'How Could Anyone Have So Much Hate?' New Kind of Range War in So. Dakota

[Coyotl]

'How Could Anyone Have So Much Hate?' New Kind of Range War in So. Dakota
Mary Annette Pember
September 16, 2013 - http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/09/16/how-could-anyone-have-so-much-hate-new-kind-range-war-so-dakota-151301

“How could anyone have so much hate?” Lori Abdo-Smith says as she shakes her head in dismay.

Abdo-Smith, Yankton Sioux Tribe, was describing the shootings of five of her horses by a non-Native neighbor, Raymond Johanneson. Between sobs, she recalls what happened that July day when four of her beloved horses—or sunkan wakan (holy dogs) in the Dakota language—were killed because they had escaped from their pen and wandered onto a neighbor’s land.

Four of the horses died; one survived but has a bullet lodged in its abdomen. ...

[sinkingfeeling]

1. How awful!

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. South Dakota has a deeply racist streak.

Which is sort of strange, because for the longest time there were no minorities there--except for the Indians. The more horrid people would call them things like "prairie n*ggers."

Now, there are Mexicans and Laotians and Hmong and Karen to bitch about.

[russspeakeasy]

3. Nailed it.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

4. Agreed. It's why I got out of there the moment I graduated high school.

My brother-in-law keeps complaining about the "illegals" (Yeah, i'm sure an undocumented worker got you laid off from your job as an airline pilot, jackass) and calling the area of the city where most of the immigrants have migrated to Mexicoland". (It's because of the dirt, he says.)

Sad to say his daughter, my normally bright and kind fifteen year old niece, has started calling it "Mexicoland" as well.

She'll figure it out or get a bit of an awakening if she goes to the U of M like she wants to.

[Comrade Grumpy]

6. I grew up there, have friends and family there, and am officially a South Dakota resident.

But I start getting depressed if I stay there more than a few weeks at a time. So I don't.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

7. Same for me.

My mom and my dad live (or lived, in dad's case, as he died in May) in Sioux Falls. As does my sister.

I visit around four times a year.

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. My mother, daughter, sister, and grand kids live up there.

My father, brother, and son are buried there.

The state has a certain austere beauty, but that is countered by the ugliness of its political leanings. It's real anti-abortion country, too. There are farm fields with giant home-made dead fetus signs. And I remember when they knocked off Tom Daschle. My God, if you voted for Daschle they were gonna force you to get gay married--and burn a flag at the ceremony.

It's also the only state where having traces of marijuana in your system is a crime. People actually go to jail for having previously smoked pot.

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. The shooter in his own words:

From the article:

Johanneson denies there was any malice toward his neighbors, or Natives, behind the shootings. He says the horses had repeatedly escaped their enclosure and damaged his corn crop. “I don’t know what she’s crying about--she’s been warned for the past five years to keep those horses off my property,” he said in a telephone interview. He added that the horses were thin and starving because the couple seldom fed them.

“I didn’t shoot the horses. I shot at them. Guess I must have hit some of them,” he says. “My attorney told me that charges against me have been dropped. She’s trying to make this into a racist deal, but that’s not true. I got problems with her horses, not with her.”

But some residents of Charles Mix County see Johanneson as the embodiment of a community rife with animus toward Native Americans. Tribal members and some white residents describe their neighbors’ resentment towards Native people as an attitude passed down from one generation to the next. “Anger towards Native Americans is percolating under the surface,” says Jones.

Johannesen, however, insists that he is not prejudiced and the issue of the signs had no impact on his decision to shoot at the horses. “I heard about those signs; it didn’t make no difference to me. I guess [the tribe] thinks this is reservation land. They’re still living back in the 1800’s around here, but they still want all the modern money, free housing, free everything.”

Jones recalls a conversation with Johannesen after his cattle escaped their enclosure and got into her hay field. After she helped him round the animals up, he asked why she was selling hay to the Abdo-Smith family for their horses. According to Jones, Johannesen clearly disapproved of her helping the family. He described the horses as hay-burners. “Raymond is angry at Native people in general, always complaining about the BIA lease prices going up, how our property values will go down because of those signs, and how the tribe is trying to take away our land,” she says.


Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/09/16/how-could-anyone-have-so-much-hate-new-kind-range-war-so-dakota-151301

[demwing]

9. “I didn’t shoot the horses...

..I shot at them. Guess I must have hit some of them,” he says.

just wow.

"Your honor, I didn't shoot the officers, I shot at them. Guess I must have hit some of them."

[ismnotwasm]

10. Yeah like

Oops, my bad.

Guys an ass.

[brewens]

11. I live near the Nez Perce Reservation. That's always been marked. One controversy we had brewing

a few years back was over their tribal police department. I believe they expanded it when their casino and other enterprises began making them some real money. We had a bunch of cranks up in arms over tribal officers issuing traffic citations. They calimed they didn't have that kind of authority. It was more like rednecks being pissed off that they were stopped and written up by Native Americans with badges, guns and authority.

I loved seeing that. If the tribe wanted to fund policing that part of the county, why not? Their reservation extends into other counties but the stink was mainly over activity in my county, Nez Perce county, Idaho. That saves our sheriffs department having to cover all of it. Another reason for the problem was that it threatened yokles that knew the sheriff deputies wouldn't bother them on rural highways and roads. Not so with the tribal cops! No more good ol' boys feeling free to drink and drive out there if they were in good with the sheriff!

I'm a little biased though. I'm white but if it pisses off the rednecks, I'm good with it!