Do Indian Lives Matter? Police Violence Against Native Americans

[Judi Lynn]

October 29, 2015
Do Indian Lives Matter? Police Violence Against Native Americans

by Debra Loevy



With all our talk about police violence aimed at poor and minority communities, we have yet to talk about the group most likely to be killed by law enforcement: Native Americans.

Native American men are incarcerated at four times the rate of white men and Native American women are sent to prison at six times the rate of white women. Those are pretty stunning statistics on their own. Even more stunning is that although Native Americans comprise only .8% of the population, with these elevated rates of police encounters, they make up three out of the top five top age-groups that are most likely to be killed by law enforcement.



Unlike racial profiling of other communities of color, law enforcement’s singling out of Native Americans is not limited to racial profiling based on the color of the person’s skin. There are also geographic components, for those living or working on reservation land. And in South Dakota many Native Americans complain that the police target people driving cars or trucks with license plates that start with the number 6, which identifies that the car is registered to a resident of a reservation.

Law enforcement’s pattern of immediately escalating encounters with Native American communities has led to many horrifying results. To see how this plays out first hand, consider the following video. In it, a 50 year old Native American man named John T. Williams ambles across the street at a Seattle cross walk. He is an accomplished artist – a wood carver – and he has a knife and a piece of wood in his hand. A Seattle police officer immediately escalates this non-situation. The officer jumps from his squad car, shouts at Mr. Williams to put the knife down, and a few seconds later, guns Williams down in three shot. There’s no claim that Mr. Williams was threatening anyone or acting aggressively, only that he was carving the piece of wood in his hand as he walked and that he did not drop the knife fast enough when ordered to do so. (It turns out that Mr. Williams was deaf in one ear, and the officer approached him from behind, which likely explains why his reflexes were just not fast enough). Keep in mind, as you ponder this incident or watch the video, that in Washington State (as with most states) it is perfectly legal to walk around toting a gun. Yet, an officer kills a non-aggressive man, merely for whittling with a knife while he walks? It is unfathomable. Except that it occurred. This senseless shooting gives you an idea how it is that the police kill Native Americans at a higher rate than any other ethnic group.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/29/do-indian-lives-matter-police-violence-against-native-americans/

[historylovr]

1. K & R

There's so little attention paid to this travesty that I'm really beginning to think they don't.

[Hydra]

2. No, next question

I've tried to make a point that this is a widespread problem and involves every minority and everyone that can't afford to defend themselves in court. Instead, it's being treated as a political football or dust to be swept under the rug.

Things aren't changing because the people who could stop it are ok with it. They may have even be a part of making it happen.

[zalinda]

3. This is what I've been writing about

and why I get upset about all the talk about BLM. Unless you live near a reservation, these crimes against our NA brothers & sisters go unnoticed.

What the government has done to this group of people is a disgrace to humanity.

Z

[polly7]

4. K&R. nt.

[niyad]

5. you have to ask?

slowly working through "an indigenous people's history of the united states". . . can only take the horror and brutality of the european invaders in VERY small doses.