking them away from safe homes, putting them into the hands of the unqualified and the deviant, as well as selling or giving them to homes of ‘friends’ is well-documented.
- The Regional Officials: who also ignored the complaints of corruption and child endangerment, as well as the ongoing documented and witnessed child sexual abuses. They have backed up Tribal Social Services and the abusive, downright crooked Directors of that department, without fail.
- The State: who also shirked their responsibilities to both the children and to the taxpayers by allowing this to go on, despite reports, Mandated Reports, and pleas to stop allowing these children to be abused and neglected, raped and murdered. The State likes to shrug their shoulders in response to these reports, and say “Sovereignty”, but that doesn’t cut it. The State has absolute jurisdiction over every minor child that is in their program or any program funded by taxpayers, for their care and welfare.
- The BIA: Where to begin? They are corrupt. They are incompetent. They are abusive. They assure us that their “Strike Team” has made things so much better out there… but they have never investigated the corruption in their own ranks, nor have they pressed charges against any of the child traffickers, and those who ripped off millions in taxpayer dollars, still unaccounted for. There are still Foster Parents who have NEVER been paid nor compensated for the children in their care. Many have gone into their own funds to cover medical needs and clothing. But those funds are going somewhere… and it would not be that difficult to do a forensic audit. The BIA has been complicit in these abuses, corruption and putting children at risk, deliberately. They have even, along with the Tribal Council and the Chairman, removed children from their families as retaliation for those members of the family who have spoken out about the abuses they have witnessed. Those children are then ‘given’ to ‘friends’ of the Tribal Council.
- The Federal Government: Which has failed to act on any of these 13 Mandated reports for over two years. They have white-washed, thrown more money in, made the corruption even worse, but they have ignored these children.
- USAG Timothy Q. Purdon: Who has assured us that the Mandated reports have all been ‘investigated’ but has never provided proof of a single investigation nor has he followed any of the legal steps he is supposed to follow in regards to a single mandated report. He has ridiculed the ACF Director, Thomas Sullivan, for making these reports. He has claimed that ‘many’ of the allegations in the reports are false… but he cannot and will not name one so-called ‘false’ allegation. He has assured us, repeatedly, that the children are no longer in danger.
- Senator Hoeven: Who has given only lip-service to the issue, despite his own staff reporting to him how shaken they were by what they learned. It was only last week when he responded to a months old email from a concerned constituent that he was not the one to talk to about these reports because: “The BIA is handling that.” The problem IS the BIA. And they all know it. It is corrupt to the core and he has done nothing either when he was governor, nor in his capacity as Senator of ND. Nothing, except issue assurances that it’s being ‘handled’.
- Senator Heitkamp: Who has yet to issue so much as a single statement regarding her concern for the safety and well-being of the children of Spirit Lake. Not once. She has posed for photo ops out there, has a blanket wrapped around her and a big smile. The corrupt treat her like ‘one of their own’.
All of these people have been told, repeatedly, what is going on out there. They have been pleaded with as to how urgent the situation was. All this after the murder of the DuBois children, and yet, not one of them has lifted a finger, set up a task force and all have been happy enough to move on to other business because, “The BIA is handling this.”
Not Responsible
I cannot hold the mother responsible. It was clear in 2011 that she was unfit, and that no one in the family was able to take on the raising of the babies, for whatever reason. The mother is an addict, was just released from prison, and is not living near her children. Nor is the father. If any of this is wrong, let me know. She is not capable of taking care of herself, and anyone in government that decided she should, with assessment, without parental training, be suddenly responsible, is out of their minds.
The father was also, far as I know, completely removed from the scene.
Yes, they are awful parents. They are seriously damaged people. They are part of the Human Wreckage you get when you allow multiple generations of PTSD go untreated in a community and you allow and support the most corrupt, despicable elements to run the place. This is what you get. They can’t help themselves, they can’t be held accountable for what all the suits in government do. The suits are accountable.
I don’t know if this child died from neglect or abuse or ‘natural causes’. SIDS does not occur in children over the age of 1 yr. (See: Kid’s Health and other related articles: http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/sleep/sids.html ).
Something happened to her. What, how or by whom, we don’t know.
What we DO KNOW is that there are children still in dangerous and abusive homes out there. The Tribal Council is corrupt, the BIA is corrupt, The FBI has failed to investigate the crimes against children for over 2 years of official notification. The USAG’s office has failed to even try to protect these kids.
That child’s body should be laid at their doorstep. They could have prevented this. They chose not to. Worse, they chose to ridicule, harass, threaten those who have been, for years, reporting the crimes and corruption, and especially the danger to children, for all this time. Direct your outrage in their direction.
If they find that this child was murdered or worse, they will happily trot out the perpetrator (unless it is a close friend or relative of the Tribal Chair and the Tribal Council). We will all be expected to boo and hiss, and condemn that one person. They will be looking down at the ground, they will be in shackles, they will look dirty and they will look just like the kind of person that would do such a thing.
As despicable as this is, the most despicable are those in offices, wearing suits, going to power lunches and meetings, and giving press releases about how their offices have been ‘working’ on this for …. And vowing to ‘prosecute to the fullest…’ I say, prosecute them all. Especially the suits.
Now, let’s all wait and see.
It’s almost assured that before we know what happened this time, there will be another. There will be trauma, outrage, outpouring of grief, denial and more outrage. You know where to direct your outrage. It’s time they have all been held accountable for both breaking the system and for lying about it being broken.
Hold them accountable for failing to protect, to investigate, or care.
Summary:
- A 3-yr Old child is dead
- A news crew cameraman got jumped as they were out there to get the story.
- The Tribal Chairman had the attacker released from jail without bond, within hours.
- The children were removed from the home in the most brutal way the BIA could conduct such a removal. It is as if hey enjoy traumatizing babies.
- We don’t know the cause of death.
But we know it has happened before and it will happen again until the BIA, the FBI, the State, County, Federal as well as the Tribal Chair and Tribal Council are finally held to account for their corruption and abuse.
Until the Mandated Reports are treated according to protocol and the law, nothing will change. We know all these agencies and Departments had the chance, for the past Two Years, to prevent this… and they didn’t.
There are more children out there, in much worse situations.
You know where to find me.
~Cat